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Report of Proceedings 



OF THE 





Alliance 


1880. 


IPl2,IlTTEID BY X)lB/ECTIOIT OY TUB OOU2<TCIIL. 


Edited by 

JOHN B. DALES, D.D., and R. M. PATTERSON, D.D. 


PHILADELPHIA : 

PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL COMPANY, 

AND 

J. C. McCURDY & CO., 
Philadelphia, Pa., 

Cincinnati, O., Chicago, III., and St. Louis, Mo. 





j.\y 



V. 


ISIS 



Copyright by 
J. Elliott Condict. 


Ft.HUUSON BROS. & CO., 
PRINTERS AND ELECTROTVPERS, 
PHlLAOEtPHIA 


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PREFATORY NOTE. 


This volume is published under the following resolutions of the 
Council : 

The General Committee of Arrangements reported, and the report was approved: 

“ The Committee on Publication have made arrangements to secure a tull and 
accurate stenographic report of the debates and doings of the Council. They have 
also accepted an offer, subject to approval by the Council, on the part of a respon- 
sible publishing firm \_The Presbyterian yournal Company, of Philadelphia] to 
(>ublish in an attractive volume such of the proceedings as may be sanctioned by an 
editing committee to be appointed by the body, and to jalace this volume at an early 
day before the public at a very reaspnable price, and without expense to the Council. 
This Committee, therefore, respectfully suggest the appointment of the Rev. J. B. 
Dales, D. D., of the United Presbyterian Chyrch, of this city, and the Rev. R. M. 
Patterson, D. D., of the Presbyterian Church, of this city, as a Committee to revise 
and edit the Proceedings of the Council.” 

The following resolutions were also adopted : 

1. That under the provisional arrangement made by the Business Committee, the 
opening sermon, the essays and documents prepared by invitation of the Programme 
Committee, and a resume of the discussion on the topics of the programme, together 
with an introductory sketch of the Council and a, full list of members, be published 
under the direction of the Editorial Committee. 

2. That a complimentary copy of the Proceedings be sent to every Programme 
speaker who has prepared a paper, and to every theological seminary in Europe, 
America and Africa, in connection with the Presbyterian Church, at the expense of 
the Council. 

3. That the following be the understanding as to the papers submitted to this 
Council: i. That the papers prepared for the Council be regarded as the property 
of their authors. 2. That the original manuscript be handed to the editors of the 
volume, and be retained as a memorial of the Council. 3. That the Council permit 
the separate publication of any paper for wider circulation in the interests of the 
Church, on condition that the friends arranging for such publication undertake the 
entire charge, and that every such reprint bear on it that it is extracted from the 
authorized report of the proceedings by arrangement with its publishers. 

4. That the editors of the volume of the Proceedings of the Council be instructed 
formally to state in its preface that the Council does not make itself responsible for 
the opinions expressed in the papers submitted for consideration. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Introductory Narrative ^ 


Proceedings of 

First Day, Thursday, Sept, 23 . 

Second Day, Friday, Sept, 24 
Third Day, Saturday, Sept, 25 . 
Fourth Day, Monday, Sept, 27 . 

Fifth Day, Tuesday, Sept. 28 

Sixth Day, Wednesday, Sept. 29 

Seventh Day, Thursday, Sept. 30 

Eighth Day, Friday, Oct. i . . 

Ninth Day, Saturday, Oct. 2 


C Morning session. 25 
Afternoon 37 

(Evening “ 71 

C Morning session. 103 
Afternoon 148 

(Evening 176 

f Morning session. 197 
(Afternoon “ 234 

r Morning session. 251 
-< Afternoon “ 305 

(Evening 334 

r Morning session, 355 
j Afternoon “ 395 

(Evening 429 

r Morning session, 460 
-< Afternoon 506 

(Evening ‘‘ 554 

( Morning session. 590 
■< Afternoon 637 

(Evening 701 

( Morning session. 729 
-< Afternoon ** 796 

(Evening “ 832 

Morning session. 870 


APPENDIX. 


Programme Papers Received 
German Meeting . . . , 

Statistical Reports . . . 

Creeds . 

Foreign Mission Reports 
Miscellaneous Letters . . 

INDEX 


902 

934 

959 

1123 

1147 


( 4 ) 


1152 


INTRODUCTION. 


BY R. M. PATTERSON, D. D. 


The ** Report of Proceedings of the First General Presby- 
terian Council, convened at Edinburgh, July, 1877," contains an 
“ Introductory Narrative ” from the pen of Dr. Blaikie, which 
gives a very full and satisfactory account of the genesis of the 
Council, and of the preparations that had been made for its first 
meeting. We will reproduce here only those facts which are 
essential to make this volume complete in itself. 

The Presbyterian Alliance was organized by a Conference 
which met in the English Presbyterian College, Guildford street, 
London, on the 2ist of July, 1875, and continued in session for 
two days ; a preparatory meeting of welcome from the London 
Presbyterians, which was presided over by the Rev. Dr. Oswald 
Dykes, having been held on the evening of the 21st of July, in 
the Regent Square Church. The Rev. James McCosh, D. D., 
LL.D., of Princeton, N. J., was President, and the Revs. Prof. 
W. G. Blaikie, D.D., of Edinburgh, and George D. Mathews, 
of New York, were Clerks of the body. 

Twenty-two different Presbyterian organizations had commis- 
sioned one hundred and one delegates to the Conference. Sixty- 
four of those Commissioners were in attendance. They repre- 
sented the following bodies: From the United States of Amer- 
ica: The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America 
(commonly spoken of as the Northern Church), The Presbyterian 
Church in the United States (popularly designated as the South- 
ern Church), The Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, 
The Reformed (Dutch) Church in America.; from Great Britain 
and Ireland : The Presbyterian Church in England, The Presby- 

( 5 ) 


6 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

terian Church of Wales (Calvinistic Methodists), The Church of 
Scotland, The Free Church of Scotland, The United Presby- 
terian Church of Scotland, The Reformed Presbyterian Church 
of Scotland, The Presbyterian Church in Ireland; from the British 
Colonies : The Presbyterian Church in Canada ; from the Con- 
tinent of Europe : The Reformed Church of France, The Mis- 
sionary Church of Belgium, The Union of Evangelical Churches 
of France, and Evangelical Church of Canton de Vaud, Switzer- 
land, The Evangelical Church of Neuchatel, Switzerland, The 
Waldensian Church of Italy, The Reformed Church, East Fries- 
land, and Free Evangelical Church of Germany, and The Evan- 
gelical Church of Spain. 

The result of the two days’ careful and prayerful deliberation 
of the Conference was the unanimous adoption of the following 


CONSTITUTION. 

Whereas, Churches holding the Reformed faith, and organized on 
Presbyterian principles, are found, though under a variety of names, 
in different parts of the world : Whereas, many of these were long 
wont to maintain close relations, but are at present united by iio vis- 
ible bond, whether of fellowship or of work : And whereas, in the 
providence of God, the time seems to have come when they may all 
more fully manifest their essential oneness, have closer communion 
with each other, and promote great causes by joint action ; It is 
agreed to form a Presbyterian Alliance to meet in General Council 
from time to time in order to confer upon matters of common inter- 
est, and to further the ends for which the Church has been constituted 
by her Divine Lord and only King. In forming this Alliance, the 
Presbyterian Churches do not mean to change their fraternal relations 
with other Churches, but will be ready, as heretofore, to join with 
them in Christian fellowship,* and in advancing the cause of the Re- 
deemer, on the general principle maintained and taught in the Re- 
formed Confessions that the Church of God on earth, though com- 
posed of many members, is one body in the communion of the Holy 
Ghost, of which body Christ is the Supreme Head, and the Scriptures 
alone are the infallible law. 


‘‘ARTICLES. 

“ I. Designation. 

“ This Alliance shall be known as ‘ The Alliance of the Reformed 
Churches throughout the World holding the Presbyterian system.* 


INTR OD UCTTON. 


1 


‘‘II. Membership. 

“Any Church organized on Presbyterian principles which holds 
the supreme authority of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ments in matters of faith and morals, and whose creed is in harmony 
with the consensus of the Reformed Confessions, shall be eligible for 
admission into the Alliance. 

“III. The Council. 

“ I. lis Meetings. — The Alliance shall meet in General Council 
ordinarily once in three years. 

“ 2. Its Constituency. — The Council shall consist of delegates, 
being ministers and elders, appointed by the Churches forming the 
Alliance ; the number from each Church being regulated by a plan 
sanctioned by the Council, regard being had generally to the number 
of congregations in the several Churches. The delegates, as far as 
practicable, to consist of an equal number of ministers and elders. 
The Council may, on the recommendation of a Committee on Busi- 
ness, invite Presbyterian brethren not delegates, to offer suggestions, 
to deliver addresses, and to read papers. 

“ 3. Its Powers. — The Council shall have power to decide upon 
the application of Churches desiring to join the Alliance; It shall 
have power to entertain and consider topics which may be brought 
before it by any Church represented in the Council, or by any mem- 
ber of the Council, on their being transmitted in the manner herein- 
after provided; But it shall not interfere with the existing creed or 
constitution of any Church in the Alliance, or with its internal order 
or external relations. 

“ 4. Its Objects. — The Council shall consider questions of general 
interest to the Presbyterian community ; it shall seek the welfare of 
Churches, especially such as are weak or persecuted ; it shall gather 
and disseminate information concerning the Kingdom of Christ 
throughout the world ; it shall commend the Presbyterian system as 
Scriptural, and as combining simplicity, efficiency, and adaptation to 
all times and conditions ; it shall also entertain all subjects directly 
connected with the work of Evangelization, such as the relation of 
the Christian Church to the Evangelization of the world, the distribu- 
tion of mission work, the combination of Church energies, especially 
in reference to great cities and destitute districts, the training of min- 
isters, the use of the Pre.ss, colportage, the religious instruction of the 
young, the sanctification of the Sabbath, systematic beneficence, the 
suppression of intemperance and other prevailing vices, and the best 
methods of opposing infidelity and Romanism. 

“5. Its Methods.— Council shall seek to guide and stirnulate 
public sentiment by papers read, by addresses delivered and published, 
by the circulation of information respecting the allied Churches and 
their missions, by the exposition of Scriptural principles, and by de- 
fences of the truth ; by communicating the Minutes of its proceedings 


8 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

to the Supreme Courts of the Churches forming the Alliance, and by 
such other action as is in accordance with its constitution and objects. 

“6. Committee on Buswess.—Yh^ Council, at each general meet- 
ing, shall appoint a Committee on Business, through which all com- 
mSnications and notices of subjects proposed to be discussed shall 
])ass. The Committee appointed at one general meeting shall act 
provisionally, so' far as is necessary, in preparing for the following 
meeting. 

<‘IV. Change of Constitution. 

‘‘ No change shall be made in this Constitution, except on a motion 
made at one general meeting of Council, not objected to by a major- 
ity of the Churches, and carried by a two-thirds vote at the next gen- 
eral meeting.” 

The following was also agreed upon as the rule of represen- 
tation in the Council : That the maximum number of delegates 
should be 300, and that they should be elected according to the 
following ratio : Churches at or under 100 congregations to send 
two; at or under 200, four; and so on up to i,cx)0, the number 
in that case being twenty; above 1,000 the additional delegates 
to be only two for 200; above 3,000, two for 500; at 4,000 and 
upwards the total to be forty. 

It was further agreed that the first meeting of the Council 
should be held at Edinburgh, on July 4th, 1876; and a General 
Committee, consisting of all the delegates, with Dr. Blaikie as 
Convener (or Chairman), was appointed to prepare for it. That 
Committee was divided into local Committees for the different 
churches, the Scotch Local Committee being specially entrusted 
with the initiative in the movements that were necessary to be 
taken. 

The sessions of the Conference closed with an enthusiastic 
public meeting, on the evening of Thursday, the 22d of July, in 
the Marylebone Presbyterian Church, Rev. Donald Frazer, pas- 
tor, at which the results of the deliberations were publicly an- 
nounced, and addresses delivered by a goodly number of the 
delegates. 

The year 1876 being the Centennial anniversary of the Decla- 
ration of their Independence by the United States of America, and 
the observance of it being of such a nature that no fair represen ta- 








"OTILDJEES” 


AND COVENANT 


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INTR OD UCTION. 


9 


tion of delegates could be expected from this side of the ocean, 
the time of meeting of the Council was changed to July 3, 1877. 

In accordance therewith on the morning of July 3, 1877, and 
by appointment of the Committee of Arrangements, the Rev. 
Robert Flint, D. D., Professor of Divinity in the University of 
p:dinburgh, preached, in St. Giles Church, Edinburgh, a sermon 
from John xvii. 20,21; and in the afternoon the Council met 
formally in the Free Church Assembly Hall, and was organized 
by the appointment of the Rev. Howard Crosby, D. D., of New 
York, to preside, and of the Rev, G. D. Mathews, of New York, 
to act as clerk pro tern. 

It was reported that in addition to the twenty-two Churches 
represented in the Conference at London, the following twenty- 
seven had more or less formally expressed a desire to be con- 
nected with the Alliance : 

Reformed Church of Hungary; Reformed Church of Bohemia and 
Moravia ; Reformed Presbyterian Church, Scotland ; Reformed Pres- 
byterian Church, Ireland ; Original Secession Church, Scotland ; Re- 
formed Church of Holland (Kerkeraad of Amsterdam and of Ooster- 
meer); Christian Reformed Church in the Netherlands; National 
Church of Canton de Vaud ; Reformed Church, Russia; Free Italian . 
Church; Associate Reformed Synod of the South (U. S.) ; General’ 
Synod of Reformed Presbyterian Church (U. S.) ; Welsh Calvinistic 
Church (U. S. ) ; German Reformed Church (U. S.) ; Reformed Dutch. 
Church, Cape Colony; Reformed Dutch Church, Orange Free State;.: 
Reformed Dutch Church, Natal ; Presbytery of Natal ; Christian Re- 
formed Church, South Africa ; Presbyterian Church of Victoria, Aus- 
tralia; Presbyterian Church of New South Wales, Australia; Synod 
of Eastern Australia ; Presbyterian Church of Queensland, Australia ;- 
Presbyterian Church of New Zealand ; Presbyterian Church of Otago ; 
Presbytery of Ceylon ; Missionary Synod of New Hebrides. 

The numbers of delegates in attendance were. Principals 220, 
and Associates 80. 

The Report of the General Committee which presented, the 
foregoing list also contained inter alia the following statements, 
which are here reproduced because of their permanent bearing. 

Commenting on the twenty-seven applying churches, they 
said : 

The Committee find that in nearly all of these cases there is no diffi - 
culty. In two or three, a question might perhaps be raised, whether 


10 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


they fully come up to the definition of this Alliance — as an Alliance 
of Churches constructed on the Presbyterian polity, whose creed is in 
harmony with the consensus of the Reformed Confessions. The 
Committee think that when there is no plain evidence to the contrary, 
the responsibility of deciding whether they ought to join the Alliance 
should rest, in the first instance, on the Churches themselves; and 
they recommend that, in the meantime, the applications be granted. • 

In reference to associate members, they reported : 

Associates . the constitution, the Council has power, ‘‘ on the 
recommendation of a Business Committee, to invite Presbyterian 
brethren not delegates to offer suggestions, to deliver addresses, and 
to read papers.” The Committee feel that it is desirable, on this the 
first occasion of the meeting of Council, to exercise this privilege 
somewhat freely. They think that it might be extended: (i.) lo 
certain approved members of Churches which have made no formal 
delegation, who have been invited by the Committee to attend. (2.) 
To brethren in good standing, who have come from great distances to 
be present, and have been commissioned as corresponding members. 

• (3.) To brethren of much knowledge and experience, some of \yhom 
have been asked to read papers, or take part otherwise in the business. 
This arrangement, however, is not to be taken as a precedent. 

As to the organization of the body, they recommended the fol- 
lowing minute : 

Officers . — The Committee think that the objects of the Council will 
be accomplished best by having a separate President for each session. 
The Committee recommend that the Council, at its meeting on Tues- 
day afternoon, should proceed to the election of a sufficient number 
from the Churches composing the Council. They recommend also 
the election of Clerks and of a Business Committee. 

The following Standing Orders were adopted for the govern- 
ment of the house : 

1. The President shall have the usual authority of a Moderator. 

2. Motions must be handed in to the President in writing before 
they can be discussed by the Council. 

3. The Clerks shall keep a roll of the members and of the asso- 
ciates ; they shall record the transactions of the Council ; preserve 
minutes of all papers not otherwise disposed of ; sign all official papers 
and orders, and give notice of appointments to the members of com- 
mittees, and of the business assigned to them. They shall hold office 
till their successors are appointed, and act as a Committee on Creden- 
tials to prepare the roll for the next Council meeting. 


introduction . 


4. No bii^ness shall be introduced to the Council except on the re- 
port of the Committee of Business. 

5. At the meetings of the Council, those who have prepared papers 
Shall not occupy more than twenty minutes in referring to them' 
those specially invited to speak not more than fifteen, and other 
speakers not more than ten. 

6. It shall be the aim of the Council to avoid voting, but if a vote 
be necessary when there are more than two motions, all the motions 
Shall be voted on successively, and that one having the least numbei; 
of votes then dropped. A vote shall next be taken on the remaining 
motions, and the same course followed until some one motion has 
majority of all the votes given, and this shall then be considered to 
express the mind of the Council. The vote shall be taken by a show 
of hands, and the result declared by the President. 

7. Should the Council find it necessary to adopt the method of sec- 
tional deliberations, the Business Committee shall make the arrange- 
ments needful for the purpose. 

8. The Council shall, as the first order of the day, on its fourth day 
of meeting, appoint the time and place of its next assembling. It 
shall afterwards appoint a Committee of Arrangements to make the 
needful preparations for such meeting, with power to add to their 
number. 

On the evening of Tuesday, the 3d of July, there was a pub- 
lic reception of the delegates, in the Museum of Science and 
Art, with an address of welcome from Edinburgh, and short 
speeches by representatives of various churches— the Right 
Hon. Sir James Fanshaw, Bart., Lord Provost of the city pre- 
siding. 

The sessions continued until Tuesday, July loth; fhe pro- 
ceedings consisting of the reading of papers that had been pre- 
pared on request of the Committee of Arrangements, and of dis- 
cussions on them and on other topics that were raised; and 
closed with a valedictory meeting on the evening of Tuesday, 
at which very enthusiastic and tender addresses were delivered • 
by several of the delegates. 

Among the acts and utterances that were reached, were 
the following, which connect themselves immediately with the 
Second Council : 

(i.) The Council appoint a Committee with instructions to prepare 
a report to be laid before the next General Council showing in point 
of fact — 

What are the existing Creeds or Confessions of the Churches 


12 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

composing this Alliance? and, What have been their previous creeds 
and confessions, with any modification of these, and the dates and 
occasions of the same, from the Reformation to the present day ? 

\ Second, What are the existing formulas of subscription, if any, and 
•what have been the previous formulas of subscription used in these 
'Churches in connection with their creeds and confessions? 

Third, How far has individual adherence to these creeds by sub- 
scription or otherwise been required from the ministers, elders, or 
other office-bearers respectively, and also from the private members 
'bf the same? 

And the Council authorize the Committee to correspond with mem- 
bera of the several Churches throughout the world who may be able 
to give information, and they enjoin the Committee, in submitting 
their report, not to accompany it either with any comparative estimate 
of these creeds and regulations, or with any critical remarks upon 
their respective value, expediency, or efficiency. 

(2.) The Council having regard to Foreign Mission work as an 
essential and urgent duty, needing to be much more earnestly prose- 
cuted by all Christian Churches, and in which it is of increasing im- 
portance that there should be the utmost attainable co-operation 
’amongst the Churches of this Alliance, appoint a Committee to col- 
lect and digest full information as to the fields at present occupied by 
them, their plans and modes of operations, with instructions to report 
the same to the next General Council, together with the following or any 
!s^uggestions they may judge it wise to submit respecting the possibility 
;(?f consolidating existing agencies, or preparing the way for co-opera- 
tion in the future : 

1. The extent of expenditure on salaries and allowances due to 
missionaries with the view of obtaining uniformity. 

2. The employment of native pastors. 

3. The place of medical agency in missionary work. 

4. The methods of stational arrangements which experience has 
sanctioned. 

5. The stage at which Presbyteries ought to be formed in a district 
mission. 

6. The method best suited to advance missionaries in the languages 
of the heathen. 

• ■ 7. The general question of missionary literature. 

8. The best means for developing the missionary spirit in the home 
Churches. 

(3.) The Council rejoices that its membership includes so many , 
representatives of Presbyterian Churches of the continent of Europe, 
and considering that the difficulties which several if not all of these 
Churches encounter from the aggressions of Ultramontanism and infi- 
delity, as well as from other causes, entitle them to the special inter- . 
est and sympathy of the Council, and considering also that it will be 


INTR OD UCTION, 


»3 

impossible for the Council at its ordinary meetings to receive from 
the delegates and associates that detailed information regarding their 
respective Churches which the delegates may wish to give, the Coun- 
cil instmcts the Business Committee to nominate a special committee 
of the Council for the purpose of conferring on behalf of the Coun- 
cil with the C(»ntinental delegates and associates, receiving such infor- 
mation as they may have to offer, and for the further purpose of 
considering the ‘interests of continental Churches, and also the provis- 
ion rnade over the continent for the English-speaking residents, 
American and British. 

, (4-) The Council, appreciating the importance of obtaining full 
mformation respecting the existing desiderata of the history of the 
Presbyterian Churches, and of the materials available for supplying 
them, agree to appoint a small committee, with Dr. Lorimer, of Lon- 
don, as convener, to correspond on this subject with all the branches 
of the Presbyterian Churches represented in the Alliance, and to pre- 
pare a report of the information which is obtained to the next meet- 
ing of the Council in 1880. 

The Council expresses its earnest hope that the office-bearers and 
members of all the Churches here represented will give liberal sup- 
port and encouragement to such publications as may be suggested by 
the committee now appointed, whether in the shape of new historical 
works or of unpublished ecclesiastical records and documents, or re- 
prints of writings associated with the names of celebrated Presby^ 
terian worthies. 

(5.) The Council appoint the next General Presbyterian Council 
to meet, by leave of Providence, in the city of Philadelphia, in the 
year 1880, on such day as may be agreed on by the local Committee 
of Arrangements, not later than the Tuesday before the last Sabbath 
of September, 1880, being the 21st of the month. 

A Committee on Business and Arrangements for the meeting 
in Philadelphia was also appointed, with power to add to its 
number. It speedily entered upon its work of preparation by 
appointing two sub-committees on the programme and busi- 
ness. The former had its centre in New York, and was in- 
trusted with the selection of topics on which papers were to be 
prepared, the procuring of persons to write those papers, and 
the arrangement of the whole order of procedure. To the lat- 
ter, in Philadelphia, was committed the duty of raising the 
money which would be needed for the Council, of securing 
the place of meeting, of providing for the entertainment of the 
delegates, and of making all the other business arrangements 
for the sessions. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


n 

The churches and citizens of Philadelphia very heartily re- 
sponded to the appeals that were made to them by the Business 
Committee, and contributed all that was necessary, and more 
than was necessary, to defray the expenses of the meeting. As 
tlie day of meeting approached their enthusiastic interest in it 
increased, and manifested itself in every way. The newspapers, 
especially, made the event very prominent in their columns. 
Admirable articles appeared in many of them giving the history 
of the movements which had culminated in the formation of the 
Alliance; presenting the strength of the bodies represented in it; 
giving sketches of the men prominently associated with it ; and 
^imning in advance the questions of interest that would be dealt 
ivith in the Council. 

On the evening of Wednesday, the 22d of September, the 
Governor of the State and the Mayor of the city formally re- 
ceived the delegates, and the friends who accompanied them, in 
jthe Academy of Fine Arts, on the corner of Broad and Cherry. 
Jhe handsome edifice, with its rooms already enriched by num- 
i^erless paintings and other works of art, was rendered still 
further attractive through a profusion of exotics that had been 
^'secured by a committee of ladies, from the churches, co-operating 
with the Committee on Entertainment, by whom the arrange- 
ments for the reception had been made. It was crowded to 
repletion by those who were connected with the Council, and 
by invited guests from Philadelphia and other places, among 
whom were not merely prominent Presbyterians but a large 
number of representative men from the other religious de- 
nominations and from the various departments of business, 
social, and political life. The concourse was in every way a 
remarkably striking one. The guests as they arrived were 
received, the delegates to the Council (wearing blue badges as 
the mark of their position), by the members of the Committee 
of Arrangements (who wore red badges), and the ladies whp 
accompanied them by the committee of ladies who had assisted 
the Entertainment Committee in their preparations. 

George Junkin, Esq., Chairman of the Business Committee, 
in an exceedingly neat and happy address, introduced the Coun- 


IN TR OD UCTI ON, 


IS 

cil en masse to the executives of the State and city, who stood 
upon a platform in the large reception-room. Governor Hoyt 
and Mayor Stokley responded in hearty speeches, extending the 
welcome of the State and city to the guests of the evening. 
They were followed in brief, varied, and appropriate ad- 
dresses by Principal Cairns, of the United Presbyterian Church 
of Scotland ; Dr. Murkland, of the Presbyterian Church of the 
United States (South) ; the Rev. Mr. Macintosh, of the Presby- 
terian Church in Ireland ; Gen. George B. McClellan, Governor of 
New Jersey, and an elder in the Presbyterian Church in the United 
States of America ; and the Rev. Narayan Sheshadri, from India. 

At the close of the speeches, which occupied about an hour, 
the members of the Council were introduced personally and by 
name to the Governor and the Mayor, and then to the crowded 
concourse. The rest of the evening, until a late hour, was spent 
in a free social intermingling of the delegates with each other and 
with the guests who had been invited to meet them. A band 
of music enlivened the reception. 

On the morning of Thursday, the 23d, the delegates and the 
resident and visiting Presbyterian ministers assembled in the 
Chambers Church, at Broad and Sansom, and then marched in 
procession to the Academy of Music, in which the opening services 
were to be held. The procession was marshalled by Samuel C. 
Perkins, Esq., with General Hartranft, ex-Governor of the State ; 
Colonel A. Loudon Snowden, Colonel R. Dale Benson, and 
Major Samuel B. Huey as aids. The route of the procession 
was lined by numerous spectators who gazed with eager inter- 
est upon the scene. It was estimated that not less than 
a thousand ministers were in the line. They crowded the plat- 
form and the lower portion of the Academy ; and the whole 
• building, even to its standing room, was occupied by an audi- 
ence of at least four thousand persons. 

It had been desired, and at a very early day the effort had been 
made, to secure the Academy of Music for all the sessions of the 
Council ; but that building had been engaged long in advance 
for another purpose. Therefore, Horticultural Hall, which ad- 
joins it, had been obtained for all except the opening morning 


6 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


and two of the evening sessions. After the meeting commenced, 
however, the Academy was given up by the party that had 
contracted for it; and on and after Tuesday, the 28th, the morn- 
ing sessions were held in the Hall, and the afternoon and even- 
ing in the Academy. 

The morning sessions were continued in the Hall, which was 
also kept open through the day, because of the historical inter- 
est that centred in paintings with which its walls had been hung. 
The Rev. Henry C. McCook, D.D., had designed a series of dec- 
orations which blazoned forth the leading events and heroes in 
the histories of the Presbyterian Churches abroad, and, under his 
superintendence, they had been painted on a series of canvas 
which almost completely covered the walls of the building. 
They were the theme of universal and constant commendation. 
The chromo-lithographs which accompany this volume very 
faithfully reproduce those paintings (omitting the evergreens and 
flags which were hung around them), and save us the necessity 
of a verbal description.* 

The Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1334 Chestnut street, 
at an early day resolved to place its building at the service of 
the members of the Council for social intercommunion, letter- 
writing, and other necessary purposes ; to present each member 
wdth a specially prepared and handsomely bound Descriptive 
Catalogue of its publications ; and to extend to them a formal 
reception in their large Assembly room on Saturday evening, the 
25th of September. The building was decorated with flags and 
supplied with flowers during the sessions of the Council. The 
reception on the Saturday evening was largely attended, and an 


* Moreover, the publication of a Photographic Album of the decorations, accom- 
panied by a minute description of them, by Dr. McCook, has been announced. In 
addition to the historic decorations, which are reproduced in this volume, over the 
platform, from the seal of the Trustees of the American General Assembly, bearing 
the inscription Vox clamantis in deserio, and the seal below it Philadelphia nianeto, 
in the centre, to the sides, were suspended in graceful and parti-colored folds these 
inscriptions: “We being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one 
of another.” “ There is no other Head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ.” 
“ God alone is Lord of the conscience.” “ He called the elders and said, Take 
heed, therefore, unto yourselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath 
made you overseers.” “ Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, 
• Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone.” 


INTR on UCTION. 


17 


apposite address of welcome was delivered by the Hon. E. A. 
Rollins, ex-U. S. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and Presi- 
dent of the Centennial National Bank, and also a member of 
the Board.* 

A large number of invitations to visit public places were re- 
ceived by the Council, and accepted witli thanks, though 
the Council in a body was able to respond only to one of them. 
On the Monday after the adjournment, it visited Princeton in a 
train specially provided for it, and was received by the authori- 
ties of the College of New Jersey and of the Theological Semi- 
nary. The Rev. Dr. A. T. McGill addressed the guests in the 
Seminary chapel, and the Rev. Dr. James McCosh in the First 
Presbyterian Church, where addresses were also delivered by 
the Rev. Drs. Main and Lang, the Rev. Narayan Sheshadri, and 
George H. Stuart, Esq. 

The sessions extended to Saturday, October 2d, on the after- 
noon of which the formal adjournment took place. A series of 
Sabbath-school meetings, however, had been arranged for the 
afternoon, and of farewell meetings for the evening, of the Sab- 
bath in churches in different parts of the city. The members of 
tl;ie Council were largely divided among these meetings, which 
they addressed, and so carried a precious influence to many who 
could not have reached or gained admittance to one place in the 
heart of the city. 

The deepest impression which, from the first and to the end, 
was made by the assembled delegates was that of concentrated 
intellectual power. The theological and collegiate professors, 
who are educating the young men of the generation, and 
training them for the pulpit and for other influential positions in 
society, loomed up largely and prominently, and indicated the 
far-reaching mental influence of the concourse ; while the 
number of Ruling Elders of high standing in political life, who 


* It was the intention to publish a report of this reception, as well as of the 
speeches at the reception in the Academy of Fine Arts, of which full phonographic 
notes were taken for us; but the programme papers have so largely run beyond the 
half-hour each on the basis of which the size of the volume was calculated, and 
have so increased its patjes, that it is impossible to carry out that intention. The 
book is, therefore, restricted to the formal proceedings of the Council. 

2 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


iS 

were delegates, suggested the leavening influence of our Presby- 
terianism in civil affairs. This prominent intellectuality was 
noted with emphasis by the secular press; and it provoked the 
criticism, in more than one quarter, that the Presbyterian 
ministry is the intellectual ministry of the denominations. An 
unusually large proportion of the prepared papers are striking 
expressions of this mental power and theological culture. The 
repeated reading of them, in manuscript and in proof, has, in 
the minds of the editors, one of whose duties it was closely to 
watch the proceedings, increased the admiration with which 
they listened to them. And the extempore speeches were 
equally signi ficant. The writer has had considerable experience in 
political and judicial bodies. Not even in his boyish days when 
novelty would naturally exaggerate, did the practised debaters 
of the United States Senate make a stronger impression of 
aptness, cogency, and power of debate than was made upon his 
mind by the members of the Council. 

A very large proportion of the papers deal with the living 
polemic questions of the day, but even when they are most 
severely theological and controversial their practical bearing is 
marked ; so that the thoughtful among our people, and 
especially the preachers in our pulpits, will find them a valuable 
arsenal. Perhaps if any one element predominated over others 
through the whole proceedings it was that of church work. In 
reality the Council was in a great degree a missionary convention. 
The special invitation at the beginning to missionaries to sit as 
associate members was significant. Several sessions were 
devoted almost wholly to missions. Furthermore, a large 
number of the papers prepared by transatlantic members, and 
giving the history of their struggling churches, are pervaded 
largely by the strictly mission element. For the mass of readers 
those papers contain a rich fund of cheering information. 

While the powerful intellectual tone dominated, and while 
the programme was so full that the formal proceedings crowded 
the time, the devotional spirit was very pervasive. The half- 
hour of prayer and praise with which the sessions of every day 
opened was marked by a tender spirituality. That also swayed 


INTRODUCTION, 


19 


the Council at times in the midst of the routine business. 
One of the most impressive scenes was presented by the rising 
of this wave at the close of Principal Cairn’s paper on “ The 
Vicarious Sacrifice of Christ.” * 

From the members of the Council compliments to their 
Philadelphia hosts flew thick and fast, especially on the last day 
in connection with the resolutions of acknowledgment which were 
passed. It is but the deserved complement to them to say that 
the social influence of the delegates upon Philadelphia was of 
the happiest kind. The Presbyterians of the city feel abundantly 
repaid for all the preparations which they made for the meeting. 
Friendships were formed which will bind together hearts in 
different lands through all the future of this life, and thrill in the 
social circles of heaven. 

And how truly ecumenical the concourse was ! How sug- 
gestive of the Catholicity of Presbyterianism ! To one who sat 
often upon the platform and looked down upon the strongly 
marked faces, and added to that an analysis of the roll, the 
sight was a striking one. The white, the black, the copper 
colored races were all there. A North American Indian, a 
Brahmin from India, and Negroes from Africa, sat with 
Europeans, and made most effective addresses to the thousands 
of spectators who crowded the places of meeting. The 
delegates came from all the Continents, and from the isles of 
the. sea. A grouping of the list shows that the places actually 
represented were : in America — the United States, and Canada ; 
in Europe — England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Belgium, 
Germany, Bohemia, France, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain ; in 
Asia — Syria, India, Japan, China, and Ceylon ; in Africa, Egypt, 
Gaboon and Corisco, the Cape of Good Hope, Basuto Land ; in 
Australia — New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, and 
Tasmania ; and the New Hebrides ; while papers and letters were 
received from other countries, and from writers who could not 
personally be present. On the roll of the Alliance, some of 

* It is scarcely necessary to say that reports of the devotional services are not 
given in this volume, nor are noted any of the manifestations of applause which 
were frequent. 


20 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


them having had delegates in attendance at the Edinburgh 
Council, though not able to be in Philadelphia, are Moravia, 
Hungary, the Netherlands, Natal, New Zealand, Orange Free 
State, Otago and Southland, and Queensland. The Inter- 
national Exhibition which the United States held in their 
Centennial year in Philadelphia was expressive; the second 
General Council of Presbyterians, in the interest of Christ’s 
cross and crown, was no less so. 

This volume is designed to present a permanent pen-photo- 
graph of the proceedings of the body. It omits the numerous 
notices and references of merely local and temporary interest 
and other extraneous matters which appeared in the course of 
the business; but it contains a full and it is believed an 
accurate report of the sayings and doings of the Council as 
arranged for in the Programme. It ought to be understood 
that it is not, nor does it contain, the technical minutes 
of the body, and that the clerks are not responsible for 
its correctness. But for the preparation of it the editors re- 
ceived the manuscripts of all the essays by their writers, many 
of whom have also revised and corrected their papers in proof ; 
and had full phonographic reports of the proceedings and dis- 
cussions made by the official reporters of the Pennsylvania 
Legislature, under the superintendence of Samuel B. Collins, 
Esq. They have also had the use of the Clerks’ minutes, with 
which they have checked the reporters’ notes of the business 
proceedings, so as to make sure of their reliability. 

The arrangement of the volume has proceeded on two simple 
rules : It reproduces the proceedings, from day to day, precisely 
in tlie order in which they took place ; and it places in the first 
part, all that was read, said, and done in the Council, and in the 
second part, or Appendix, all papers which were referred to but 
not read, or which were officially handed to the editors for pub- 
lication.* 


* In the freedom of discussion, which is one of the glories of such an Assembly, 
there must, of course, be expressions of individual opinion for which none but the 
speaker or reader is responsible. The utterance of any such views on the floor of 
the Council did not make them the views of the Council itself ; the reproduction of 


IN TROD UCTION. 


21 


The Rev. Henry A. Boardman, D. D., the senior Presbyterian 
Pastor in Philadelphia, who, as Chairman of the General Com- 
mittee of Arrangements, was to deliver the Address of Welcome 
at the opening of the sessions, began to write that address as 
follows : 

‘‘Brethren Beloved in Christ Jesus: I am charged with the 
grateful office of bidding you welcome to our country and our city, 
our churches and our homes. 

“ First of all, our grateful acknowledgments are due to that be- 
nign Providence which has watched over you on the land and on 
the sea, shielded you from the perils of travelling, and brought you 
to us in this goodly convocation, as we humbly trust, in the fulness of 
the blessing of the gospel of Christ. The occasion is one which turns 
back the shadows upon the great dial, not fifteen degrees, but three 
and a half centuries. Luther and Zwingle, Calvin and Knox, and 
their illustrious compeers, stand before us, God’s appointed instru- 
ments for publishing to an enslaved continent this mandate : Come 
out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that 
ye receive not of her plagues. They heard and obeyed the summons- 
Breaking away from the ancient thraldom, their first recourse was to 
that inspired Book, which had for ages iDeen withheld from them. 
Searching the Scriptures with patient study and earnest prayer, they 
found there neither pope nor prelate, but a permanent ministry of co- 
equal rank and authority, and that scheme of doctrine which consti- 
tutes the life and core of the evangelical theology. It is a pregnant 
fact that nearly all the churches of the Reformation assumed, and 
preserve to this day, a Presbyterian organization. In Germany, in 
Switzerland, in the Netherlands, in Scotland, in Italy, in France, they 
adopted with one accord, and still retain, the primitive Scriptural 
order, which the Waldensian Church, ‘ neither Protestant nor Re- 
formed,’ had maintained inviolate for centuries amidst the fastnesses 
of the High Alps. Even those churches which retained the prelatic 
element, retained it, with a single exception, not as of imperative di- 
vine obligation, but purely on grounds of expediency, their bishops 
being simply primi inter pares, not a superior order to Presbyters. 
And it is safe to say that England also would have taken this ground, 
had not the iron hand of the crown laid an arrest upon the beneficent 
work of her faithful and shackled reformers.” 

But when he had proceeded that far, the gentle hand of death 
was laid upon his pen, and he was called up higher, as had 

them, in a full and faithful report of its proceedings, keeps them precisely in the 
position in which they were uttered as individual opinions unless sanctioned by a 
vote of the body. At the same time, it may be noted, there was really very little to 
require this caveat from any side. The unity in diversity which appears in those 
pages is far more encouraging, than the diversity in unity is alarming- 


22 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 

already been the Rev. Elias R. Beadle, D. D., LL. D., his 
predecessor in the Chairmanship of the General Committee of 
Arrangements, and the Rev. William Adams, D. D., LL. D., who 
had been appointed • to preach the opening sermon. The 
Council met, not under the shadow, but under the brightness 
of glorified death. Not a few of those who were in it may ex- 
pect, before the Belfast meeting, to be translated to the General 
Assembly in Heaven. The membership of the earthly assem- 
blies changes. New acquaintanceships are made ; and the old and 
the new circles are broken. But the work continues under Him 
who “ liveth and was dead,” and is “ alive forevermore,” and 
who, “ the same yesterday, to-day and forever,” invests with his 
own immortality those who in his service are faithful unto the 
death. And their work, in its effects here, is also unending, 
unbroken, interlinked. The different generations and the 
different meetings have an organic connection, the one life 
flowing into, and out of, each, and through all, and passing at 
last into the great consummation. May the rich influence 
of the London, the Edinburgh, the Philadelphia, and 
the successive meetings of this Council roll on, strengthening 
and enlarging Presbyterianism, helping the Church of Christ 
in all its branches, and increasingly adding to the number of 
the redeemed, who, in glorified and beatific communion with 
Jesus, shall be heard saying: “ Blessing, and honor, and glory 
and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto 
the Lamb, for ever and ever.” Amen and Amen. 


ADDENDA. 


The roll, as it is given on page 45, was printed in its place 
from the officially published one which was prepared for the 
members after the Council had fully gotten under way. But 
after it had been cast in the electrotype plates the following 
changes in it were reported to us : 

The Rev. J. G. Humphrey, M. A., of New York, and Bennett 
Williams, Esq., of New York, were added to the list from the 
Calvinistic Methodist Church in Wale.s. 

The Reformed Presbytery of Philadelphia was received into 
the Alliance, and the Rev. T. W. J. Wylie, D. D., and George H. 
Stuart, Esq., were enrolled as delegates from it. 

The names of the following missionaries who came within the 
invitation as associate members were not publicly announced 
during the sessions, and have only been handed to us since the 
plates were cast. They are here given to complete the list: 

Beattie, Rev. Jos. D., D. D., Syria, Reformed Presbyterian Church 
Synod. 

Brodhead, Rev. A., D. D., India, Presbyterian Board Foreign 
Missions. 

Ballagh, Rev. J. H., Japan, Reformed Dutch Church. 

Barker, W. P., Seneca Indians, Presbyterian Board Foreign Mis- 
sions. 

Ewing, S. C., Alexandria, Egypt, United Presbyterian Church. 

Holcomb, J. F., Allahabad, India, Presbyterian Board. 

Helm, Benj., Hongchow, China, Presbyterian Church South. 

Kip, Leonard W., Amoy, China, Reformed Dutch Church. 

Lyon, D. L., Hongchow, Presbyterian Board. 

Martyn, J. A., South Africa, Reformed Dutch Church. 

Mackay, Geo. L., D. D., Formosa, China, Canada Presbyterian 

Church. . 

Martin, W. A. P., President Imperial College, Peking, Presby- 
terian Board. 

Nassau, R. H., M. D., Gaboon and Corisco Mission, Presbyterian 
Board. 

Seiler, G. W., Kolapoor. 

Stout, Henry, Japan, Reformed Dutch Church. 

Tracy, Thos., Futtegurh, India, Pre.sbyterian Board. 

W yckoff, B. DuBois, Futtegurh, India, Presbyterian Board. 

(23) 


24 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


The report of the Committee on Credentials, referred to on 
page 148, and adopted by the Council, was also omitted from its 
place ; and it is printed here to make the record complete : 

Your Committee beg leave to report as follows: 

I. As to the cases in which Churches have appointed as their repre- 
sentatives, gentlemen who, although members of Churches embraced 
in the Alliance, are not members of the Churches deputing them, 
your Committee, in view of the fact that the language of Article III., 
Section 2 , of the Constitution, is not so explicit as altogether to pre- 
vent the misapprehension that may have occasioned those appoint- 
ments, recommend that the gentlemen so appointed should be invited 
to sit as associates in this Council ; and, further, to avoid the occur- 
rence of such misunderstandings, recommend that the Council do de- 
clare that the true spirit and intent of Article III., Section 2 , of the 
Constitution requires delegates to be members of the Churches ap- 
pointing them. 

II. With reference to the credentials presented by the Rev. An- 
tonio Arrighi, of the new Italian Church, your Committee find that 
the appointment appears to be made by the Evangelization Commit- 
tee, instead of by a regular ecclesiastical court of the Free Italian 
Church. The document is signed by the Rev. John R. McDougall, 
oj Florence, whose position, as well as that of Mr. Arrighi, in the 
Free Italian Church, is within the personal knowledge of your Com- 
mittee; and they, therefore, recommend that die appointment shoii'd 
be sustained, notwithstanding the informality. 

III. Churches not hitherto members of the Alliance. 

{a.') The Cumberland Presbyterian Church of the United States 

In this case your Committee, while recognizing and rejoicing* in 
^e good work for our common Master, carried on by this important 
Church, and without remarking especially on the somewhat informal 
nature of the application for admission to the Alliance, regret to find 
themselves obliged to recommend the Council to decline the applica- 
^constrained to adopt this resolution by 
the absence.pf sufficient evidence that the Cumberland Church now 
accept the d<^trinal basis of the Alliance, and by the terms of Article 
11. of the Constitution, which restricts the Alliance to Churches 
ConfSonT" '' ''' li^nnony with the Consensus of the Reformed 

(A) Presbytery of Tasmania. 

recommend the admission of this Church to the 

D. H. Me Vicar, Convener. 


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SECOND 


General Presbyterian Council. 


The Second General Council of the Presbyterian Alliance 
met in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, on the 23d of Sep- 
tember, 1880, at II A. M. The Rev. William M.' Paxton, D. D., 
of New York, preached the opening sermon, as follows : 

“And I say unto you, That many shall come from the East and West, and 
shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.” 
— Matthew viii. 1 1. 

The centurion who drew this utterance from our Lord had cer- 
tainly exhibited an extraordinary faith. Others before had believed 
that Jesus could heal by contact with the diseased person, but here 
was one who believed that he could heal at a distance. “I am not 
worthy,” said he, “that thou shouldst come under my roof, but 
speak the word only and my servant shall be healed.” He not only 
states his confidence, but explains the mental process by which he 
reached this conviction. He was a man in authority — a centurion, 
having soldiers under him. They went and came at his bidding. In 
the same manner he believed that Jesus was in a position of authority 
over the forces of nature. All the powers of the universe were sub- 
ject to his command. Here was a sublime faith, exhibiting itself 
suddenly in an unexpected quarter, by a heathen man. Our Lord 
expresses his surprise: “I have not found so great faith, no, not in 
Israel.” It might have been expected that the Israelites, who had 
been familiar with wonders, would believe ; but here was a heathen 
whose faith was without a precedent. Our Lord points the attention 
of his disciples to it, and tells them that this is an illustration in a 
single example of what shall take place in the future on a large scale ; 
that this one Gentile, coming with such an extraordinary faith, is 
only the first fruit of a future harvest, when they shall come from 
the North, and the South, and the East, and the West to sit down 
with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God. 

May I not turn to you, brethren and Christian friends, and say, 
This day is this Scripture fulfilled before our eyes. Who are these, 
and whence come they? They are Gentile believers in the kingship 
of Christ over the forces of the universe : in his power to convert and 

G5) 


26 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


heal this world by his word. They are the men of whom this cen- 
turion was the prototype. And whence come they? “From the 
North and the South, and from the East and the West ; ” from many 
nations, speaking many languages — they are the representatives of 
thousands and tens of thousands of whom the centurion was the first 
fruit. They represent, not simply churches or presbyteries or synods, 
but great denominations, many Presbyterian bodies scattered over the 
wide world. They are the Presbuteroi from the ends of the earth. 
They take their place in this Council of the Kingdom as representa- 
tives of a great spiritual host, just as Abraham and Isaac and Jacob 
were representative chieftains of the Jewish nation. And what is this 
gathering here but the first fruits of the finished harvest when God 
shall call his sons from afar and his daughters from the ends of the 
earth ? 

But this text seems to suggest that there is an order and meaning 
in this gathering. Our Lord sent out his disciples from Jerusalem, 
“ Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” 
It was a command to disperse to every nation. But here they are 
gathering — coming together from every clime. The great commen- 
tator Bengel supposes that the points of the compass are here men- 
tioned in the exact geographical and historical order in which the 
gospel went out into the world. It started in Syria in the East, 
travelled westward through Asia Minor, and along the shores of the 
Mediterranean, then northward to the Scandinavian nations, then 
southward to Africa, and then westward to America and the islands 
of the Pacific. 

This gathering is in the same order — from the East, the North, the 
South, the West. They started at the rising sun, they gather toward 
the setting sun. They started at Jerusalem. We gather now in this 
Jerusalem, this great centre of Christian civilization in the ends of 
the earth — in this asylum which the hand of Providence has opened 
for the oppressed and persecuted from every land, in the midst of a 
nation composed of the broken fragments of Zion from many a clime. 

But what 7neans this luorld-wide assemblage ? The command of the 
Master dispersed his disciples. What means this gathering again? 
They come as the representatives of the churches formed and of the 
souls saved by those who went to the four corners of the earth. They 
come together to look into each other’s faces, to clasp hands in a 
goodly fellowship, and to tell of the work that has been done, of the 
success that has been achieved. They come to report that “the 
gospel is being preached to all nations ; ” that it is indeed “the 
power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.” They 
tell, indeed, of labor, of hardship, of enmity, of opposition, of strug- 
gle, of enemies who cry “failure,” but despite all this they tell of 
success — success along the whole line where the battle has been fairly 
joined. They come to tell us that the work of Christian missions is 
a success, and that this day the decree stands firmer than it ever 
stood: “I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


27 


uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession/’ They tell that 
Christ in the presence and influence of his truth is a power which, 
like gravitation, belts the world ; that at this very hour his gospel is 
the grandest, mightiest power that this world has ever seen. In a 
word, they come to tell that all over the earth the name of Jesus is 
above every name. 

But this gathering has a meaning far deeper than this. We assem- 
ble not only to open our hearts to each other in the most affectionate 
sympathies, but we have come together to deliberate. The work is 
a success, but the field is the world. Vast tracts are still lying in 
wickedness. The empire of sin is deep-rooted and inveterate. The 
enemy is organizing powerful forces. We are, perhaps, upon the eve 
of a great and momentous contest in every land. And in this crisis 
we assemble to consider how this whole world is to be conquered for 
Christ. 

We do not assemble in any spirit of narrow denominationalism, 
nor do we claim this great work as ours alone. We recognize all the 
evangelical branches of the great Protestant Church as fellow-laborers 
in the same mission ; we open to them our hearts and pledge them 
our fellowship and fidelity as we stand shoulder to shoulder in the 
great conflict. 

Still, it must be remembered that we are Presbyterians, and that 
this is a Presbyterian Council inviting a representation of delegates 
from all the branches of the great family of the Reformed Churches 
holding to the Presbyterian polity and doctrine. 

These Churches have been raised up by Divine Providence to do a 
peculiar work. They have a record of labor, struggle, victory and 
blessing, which is written in the history of almost every land. With 
this record, peculiar and distinctive in the past, and with the trophies 
of success before our eyes and the tokens of blessing in the memory 
of the world, we assemble in this crisis to ask. What is our mission 
now? How shall we do our part in conquering the world for 
.Christ ? 

Our future must link itself with the past. If Divine Providence 
has shaped our work and given us characteristics of usefulness and 
efficiency in the past, then our advance must be in the same line and 
our progress an increase in consecration and action. The first thing, 
therefore, is to understand ourselves. 

What has been our work? What are our characteristics? What 
is the image and superscription which Divine Providence has stamped 
upon us? In one word. What has been our mission in the past? 
What should be our mission in the future ? 

In looking back it strikes us : 

First. Thai one promment characteristic of the great family of Presby- 
terian C/mrches is loyalty to the person of Jesus Christ. This is the 
centre from which all our theology starts, the foundation from which 
we draw all our inspiration. We do not claim this as a distinction 
peculiar to ourselves, but we point to it as a characteristic that needs 


28 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


to be emphasized. Jesus Christ stands out before us as a great 
historical character. It is a simple fact that he is the greatest person- 
age in the world’s history, the mightiest force in the world’s action, 
the grandest influence in its civilization. Hence the inquiry, Who 
is he? is the question that is back of all other questions. The answer 
to this, by each individual, determines his own personal experience 
and character. The answer to this by a Church or denomination of 
Christians determines the value of the religion which it teaches and 
the measure and character of its efficiency in the world. 

If you give the Arian or Socinian answer, which denies his divinity, 
even though it accredits him as the highest of created beings, or as a 
divinely endowed man, you have a religion which leaves man in a 
state of sin without a Redeemer, under a consciousness of guilt with- 
out an atonement, and with no incentive but that of a pure hurnanita- 
rianism to raise him to something higher and better. 

If you take the Gnostic answer, which denies his humanity, or the 
Apollinarian answer, which denies him a rational spirit — the place of 
human intelligence being supplied in him by the eternal Logos, then 
you have a religion which brings us in contact with the divine without 
a single element of human comfort or consolation. We have no “ days- 
man ” to represent our nature in any form of mediation between 
God and man, no form of humanity to bear the burden of our guilt, 
no brother or friend to open to us a heart of sympathy or to soothe 
the bitterness of human woe. 

Or if, advancing to later times, you take the answer of Schleier- 
macher or any of the more advanced theories of philosophic specula- 
tion which regard Christ as the ideal man, the one man in whom the 
ideal of humanity comes to its fullest realization, and he the source 
of new life to others by awakening in them the same God-conscious- 
ness, then you have a religion in which Christ is lost in humanity, 
and the glorious person of the God-man Mediator is shrouded in 
mystery and lost to the view of faith. 

Rut if, turning from all these hidings of his power and glory, we. 
take the answer of Nathanael : ‘‘ Thou art the Son of God ; Thou art 
the King of Israel ; ” or of Peter : “ Thou art the Christ, the Son of 
the living God ; ” or of Martha: “ I believe that thou art the Christ, 
the Son of God, that should come into the world ; ” or of Thomas: 

My Lord and my God ; ” or of Paul : “ In him dwells all the full- 
ness of the Godhead bodily;” or of John: “And the Word was 
made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory 
as of the only-begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth ’’—then 
you have standing out before your apprehension a glorious person — 
God, yet man ; very God, yet very man — God and man in one per- 
son, that, by the mysterious union of their two natures in one person, 
he might reconcile God to man by making expiation, and man to 
God by making intercession for him. 

This is the glorious person to whom the Presbyterian heart and the 
Presbyterian faith have ever been loyal. It was in the light of this 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


29 


wonderful person that Augustine interpreted the Scriptures and drew 
out that marvellous Christo-centric system of theology that has guided 
the Presbyterian faith, and has shed its light of hope and peace all 
down the ages. 

It was this gracious person who, enshrined in the hearts of the Vau- 
dois and Waldenses, enabled them to preserve the light of truth 
through the dark night of the Middle Ages, to enkindle again the 
torch of the reformation. 

It was this truth, the person of Jesus Christ and the love of God in 
him, that inspired and guided the reformation. It was heart loy- 
alty to the person of Christ that enabled John Knox, as the Eng- 
lish ambassador testified, “to put more life into his hearers from the 
pulpit in one hour than 600 trumpets.” It is this truth that leads the 
van of our doctrinal beliefs, and all else follows in its train. It has 
stood foremost in the confessions and symbols of our churches age 
after age, until at length it found its simplest and most perfect^ ex- 
pression in the Westminster Catechism — “The only Redeemer of 
God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of 
God, became man, by taking to himself a true body and a reasonable 
soul, and so was and continues to be God and man in two distinct 
natures and one person forever.” 

Here is the person of a living Redeemer, around whom our affec- 
tions may cluster, who has the worth of divinity to give value to his 
sacrifice, the form of humanity to suffer the law penalty which human- 
ity has incurred — a wealth of love to challenge our affection and a 
motive to service which binds us to him with the bands of a man and 
cords of love. Such is the religion that a proper apprehension of the 
person of Christ must ever produce. A stalwart religion, that grasps 
by faith the arm of a mighty Redeemer ; a strong love, that holds him 
in a steadfast embrace; a warmth of devotion, that counts all things 
as loss for Christ ; and a courage that smiles at the stake and triumphs 
in a martyr’s victory. Obscure the glory of that person and the 
Church sinks into imbecility. 

Be assured that no Church can ever bear an effectual part in the 
conquest of the world but a Church that is loyal to the person of Jesus 
Christ. 

Second. A secofid distinction of our Presbyterian Churches in the 
past is their character as witness-bearers. We should certainly fail 
to understand ourselves, or to appreciate our mission in the future, if 
we should let this fact drop from our memories, or fail of its realiza- 
tion in our consciousness as we prosecute our work. 

“Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord” (Isaiah xliii. 10). “Ye 
shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in 
Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts i. 8). 
These, and similar scriptures, seem from the beginning to have taken 
a deep hold upon the Presbyterian heart, and to have come to a vivid 
realization in the experience of the whole Church. Accordingly the 
long line of our past history is strewn with testimonies, confessions 


30 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


and witnesses to the truths of God, written in symbols, delivered in 
pulpits, illustrated in glorious and illustrious lives, uttered amidst the 
flames and sealed with blood. Hence, as we look back, we are com- 
passed about with a great cloud of witnesses — Paul witnessing against 
the Judaizing tendencies of the carnal heart which afterwards efflor- 
esced in Romanism, and against a philosophy, falsely so called, which 
has only now reached its ultimate evolution ; Augustine witnessing 
for the sovereignty of God and the doctrines of grace, when the 
Pelagian heresy threatened to pale their glory ; the VValdenses wit- 
nessing, midst sword and flanie, for freedom of thought and the right 
of private judgment, and for the precious doctrines of the Cross, when 
the light of these truths was almost extinguished by the overlaying of 
vain traditions, and the smothering accretions of Romish superstition. 
Then again we have the witnesses of the great family of the Presbyte- 
rian Churches of the reformation to the absolute sovereignty of the 
Bible, to its immediate and plenary inspiration, to its all-sufficiency 
and infallibility as the only and authoritative rule of faith and duty 
against the Romish doctrine of tradition as a co-ordinate rule of faith, 
and against the presumptuous claim of the Papacy to be the infallible 
teacher of the true faith and the final judge of all controversies. It 
was this witness that broke the chain that bound the Scriptures in the 
cloisters of the Romish monasteries and opened the truth of God 
to the people. Then came the voices of witness-bearers like the 
sound of many waters testifying to the contents of heaven’s precious 
message to man. They witnessed to a salvation only effected through 
the blood and sacrifice of Jesus Christ — not by human merit, not by 
works of righteousness which we have done, not by penance or self- 
sacrifice, as the priesthood taught, nor yet by the life of Christ as a 
model for imitation, charming us to a better life and lifting us to the 
realization of an ideal humanity, as rationalism suggested then and is 
urging now, but by the efficacy of an atonement which expiates sin by 
satisfying the penalty of the broken law, and secures a free pardon 
and a gracious acceptance for fallen man. It was this effective wit- 
nessing to the love of God in the atonement of Jesus Christ that broke 
the fetters of spiritual despotism and produced the reformation. As 
benighted men who had trembled under the idea of God as an inex- 
orable Judge, lifted their eyes to the face of a Father in heaven whom 
they felt sure loved them, they adored, worshipped and believed. No 
less powerful was their witness to the doctrine of justification by faith 
alone, and to the efficacy of divine grace in the regeneration and 
sanctification of the soul. We cannot follow in detail the long line 
of witnesses. But among all these witnesses one voice, clear and 
strong, falls upon our ears. It comes to us like the shout of a king. 

It is a sound that made thrones rock and monarchs tremble. It 
comes from the misty hills of Scotland. It is the voice of John Knox, 
witnessing to the kingship of Jesus Christ, that he alone is the King 
and Head of the Church. The Church is Christ’s house, Christ’s 
kingdom. He alone has the right to fix her institutions and appoint 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


31 

her ordinances. He alone is her Supreme Head and Governor. 
Hence we can acknowledge no pope; can bow to no potentate; and 
when a civil ruler dares to plant his foot within the Church to claim 
dominion over the consciences of Christ’s people and assert the pos- 
session of a power which the King of kings has not given him, it 
rnust be a violation of Christ’s crown rights and a usurpation of 
Christ’s prerogative. Nor was this a solitary voice. A long line of 
witnesses repeated the testimony. It was uttered by petitions, by 
remonstrances, by solemn leagues and covenants — in councils, in con- 
vocations, in parliaments — and proclaimed by the cannon’s roar upon 
the battle-field. It was a witness that disenthralled Scotland and 
secured its chartered freedom. 

As we assemble to-day the voices of all these witnesses are sounding 
in our ears. They recall our history. They remind us of our 
ancestors. They shame our imbecility. They confront us with 
these blood-sealed testimonies of heroic devotion to Jesus Christ. 
They call us to repeat the same witness, to give up no principle, to 
surrender no truth. They point to the coming contest and call us 
“ to fight a good fight,” “ to stand in the evil day, and having done 
all to stand.” 

Again we notice that a third characteristic of Presbyterianism is its 
catholicity. 

We do not claim to be the Catholic Church, nor a Catholic Church ; 
for this at present is an impossibility. No Church can be Catholic 
until its doctrine and polity have been preached and accepted through- 
out the whole world. Yet, strange to say, this appellation. Catholic, 
has been appropriated by many claimants — by the ancient Arians, by 
the Greek Church, by the Roman Catholics, and even by the Dona- 
tists, the most narrow and exclusive of the Separatists. We make no 
such absurd pretension. We are not Catholics, but Catholic. We 
are not the Catholic Church, but a part of the great Universal Church 
of Jesus Christ, which has many members, who bear many names. 
Our name is Presbyterian. As another has expressed it, “ Christian 
is our name, Presbyterian our surname.” We are Presbyterian 
Christians — Christians, because we belong to Christ ; Presbyterians, 
because we believe that the true original Apostolic Episcopacy was 
Presbytery. Our principles and polity and methods of operation are 
all catholic, and may be reduced to practice with a wonderful facility 
under any circumstances and in any nationality. Our Presbyterianism, 
for example, is catholic in its idea of the Church. 

As defined in the Westminster confession, the Church ‘‘consists of 
all those throughout the world who profess the true religion, with their 
children.” Here is a definition as wide as universality itself. It un- 
churches no one, but comprehends the whole world of believers in 
the amplitude of its charitable embrace. Again, our system is also 
catholic in its polity. It is not founded, like the papacy and prelacy, 
upon the narrow and exclusive model of the Jewish temple, but upon 
the free, popular and catholic system of the synagogue worship. Its 


32 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


first principle is the rights of the people. Church power does not 
rest in the clergy. The people are not subject to popes and prelates, 
but have a right to a substantive part in the government of the Church. 
It affirms the universal priesthood of believers, which makes them all 
equal ; also the parity of the ministry — they all stand upon equal foot- 
ing. Upon this basis of free and equal rights the Ruling Elder, the 
representative of the people, joins with the minister in all acts of 
judicial authority. These, then, are principles of a far-reaching and 
catholic sweep. They are capable of an application to people of all 
classes, to every form of national government, and under all the cir- 
cumstances in which human life is cast. 

Again, our Presbyterianism is catholic in the spirit of love with 
which we can co-operate with evangelical Christians of every name in 
works of faith and labors of love. We have no peculiarity, no preju- 
dice, no hobby, to dig a chasm of separation between us and other 
servants of our common Master. To all who love the Lord Jesus 
Christ we can open our hearts in the warmest affection ; to all who 
arc building the walls of Zion we can offer a helping hand, and our 
only contest is who shall build the walls strongest and highest. We 
can recognize the ordination of the Episcopalian and the baptism of 
the Baptist. We can respond with all our hearts to the ‘‘Amen ” of 
the Methodist and join with our brethren in any psalmody that puts 
the crown upon the brow of Jesus. Thus it is that our system, whether 
viewed in detail or regarded as a whole, is catholic in ail its features 
and is capable of an expansion to the uttermost circumference of our 
humanity. 

There is a Persian fable which tells of a young prince who brought 
to his father a nutshell, which, opening with a spring, contained a 
little tent of such ingenious construction that when spread in the 
nursery the children could play under its folds ; when opened in the 
council chamber the king and his counsellors could sit beneath its 
canopy ; when placed in the court-yard the family and all the servants 
could gather under its shade ; when pitched upon the plain where 
the soldiers were encamped the whole army could gather within its 
enclosure. It possessed a quality of boundless adaptability and 
expansiveness. This little tent is the symbol of our system. It is 
all contained within the nutshell of the gospel. Open it in the 
nursery, and the parents and children will sit with delight beneath 
its folds. Spread it in the court-yard, and the whole household will 
assemble for morning and evening worship beneath its shadow. Open 
it in the village, and it becomes a church and the whole town worships 
under its canopy. Pitch it upon the plain, and a great sacramental 
army will gather under it. Send it out to the heathen world, and it 
becomes a great pavilion that fills and covers the earth. 

But in this endeavor to understand our mission in the past, we can- 
not omit to notice that a fourth characteristic of our Presbyterianism is 
its intimate comtection with civil liberty. This is certainly one of our 
historic dLstinctions, but we have time only for a passing glance at it. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


33 

It is a simple fact that Calvinism has always been hated by infidels and 
Presbyterianism by tyrants. King James I. said at the Hampton 
Court conference, “ Ye are aiming at a Scots’ Presbytery, which agrees 
with monarchy as well as God and the devil.” By monarchy James 
doubtless meant his own will, which was tyranny. To that great- 
hearted Presbyterian, Melville, he said, ‘‘There never wall be quiet 
in this country till half a dozen of ye be hanged or banished.” 
“Tush, sir,” replied Melville, “threaten your courtiers in that man- 
ner; but, God be glorified, it will not be in your power to hang or 
exile his truth.” “ The doctrine ” (that is, the doctrine of the Pres- 
byterians), said Charles I., “ is anti-monarchical.” “ I will say,” he 
continued, “ that there w^as not a wiser man since Solomon than he 
who said, ‘ No bishop, no king.’ ” It was doubtless a wise saying. 

Civil and religious liberty are linked together. If there is liberty 
in the Church, there will be liberty in the State — if there is no bishop 
in the Church there will be no tyrant on the throne. This brings us 
to the very centre of truth upon this subject — civil liberty springs 
out of the very core of Presbyterian doctrine and polity. One of 
the great truths asserted and established by the Reformation was 
“the kingship of all believers;” they are all equal and all kings. 
I his is just the first principle of our Presbyterianism — “ the rights of 
the people.” In whom does Church pow'er rest, in the people or in 
the clergy ? When you settle this question you decide tlie question 
of the civil liberty of the nation. If you decide that the power rests 
in the clergy, then you establish a principle which by an inevitable 
analogy associates itself with the principle that the civil power rests 
in kings and nobles. 

But if you settle, as Presbyterians do, that Church powder rests in 
the people, in the Church itself, then from this principle springs the 
other, that civil power rests in the people themselves, and that all civil 
rulers are the servants of the people. 

Accordingly, Dr. Schaff in his history of creeds says that “ the in- 
alienable rights of an American citizen are nothing but the Protestant 
idea of the general priesthood of believers applied to the civil sphere 
or developed into the corresponding idea of the general kingship of 
free men.” Hence it is that history shows that from the underlying 
principle of our Presbyterianism has sprung the civil and political 
freedom of many nations. The IVestmmster Revieia, which certainly 
has no leaning toward Presbyterianism, says: “Calvin sowed the 
seeds of liberty in Europe and evoked a moral energy which Christi- 
anity has not felt since the era of persecution.” 

“ The peculiar ethical temperament of Calvinism,” it continues, 
is precisely that of the primitive Christianity of the catacombs and the 
desert, and was created under the same stimulus.” Again it says, 
“ Calvinism saved Europe.” The eloquent Roman Catholic historian, 
Bossuet, speaking of the General Synod of France in 1559, says: “A 

f reat social revolution has been effected. Within the centre of the 
“rench monarchy, Calvin and his disciples have established a spirit- 
3 


34 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


iial republic.” Macaulay has shown that the great revolution of 1688, 
which gave liberty to England, was in a great measure purchased by 
the labors, sacrifices, treasure, and blood of the Presbyterians of Scot- 
land. But the most conspicuous illustration of this principle was the 
birth of the American Republic. Our national historian, Bancroft, 
says, “He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence 
of Calvin, knows but little of the origin of American liberty.” 

Dr. Schaff, the honored historian of our creeds, says: “The prin- 
ciples of the republic of the United States can be traced through the 
intervening link of Puritanism to Calvinism, which, with all its theo- 
logical rigor, has been the chief educator of manly character and 
promoter of constitutional freedom in modern times.” Chief-Justice 
Tilghman says, that “The framers of the Constitution of the United 
States borrowed very much of the form of our republic from that 
form of Presbyterian Church government developed in the Constitu- 
tion of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.” But time will not 
permit us to pursue the thought. Enough has been said to remind us 
of our history and to assure us that the Church of the future, the 
Church that is to be most effective in conquering the world for Christ, 
will be a Church that is loyal to the great principle of civil and relig- 
ious freedom. 

V. Again, if time had permitted, I had thought to mention as an- 
other characteristic of our Presbyterianism, iis educational character. 
Our historian, Bancroft, says, that “ Calvin was the father of popular 
education, the inventor of the system of free schools.” However 
this may be, it is certain that home education, instruction in the Bible 
and Catechism, has been a characteristic of our Presbyterian fam- 
ilies, and that wherever our Churches have gone they have carried 
with them the school, the academy, and the college. From no quar- 
ter, therefore, could a protest come with more propriety than from 
this Council against the godless secularity which characterizes so 
much of the boasted education of the present time. 

VI. Again, I had thought also to point your attention to the fnis- 
sionary character of our whole family of Churches. But the simple 
mention of this fact suffices, as we now pass in conclusion to our 
second question : 

What should be our missio 7 t in the future ? 

The answer is simple and brief. “To stand in our lot ; ” to repeat 
the same record ; to follow on in the same line ; to cultivate the same 
characteristics ; to aim at the same distinctions. Let our hearts cleave 
to the person of Jesus Christ, with a loyal affection and devoted ser- 
vice. Let us, like our fathers, be intrepid witnesses for the truth of 
God amid a crooked and perverse generation. Let us stand fast by 
the principles of religious liberty, which have given the boon of civil 
and political freedom to the world. Let us maintain our principle of 
liberality, which brings us into co-operative unity with other Chris- 
tians in the whole work of the Master’s kingdom. Let us assert our 
catholicity before the world, that ours is a system adapted to a world- 


SECOND GENER4L COUNCIL, 


35 


wide efficiency and capable of a universal prevalence. Let us culti- 
vate the spirit of missions, and catching our inspiration from the 
cross of Christ, let us work on in the confidence that the kingdoms 
of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his 
Christ. 

There is nothing in our. past record that we could wish changed — 
no characteristics that we could improve by alteration. We need no 
changed plans, no novel principles, no new creeds. Our system con- 
tains all the elements of efficiency which in times past have proved 
to be the power of God, and all the elements of blessing which have 
gladdened the world. Our polity, as administered by our fathers, has 
been a benediction to the world, and we need not fear that it will fail 
of the same result in time to come. This is an age of progress. Let 
us progress — not by changing God’s truth, not by altering a system 
which has been baptized by the unction of the Holy Ghost, but let 
us progress in all holy activities, in all Christian work, in our love 
for the souls of men, and in the intelligence and ardor of our zeal for 
the glory of God and for the cause and kingdom of Jesus Christ. Let 
us progress in an intelligent appreciation of the significance of our 
past history and of the promise of the future which it embodies. 
What God did in time past for our fathers is but the type and promise 
of what he will do for us now. The Lord God of Elijah will be the 
God of Elisha. Let us seize the falling mantle, and as by faith we 
smite the waters let us cry: “ Where is the Lord God of our fathers?” 
We should train our children in the memory of their mighty acts. 
The historian Sallust tells us that the Roman mothers trained their 
children in the presence of the busts and statues of their ancestors. 
In like manner we should train our children and our rising ministry, 
as it were, in the presence of their forefathers, in all the memories of 
our past history, and urge them, as the Roman mothers did, never to 
be satisfied whilst the virtues and victories of the past were more 
numerous or more glorious than those of the present. 

But how are these results to be attained? By unity of action. By 
bringing together these Presbyterian bodies from every part of the 
world, not in an organic union, but into such oneness of thought and 
sympathy that they shall act in a co-operative unity, like several 
armies moving against a common enemy, animated by the same spirit 
and aiming at the same result. But again the question returns : How 
shall this be done ? How shall this unity be secured ? Not by reso- 
lutions ; not by the decrees of Councils; not by ecclesiastical pressure; 
but by the power of warm Christian affection. The unity must not 
be from without, but from within ; it must be from that love which 
unites heart to heart, until the bond encircles the whole family. The 
smallest Presbyterian body struggling under discouragement in the 
most distant country must be made to feel that it does not stand 
alone, but is linked in effective sympathy with a great family of 
vigorous Churches who feci for them and will act with them in their 
time of need. No Church must be permitted to have a feeling of 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


36 

solitary orphanage. The brethren must take home from this family 
Council the salutations of the Churches to each other, and such mes- 
sages of love and sympathy as will make the discouraged lift their 
faces from the dust, and thank God and take courage. So, too, the 
Churches and brethren laboring in the great centres and bearing the 
burdens of heavy responsibilities must be made to feel that in this 
strain and struggle they have the support of brethren and Churches 
who feel and work with them and for them, and that from the vast 
family all over the earth prayers are going up for their success. But 
here, still, the question returns: How is this to be effected?” Only 
by the presence and power of the Holy Ghost in all our Churches and 
in the hearts of all our ministers and people. ‘‘It is not by might 
nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” He is 
the spirit of love, who must bind all our hearts in unity; the spirit of 
truth, who must take the things of Christ and show them unto us ; the 
spirit of courage, who must make us witnesses for Christ, and the 
spirit of power, who alone can give us the victory. As the disciples 
waited at Jerusalem, so we should wait here with one accord for the 
coming of the Holy Ghost, and as we separate carry the benediction 
with us to the ends of the earth. 

And now, brethren, I have done. But I am reminded that a cloud 
of sorrow rests upon this assembly to-day. There are those absent 
whom we all miss — two eminent and beloved brethren of this city, of 
whom mention will be made this afternoon, and one other of whom 
it behooves me to speak, because it has fallen to my lot to stand in 
his place to-day. That venerated and beloved father in Israel, Dr. 
William Adams — who presided at the last session of this Council at 
Edinburgh, who uttered the last prayer, who pronounced the last 
benediction, under whose uplifted hands we had expected this morn- 
ing to receive a fresh blessing, and whose skilful hand was to have 
struck the key-note of this Council — has passed from our loving fel- 
lowship to the joys of his Lord. He is there receiving the benedic- 
tion that he would have asked for us ; he is there striking the key-note 
of his everlasting song. He had a place in all hearts ; perhaps no one 
man in the history of our American Churches was ever so universally 
loved. His life and influence was a golden clasp that bound together 
our Presbyterian Churches. 

Had he been present to-day it was his purpose to have spoken to 
you upon what he regarded as the highest evidence of our religion, 
“the Spirit of God working by His truth upon our inner conscious- 
ness.” His text would have been: “Until the day dawn and the 
day-star arise in your hearts.” On him the day has dawned ; and 
now may God grant that the day-star may arise in our hearts I 


Dr. Paxton was assisted in the devotional services by the 
Rev. Principal Robert Rainy, D. D., of Edinburgh, Scotland, 
and by the Rev. John Jenkins, D. D., LL.D., of Montreal, Can- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


37 


ada. At the close of the sermon, Dr. Paxton constituted the 
Council with prayer ; after which, on motion by the Rev. William 
P. Breed, D.D., of Philadelphia, an adjournment took place, until 
until 3 p. M., to Horticultural Hall. 

3 P- M. 

The Council reassembled at 3 o’clock, in Horticultural Hall, 
and was opened with prayer by the Rev. Dr. Paxton. 

ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 

The following Address of Welcome was delivered by the 
Rev. W. P. Breed, D. D., of Philadelphia: 

Mr. President, and Fathers and Brethren of the Second General 
Council of those who throughout the world hold the Presby- 
terian system ; 

The Church in Philadelphia sets before you an open door, and in 
the providence of God it has become my privilege to point you to 
that door, and to the word “Welcome” carved deep and large on 
postsand lintel. We are bidden to entertain strangers, for so we may 
entertain angels unawares, but we are already aware whom we enter- 
tain. Ye are “ the angels of the churches ” which dot the globe over 
from China around again to China. 

Man proposes. God disposes. We had proposed that you should 
now be listening to the voice of the beloved Dr. Beadle. God has 
ordered that voice away, to hymn his praises in the choir above. The 
place thus left vacant was to have been filled by the stately and ven- 
erable form of one to whose voice, for nearly a half century, Philadel- 
phia listened as to a chime of silver bells — the form of Dr. Henry A. 
Boardman. His heart was in this Council. A few days before his 
death it became my duty to reply to a letter from him touching its 
interest and success. And lo ! he, too, is not, for God has taken 
him ! But if these departed worthies are no longer seen by us, are 
we not seen by them ? As we breathe benedictions on their memories, 
are they not dropping benedictions on our heads? 

Fathers and brethren, we greet you severally with the welcome due 
to your professional eminence, efficient service, distinguished ability, 
and high personal worth. And we greet you collectively as a Council 
representing “a great crowed of witnesses,” 30,000,000 — yes, 40,000,- 
000 — of them in every land, in every clime — those millions the children 
and successors of many legions more, seated now in the galleries 
of History’s vast Coliseum, tier above tier, generation upon genera- 
ation, of those who, through ages of toil, trial, and triumph, “sub- 
dued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped 
the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, out of weakness 
were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the army 
of the aliens.” 


33 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


In the name of this city of Brotherly Love we greet you. Unless 
through a period of nearly a quarter of a century I have been mis- 
reading the Philadelphia heart, your coming has caused that heart to 
beat with unfeigned pleasure, and I hazard nothing in assuring you 
that Philadelphia will do its utmost to make you happy while you are 
here, reluctant to depart, unwilling to forget, and glad to return. 

To you, as Christians, we, Christians of Philadelphia, extend the 
welcoming hand. For, however we may differ, we are at one in the 
song we sing together here, and shall sing together hereafter : “ Unto 
him that loved us and washed us from our sins, in his own blood, and 
hath made us kings and priests to God and his Father, to him be glory 
and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” “Ye,” said the blessed 
Jesus, “ are the light of the world.” And we recognize you as Christ’s 
torch-bearers in every land where you dwell. “Ye,” said Jesus, 
“ are the salt of the earth ; ” and we recognize you as conservators of 
pure morals, as promoters of “whatsoever things are true, whatsoever 
things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are 
pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good re- 
port.” 

And we underscore the welcome we extend to you to-day as Evan- 
gelical Christians. 

Unhappily, it is not impossible for even those who “ hold the Pres- 
byterian system” to become tainted with rationalism, with Socinian- 
ism, with the spirit of a devastating criticism that criticises the Bible 
out of its covers and the title-page off the volume — a spirit that, like 
a tunic of Nessus, eats into the bones and marrow with its paralyzing 
poison. But ye are not of these. 

In you we see the champions and propagandists of the system of 
truth which embraces a triune God, the Creator, Preserver, and Gov- 
ernor of all ; a divine, human Christ, who redeems us unto God by 
his blood ; a divine. Personal Spirit who applies to the heart the re- 
demption purchased by Christ ; a divinely inspired, immaculate, and 
supremely authoritative Bible telling what man is to believe concerning 
God, and what duty God requires of man — in a word a gospel un- 
marred by an enervating ritualism, unmutilated by an impertinent 
rationalism, unchilled by icy unbelief. 

But it were to leave a chasm in the proprieties of the occasion, not 
to say that as holders of our ancient and venerated Presbyterian sys- 
tem you are greeted with a welcome of special and affectionate cordi- 
ality. Your presence here in council is a conspicuous and emphatic 
reminder of the sometimes half-forgotten fact that at the Reformation, 
360 years ago, the Church, in every portion of the world, with one in- 
sular exception, betook itself instinctively to that form of policy dis- 
tinctly outlined in the Acts of the Apostles, pointed to repeatedly in 
the Epistles, whose essential features are the official equality of ministers, 
participation by the people, in the persons of Ruling Elders, in the 
government and discipline of the Church, and the unification of the 
whole in a series of courts of review and control, the series terminating 
in a Supreme Judicatory, the Synod or General Assembly. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


39 


To angels and to men 3'^ou are the visible sign of an invisible and 
invincible force. Surely none other than a force like that “ whicl\ 
heaves the hill and breaks the shore and evermore makes and 
breaks and works” has availed to draw all these hundreds over 
mountains, across oceans’ along water-courses, up the sides of the 
earth, away from country, from home, and from scenes of labor, to 
sit in council together here on these far-off shores wliere so lately 
“ the buffalo roamed and the wild Indian pursued the panting deer.” 

To resist this unifying force were, we are persuaded, to resist the 
Spirit of Christ. To yield to, cherish and cultivate it, is to point the 
prow towards a unity foreordained from before the foundation of the 
world in which “the whole body fitlyjoined together and compacted 
by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual work- 
ing, in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto 
the edifying of itself in love.” 

First of all in our more special welcome we greet the respected and 
beloved Missionaries of the Cross from heathen lands. 

The one object for which the Church exists, the one aim that justi- 
fies her existence and vitalizes her frame is the glory of God in the 
conversion of the world. The sole commission she bears is, “Go 
into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,” and in 
the persons of those who have taken their lives in their hands and 
gone to the ends of the earth to preach the gospel we recognize tho.se 
who have most literally and unre.servedly laid themselves on the altar 
of obedience to this great command. And without all question we 
are ready with one voice to say “Amen ” to the words of the poet : 

“ Methinks that earth in all she vaunts of majesty, 

Or tricks with silk and purple, or the baubled 
Pride of princes, or the blood-red pomp of 
The stern hero, hath not aught to boast, 

So truly great, so noble, so sublime. 

As the Lone Missionary, casting off 

The links, and films, and trappings of the world. 

And in his chastened nakedness of soul, 

Rising to bear the embassy of heaven.” 

And right glad do we greet to-day our brethren from the great 
land that balances our own at the antipodes — far-off Australia, with 
the contiguous lands and islands. Physically, brethren, we stand foot to 
foot; spiritually, shoulder to shoulder. Your presence here certifies 
to the world that Presbyterianism, like the leaven of God, has struck 
through the planet. We in this New World welcome you from that 
New World, and pledge you our sympathy, prayers and aid in your 
efforts to win your lands for our blessed Emanuel. 

Among us also we see the turbaned head of a Christian convert 
from the land of the Vedas, the Ganges, the Himmalehs. Welcome 
now the familiar face of Narayan Sheshadri, and a blessing upon all 
the toilers in the wide harvest-fields of India. 

To these shores from Germany we have already welcomed many 


40 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


scores of thousands who bless our land with their diligence, and 
adorn it with their intelligence. A distinguished member of our 
National Cabinet was born in the Fatherland. And till time shall 
end the Christian world will hold in admiring and grateful remem- 
brance that land whence, in the dark days of Tetzel and Leo X. , 
issued the heroic defiance, ‘‘We go no more to Can ossa.” 

Welcome, then, ye brethren, from the land whose brain has so 
often and so powerfully quickened the pulsations of the world’s brain ; 
whose thought has been on the thought-hearth of mankind — the land 
of him who sprang from his knees on the Scala Santa with the shout 
which is still ringing in the world’s ears, “The just shall live by 
faith ! ” — the land in almost every portion of which Presbyterian 
principles are every day asserting themselves with greater distinctness 
and force. 

To Switzerland also we extend our greetings — Switzerland, whose 
hospitable doors were ever open to the panting fugitive from Rome’s 
reeking sword — Switzerland, where Calvin and Beza preached and 
toiled, and where the newly recovered principles of Presbyterianism 
earliest* crystallized again into apostolic forms. In Calvin’s heart 
and brain throbbed the aspiration for a General Council of the Re- 
formed, and Calvin is here to-day in the persons of our beloved 
brethren from the land of the Alp and the glacier. 

And it is with no common heart-glow that we take the hand of the 
respected representative of the time-tried, foe-tried, fire-tried Church 
of the Vaudois; the dust and blood of so many centuries of con- 
fession and martyrdom on her skirts and sandals ! Many a time, for 
many weary years, the bones of the slaughtered saints 

“ Lay scattered on the Alpine mountains cold 
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled 
• Mother with infant down the rocks, their moans 
The vales redoubling to the hills and they 
To heaven.” 

Welcome to the church whose walls and towers are mantled with 
the mosses and ivies of so many centuries j whose historic page weeps 
and bleeds with so many woes, and smiles with so many virtues and 
victories ! 

Nor do we overlook the younger but vigorous and faithful Free 
Church of Italy, Cavour’s dream realized. ‘‘ Libera Chiesa in Libero 
Statu. ’ ’ A future bright with promise awaits the young Free Church of 
Italy. 

And with all love and holy reverence do we v/elcomc here the rep- 
resentative of the Church of Bohemia. When Luther was thirteen 
years old, thirteen years before Calvin was born, Bohemia had its 
organized Presbyterian Church. Mountain-rimmed land, land of 
Waldhausen, of John Milicz, under whose preaching Prague from 
being a Babylon became a Jerusalem, land of Huss and Jerome ' 

We see the smoke ascending over your plains from countless 
martyr fires ] we hear the groans of the four thousand flung into the 



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SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


41 


mines of Kettcnherg ; we see the legions of the Pope harrying you, 
until of your three millions of people, more than two millions are 
under the sod. But fire and sword and the cruelties of centuries have 
not availed to purge from Bohemian blood the precious leaven of the 
gospel. We welcome you, brethren, and pray God to give us all the 
martyr spirit of the Bohemian worthies of old. 

And how the Presbyterian heart throbs when the eye is turned 
towards sunny France, once the banner-bearer of the Reformation. 
The thought of her starts across the field of memory a grand proces- 
sion of Presbyterian worthies, the brothers Coligny, Conde, Sully, 
Philip du Plessis Mornay, the humble but faithful Palissey, Louise de 
Montmorency, the Duchess Renee, Charlotte de Laval, and last but 
not least the noble Jeanne D’ Albert. Glancing back through three 
hundred years we see around that cradled babe in the house of La 
Ferriere, in Paris the first Huguenot Church organized. We look 
again sixteen years after, and lo ! at La Rochelle a General Assembly, 
in which 2,500 churches are represented, and some of those 10,000 
members strong. Yes, the French brain and heart are excellent soil 
for Presbyterianism, and the day is dawning when every drop of Hu- 
guenot blood shed on St. Bartholomew’s dreadful day, and on through 
all the wrath of the subsequent dragonnades shall spring up a cham- 
pion for the faith of the martyred Huguenots ! This hour Ave hear 
the footfall of the coming legions ! At last, at last, as Beza said to 
the Apostate Antony Navarre, “ The anvil has worn out the hammer.” 

And can we believe our eyes? Do we indeed see in this council 
representatives of the Presbyterian Church of Spain ? Spain, the 
land stamped so deep with the fiery seal of the Inquisition ; Spain, 
that discharged the Armada from her ports to crush Reform in 
Britain; Spain, the birth-place of the Society of the Jesuits; Spain, 
that gave to the world an Alva, as well as a Torquemada ; Spain, 
whose name was on almost every sword that flashed in the fields of 
European persecution ; Spain, whence came the suggestion and the 
inspiration of the St. Bartholomew massacre ! And yet here to-day 
are representatives of the Presbyterian Church in Spain. Verily the 
world moves, and Presbyterianism is one of its moving forces ! 
Welcome, thrice welcome, brethren from the Presbyterian Church of 
Spain ! The crown jewels of Queen Isabella furnished forth Columbus 
for the discovery of America, and now this Council sitting on the 
shores of America, pledges itself to do its utmost to put recovered 
Spain as a crown jewel in the diadem of King Jesus ! 

And Belgium, too, we welcome. You, brother, represent a green 
islet of Presbyterianism in a black sea of Romanism ; the fiftieth part 
of a million surrounded by 5,000,000 Romanists. Verily the Great 
Captain has stationed your church as a Leonidas band in a Ther- 
mopylae Pass. The arrows of your enemies darken the air, but the 
shade is not so dense but that the keen gaze of 30,000,000 of pairs of 
Presbyterian eyes penetrate it, the sympathies of 30,000,000 of Pres- 
byterian hearts find way through it, and the sanctified energies of 


42 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

30,000,000 of pairs of Presbyterian hands reach through it for your 
aid ! 

Holland also is welcome — present with us ; if not in the person, yet 
in the message of Van Osterzee, and also in the persons of her faithful 
sons from the southern confines of Africa. The story of Presbyterian 
Holland is one of the great glories of history. Early and long was 
she, with Belgium, a city of refuge for persecution-hunted Waldenses, 
Albigenses, Lollards, and fugitives from smitten Bohemia, land of 
the Silent William and his princely “beggars,” who, after an en- 
durance rarely equalled for length and severity, and feats of heroism 
never surpassed, drove the minions of Alva, Philip and the Pope like 
chaff before the wind from the territories they had filled with moans 
and groans and drenched with tears and blood ! Her Leyden shel- 
tered our pilgrim fathers. From her Delfts-Haven sailed the May- 
flower. We are proud of the Dutch blood in our veins, and we glory 
in the Dutch element in our theology. 

Crossing the channel we reach the Mother Land of this Republic. 
Presbyterians of England, a hundred welcomes ! Within your circling 
shore the morning star of the Reformation rose, and that, too, a gen- 
uine Presbyterian star. A century before the hammer of Luther had 
nailed the theses to the door of All Saints’ at Wittemburg, the ham- 
mer of Wycliffe had nailed the Twelve Conclusions to the doors of St. 
Paul’s and Westminster Abbey. It was in England that the master 
stroke of Protestantism was first struck — the putting of the Word of 
God into the hands of the people in their own tongue, and time has been 
when half of England was Presbyterian. That great journal, the Lon- 
don Times^ has suggested that the Church of England add to her book 
a leaf of Presbyterianism. Beloved brethren, may God so bless your 
labors that your government shall be constrained to take not a leaf 
only, but the whole blessed volume ! 

And how superfluous to say that Scotland is welcome ! Ye, breth- 
ren, are the children of that early Protestantism that created a 
people in Scotland ; of those who fought and won the great battle 
for Christ’s crown and covenant ; the children of those who once and 
again saved the Reformation in Great Britain, and once at least by 
stern resistance to that bad triumvirate, Charles, Laud and Wentworth, 
saved constitutional liberty for the English-speaking world. The 
voice of Jenny Geddes is to-day echoing among the hills of America. 
The scratching of the pens that signed the solemn League and Cov- 
enant that day in old Gray Friars, and upon the tombstones in the 
church-yard, and in some cases, with ink drawn from the self-gashed 
arms of the signers, and with the appended emphasis, “ Until death,” 
makes the blood tingle in our veins ! The heartiest of welcomes to 
old Scotland to-day ! May God keep her ever in the van of sound 
doctrine, with her tabernacle of blue, the hangings of her doors in 
blue, and her ephod all of blue ! 

To Wales also we extend a welcoming hand. True, indeed, Wales 
gave to the world a Pelagius, but in that gift she seems to have ex- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 43 

hausted her stores of heresy, and for the gift she has abundantly atoned 
by a wealth of evangelical treasures. To the Church of Howell 
Harris, of Griffith Jones, of Charles of Bala, and of a goodly host of 
other worthies \ church baptized in the blood and fire of persecution \ 
Methodist in name, Calvinistic in doctrine, Presbyterian in polity, of 
unblemished orthodoxy and apostolic zeal, right welcome art thou to 
a place in this Presbyterian Council. 

Right cordial, too, is our welcome to warm-hearted, fervid-spirited 
Ireland, the labor-field in ancient days of that grand Presbyterian St. 
Patrick, whom even our Roman brethren delight to honor. You 
Presbyterian Irishmen, under the sunshine of whose industry, sobriety 
and gospel morality the rugged North blossoms as the rose, while 
under the fatal smile of Rome the greener South lies so desolate, with 
your memories of the days of the “ Black Oath,” when your fathers 
wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins ; in deserts and in moun- 
tains, in dens and caves of the earth, being destitute, afflicted and 
tormented ; memories of the days when almost to a man your fathers 
went forth with wife and babe from manse, bed and bread for con- 
science sake ; memories of Derry and the Boyne water and of many 
a subsequent and victorious struggle in the field of high and mighty 
debate ; sons of those Ulster Irishmen, who, in the struggle which 
resulted in the creation of this republic, were ever first in high, heroic 
resolve, and ever foremost in the clash of battle, welcome to our 
homes as you always have been to our hearts ! 

Nor are any more welcome than our friends and brethren from across 
our northern border. Rome laid her hand on the land from which 
you come. God released it from her grasp and gave it to Protest- 
antism, and you are making good the transfer. Right eagerly we 
watched your struggle for union, and north of the border no hearts 
beat with greater delight than ours at your success. We recognize 
you as Christ’s fishers of men, and you recognize us as Christ’s fishers 
of men, and we will fish in each others’ waters, and neither Earl 
Granville nor Secretary Evarts will say us nay. 

When first the white man’s bark dropped anchor on these western 
shores the red man was monarch of all this broad domain, from lakes 
to gulf and from ocean to ocean. But now the inexorable steamer, 
on river and lake, has run down the red man’s frail canoe. The city 
stands on the site of the wigwam village ; factory and foundry smoke 
where the Indian council fire blazed, and railway trains howl over the 
red man’s burial-places. A few have survived, and in this Council 
to-day sits one with the undiluted blood of the red man in his veins, 
and the blood of the red man’s best friend sprinkled on his heart. 
Welcome, thou representative of a lone remnant of abused, down- 
trodden and buried millions ! 

And now to you, brethren in the Lord, gathered from all parts of 
our broad land ; from where the Oregon rolls and so lately heard no 
sound save his own dashings, from where Niagara raves down the rapids 
and leaps into the abyss ; from the banks of the Hudson, and the Mis- 


44 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


sissippi, holders of the Presbyterian system of all schools and names, 
we extend a hearty welcome. 

One hundred and seventy-five years ago, the first American Presby- 
tery was organized in this city. To-day, of its 850,000 people, nearly 
150 Presbyterian ministers, 120 Presbyterian congregations, with a 
communion roll reaching to 42,000, and an adherence of more than 
100,000 join in giving you a genuine Presbyterian welcome. 

Welcome one and all to the city where the first American Presby- 
tery was born and cradled ; welcome to the city where in the days of 
yore a Presbyterian General Assembly sat side by side with that Con- 
gress whose acts created the republic. Nor will Presbyterians allow 
the world to forget that conspicuous among the members of that Con- 
gress sat one minister of the gospel, and he a true-hearted son of 
Presbytery; whose genius, eloquence and weight of character empha- 
sized by the compact Presbyterianism of the land, in the momentous 
crisis which involved the whole future, went very far to turn the 
wavering scales and make the cause of civil and religious liberty out- 
weigh fear, hesitation, and untimely prudence, and whose bronze 
statue of gigantic size stands an ornament in yonder beautiful park. 

Fathers and brethren of this Council, in the unity of the cause and 
of the millions you represent, the glory of so many generations shin- 
ing behind you, their momentum upon you, and the future beckoning 
you, you seem to my eye to be kneeling here for a fresh ordination at 
the hands of an august Presbytery. 

Laying their ordaining hands on your heads, I see the stately 
forms of 

Memories that touch the very virtue of every high and holy senti- 
ment of man’s nature; the hands of 

Heroism in endurance and achievement that make man proud that 
he is a man ; the hands of 

Gospel Doctrine unmarred and unmutilated, and the Godliness that 
issues alone from its bosom ; the hands of 

Education, Sound Leafming, and Sacred Literatw'e, and last, but 
not least, the hands of 

Civil and Religious Liberty and Constitutional Government — a Pres- 
bytery of imposing presence and of commanding authority, bidding 
you, with this onlaying of hands, to be mindful of your ancestry, not 
forgetful of your obligations, and to see to it that the priceless heri- 
tage committed to you by your sires be transmitted unimpaired to your 
sons ! The Lord bless you and keep you ; the Lord make his face 
shine upon you, and be gracious unto you ; the Lord lift up his coun- 
tenance upon you and give you peace in the name of the Father, of 
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. 

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON CREDENTIALS. 

The Rev. George D. Mathews, D. D., presented the follow- 
ing report : 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


45 


At the Council in Edinburgh in 1877 the clerks were appointed a 
Committee on Credentials, and instructed to prepare the roll for the 
next meeting. 

Your committee beg now to report that they have received from 
Churches, already members of the Alliance, credentials appointing 
certain persons as their delegates to this Council. They therefore 
recommend that the persons thus named be received as members of 
the Council, and their names be entered on its rolls. 

Some of the Churches have, in addition, appointed certain other 
persons as associates, but as no such class of members is known under 
the Constitution, and the power of permitting persons not delegates 
to take part in the proceedings is distinctly reserved to the Council 
itself, your committee recommend that the attention of the Churches 
be respectfully called to Article III., Section 2, of the Constitution. 

Your committee have also to report that the Presbytery of Ceylon, 
the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland, the Churches of tht 
Canton de Vaud and of Neuchatel, the Calvinistic Methodist Church 
in Wales, the Synod of Eastern Australia and the Presbyterian Church 
of Queensland have appointed, as their delegates, persons not con- 
nected with these Churches, while in the case of the Free Church of 
Italy the credential does not bear that it was issued by any Church 
Court, and is signed only by the treasurer of the denomination. Your 
committee desire the judgment of the Council respecting such docu- 
ments. 

They also further report that they have received letters from the 
Presbyterian Church in Tasmania, the Cumberland Presbyterian 
Church, the Reformed Presbytery of Philadelphia, appointing dele- 
gates. As these Churches have never been received into the mem- 
bership of the Alliance, your committee recommend that a special 
committee be now appointed to consider what action should be taken 
in the above cases and to report at an early date. 

All which is respectfully submitted. 

THE ROLL. 

The roll of delegates was called, as follows, those whose 
names are in Italics not having responded as present. 

DIVISION L— CONTINENT OF EUROPE. 


AUSTRIA. 

Bohemia. — Evangelical Reformed Church in 

Rev. Justus Emmanuel Szalatnay Velim. 

Hungary. — Reformed Church 
Moravia. — Reformed Church of 

Rev. Ferdinand Char Klobouk. 

WLLGIUIA.— Union of Evangelical Congregations. 

Missionary Christian Church. 

Rev. Leonard Anet Brussels. 

Baron Prisse bii colay. 


46 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Division I. — Continent of Europe. — Continued . 

FRANCE. — National Keforvied Church. 

Rev. Adolphe Monod Carcassonne, Aude. 

Union of the Evangelical Congregations of 

GERMANY. — Free Evangelical Church of 

Rev. //. Rother Gorlitz. 

Old Reformed Church of East Friesland. 

ITALY. — Waldensian Church. 

Rev. Professor Emilio Comba Florence. 

■ Free Church of 

Rev. Antonio Arrighi Florence. 

“ Prof Henderson Rome. 

NETHERLANDS. — Reformed Church of the 

Christian Reformed {Free) Church of the 

SPAIN. — Spanish Christian Church. 

(Stated Clerk— Don Manrique Alonso, Correduria 48, Seville.) 

Rev. John Jameson Madrid. 

SWITZERLAND. 

Berne.— Church. 

Neuchatel. Evangelical Church of Aeuchatel, independent of the State. 

Y AVD.— Reformed Church of the Canton de 
P'ree Church of the Canton de 


DIVISION II.— UNITED KINGDOM. 


, ENGLAND . — Presbyterian Church of 

(Stated Clerk. — R ev. Wm, McCaw, Manchester.) 

Rev. Alexander Macleod, D. D 

“ Professor Wm. Graham, D. D 
“ H. L. MacKenzie, M, A 

IRELAND . — Presbyterian Church in 


. . .Birkenhead, 

Liverpool. 

Swatow, China. 


(Stated Clerk.— R ev. John PI. Orr, Antrim.) 

Rev. Prof. Robert Watts, D. D 

“ J. S. Hamilton, M.A 

“ Robert Knox, D. D 

“ James M . Rodgers 

“ John S. McIntosh, M. A." '.**.**'.. 

“ Robert McCheyne Edgar, M.A 

“ James C. Ferris 

« A. y. Hanson V.V.W.’.’.’.V.'.V." ‘ ‘ ' 

“ Jonathan Simpson 

“ Edward F. Simpson 

John Hanson, Esq 

Reformed Presbyterian Church in 

(Stated Clerk. — R ev. Robert Nevin, Londonderry.) 

Rev, James Brown ' 

“ William J. Maxwell, M. N. . . . . 


. . . .Belfast. 
.Banbridge. 
. . . .Belfast. 

Derry. 

. ...Belfast. 

. . . . Dublin. 
. . . . Newry. 
Kingstown. 
. . Portrush. 
Ballymena. 
. . .Antrim. 


Ballymoney. 
. .Liverpool. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


47 


Division II. — United Kingdom. — Continued. 
SCOTLAND. — Church of 


(Slated Clerk— R ev. Principal Tulloch, D. D., St. Andrews.) 

Rev. Professor Robert Flint, D. D., LL. D Edinburgh 

“ Professor Alex. F. Mitchell, D. D St. Andrews. 

“ John Rankine, D. D Sorn. 

“ Donald McLeod, B. A Jedburgh. 

“ John Marshall Lang, D. D Glasgow! 

“ James Dodds, D. D « 

Hemy Wallis Smith Kirknewton. 

“ C. M. Grant, B.D. Dundee. 

John Struthers, LL. D Preston-Pans. 

** Phos. Slater Derramara. 

A. T. Niven, Esq,, C. A Edinburgh. 

And, H, Gicihum, Escj Glcisgovv, 

Wm. John Menzies, Esq., W. S Edinburgh! 

William Graham, Esq Glasgow. 

Colin McKenzie, Esq., W. S Glasgow! 

John Neilson Culhbertson, Esq Glasgow. 

Bree Church of 

(Slated Clerk — R ev. Sir PIenry W. Moncreiff, Bart, D. D., Edinburgh.) 

Rev. Thomas Main, D. D Edinburgh. 

“ Principal Robert Rainy, D. D ‘ “ 

“ Professor Wm. G. Blaikie, D. D., LL. D “ 

“ Professor Alex. B. Bruce, D. D !...!!.. Glasgow. 

“ Edward A. Thomson Edinburgh. 

• “ D, D. Bannennan, M.A Penh. 

Robert flowie, M. A Glasgow! 

“ Wm. PI. Goold, D. D Edinburgh. 

“ Alex. Mackenzie, M.A “ 

“ J. Murray Mitchell, LL. D “ 

‘‘ Wm. Welsh ^ Broughton. 

“ Narayan Sheshadri ' Bombay. 

Francis Blown Douglas, Esq Edinburgh. 

Wm. Henderson, Esq ■ Aberdeen! 

George Smith, Esq., l.L. D Edinburgh. 

Edmund Archibald Stuart-Gray, Esq Perthshire. 

James Duncan Smith, P2sq • Edinburgh. 

James Macdonald, Esq., W. S “ 

John MacGregor McCandlish, Esq “ 

James McNee, Esq., M. D... Inverness 

United Presbyterian Church of 

(Stated Clerk — R ev. William Wood, Campsie.) 

Rev. Professor Henry Calderwood, LL, D Edinburgh. 

“ Principal John Cairns, D. D “ 

“ George C. Hutton, D. D Paisley. 

“ W'^illiam Wood Campsie. 

“ James Wardrop, D. D West Calder. 

“ John Stark ; Duntocher. 

“ John Huchison, D. D Bonnington. 

“ George Robson Inverness. 

“ George F. James Edinburgh. 

“ Whiliam Douglas Moffat “ 

“ John Rulhven Kinross. 

David Corsar, Esq Arbroath. 


48 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Division II. — United Kingdom. — Continued. 

Scotland. — United Presbyterian Church of — Continued. 


William Anderson, Esq Edinburgh. 

James Thin, Esq “ 

R. Finlayson, Esq Bonnington. 

W. Lyon, Esq Edinburgh. 


Reformed Presbyterian Cfntrch of 

(Stated Clerk — 

Original Secession Church of 

(Stated Clerk — 

WALES. — Calvinistic Methodist Church in 

(Stated Clerk — :Rev. Thomas Jones Wheldon, Conway, North Wales.) 


Rev. Wm. Roberts, D. D Utica, N. Y. 

“ Rees Evans Cambria, Wis. 

“ David Harries Chicago, III. 

Uriah Davies, Esq Columbus, Wis. 


DIVISION III.— UNITED STATES. 

UNITED STATES . — Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. 
(Slated Clerk — R ev. E. F. Hatfield, D. D., New York City.) 

Rev. Wm. P. Breed, D. D Philadelphia, Pa. 

“ Charles A. Dickey, D. D “ 

“ S. I. Prime, D. D New York City. 

“ Samuel S. Niccolls, D. D St. Louis, Mo. 

“ John Hall, D. D New York City. 

“ Thomas S. Hastings, I). D “ 

« Llenry A. Nelson, D. D Geneva, N. Y. 

“ Wm. Henry Green, D. D., LL. D Princeton, N. J. 

“ Villeroy Reed, D. D Camden, N. J. 

“ James B. Shaw, D. D Rochester, N. Y. 

“ Wm. M. Paxton, D. D New York City. 

“ George W. Musgrave, D. D., LL. D Philadelphia, Pa. 

“ Thomas J. Shepherd, D. D “ 

“ Joseph T. Smith, D. D Baltimore, Md. 

“ James 1. Brownson, D. D Washington, Pa. 

“ John C. Lowrie, D. D New York City. 

“ Arthur Mitchell, D. D Chicago, 111. 

“ Thomas H. Skinner, D. D Cincinnati, O. 

“ Arthur T. Pierson, D. D Detroit, Mich. 

“ Aaron L. Lindsley, D.D Portland, Oregon. 

Geo. Junkin, Esq Philadelphia, Pa. 

Robt. N. Willson, Esq « 

Hon. Wm. E. Dodge ' ’.New York City. 

“ Horace Maynard, P. M. General, U. S. A Washington, D. C. 

“ Chauncey N. Olds, LL. D CJlumbus, O. 

“ Wm. Strong, LL. D., Justice, Supreme Court, U. S. A. 

Washington, D. C. 

“ Thomas W. Ferry, Ex-President Senate, U. S. A. 

His Excellency, Gen. Geo. B. McClellan, LL. D., Governor of the State 

of New Jersey Orange, N J. 

Prolessor Stephen Alexander, LL. D Princeton N T 

Henry Day, Esq .New York Ci'ty! 

Hon. Stanley Mathews, LL. D Cincinnati O 

Benjamin Harrison. Indianapolis, Ind. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 49 

Division III. — United Continued. 

United States.— P resbyterian Church in the United States Continued. 

Hon. James Richardson St. Louis, Mo. 

Hovey K Clarke, Esq Detroit, Mich. 

Professor Ormond Beatty, LL. D Danville Kv 

T. Charlton Her.ry, Escl Philadelphia, P^ 

Hon. Joseph Allison, LL. D 

Prof. Theodore Dtvighi, LL.D New York City. 

Henry Ivison, Esq it 

Geo. S. Drake, Esq Sf_ Louis, Mo. 

Presbyterian Church in the United States. 

(Stated Clerk— R ev. J. R. Wilson, D. D., Wilmington, N. C.) 

Rev. Joseph B. Stratton, D. D Natchez, Miss. 

M. H. Houston Taylorville, Ky. 

“ Henry M. Scudder, D. D Ebenezer, Ky. 

“ Charles A. Stillman, D. D Tuskaloosa,’ Ala! 

•“ John Leighton Wilson, D. D Baltimore, Md. 

“ Joseph R. Wilson, D-D Wilmington, N. C. 

“ James A. Lefevre, D. D Baltimore, Md. 

“ Allen Wright Choctaw Nation. 

“ Geo. D. Armstrong, D. D Norfolk, Va. 

“ W. Urwick Murkland, D. D Baltimore, Md. 

Wm. E. Boggs, D D Atlanta, Ga. 

“ Wm. Brown, D. D Fredericksburg, Va. 

“ Charles H. Read, D. D Richmond, Va. 

• “ Jacob Henry Smith, D. D Greensboro, N. C. 

Hon. John L. Marye Fredericksburg, Va. 

Judge Thomas Thompson S. C. 

Wm. P. Webb, Esq Eutaw, Ala. 

Wm. M. McPheeters, Esq., M. D St. L.onis, Mo. 

Hon. Isaac D. Jones Baltimore,’ Md. 

“ Thomas A. Hamilton Mobile, Ala. 

Patrick Joyce, Esq I.ouisville, Ky. 

Prof. W. C. Kerr North Carolina. 

D. C. Anderson, Esq Alabama. 

Prof. Chas. S. Venable, LL.D Charlotteville, Va. 

Hon. C. B. Moore Little Rock, Ark. 

Judge James M. Baker Jacksonville, Fla. 

J. J. Gresham, Esq Macon. Ga. 

A. P. McCormick, Esq .Fla. 

Reformed Church in America. 

(Stated Clerk — R ev. P. D. Van Cleef, D. D., Jersey City, N. J ) 

Rev. Abraham R. Van Nest, D. D ; Philadelphia, Pa. 

“ Wm. J. R. Taylor, D. D Newark, N. J. 

“ Acmon P. Van Gieson, D. D Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 

“ Joachim Elmendorf, D. D “ 

“ John Thomson, D. D Catskill, N. Y. 

“ Philip Phelps, Jr., D. D Holland, Mich. 

Wm. H. Campbell, D. D New Brunswick, N. J. 

Daniel S. Jones, Esq Philadelphia, Pa. 

William Bogardus, Esq New York City. 

Hon. Peter S. Dan forth Schoharie, N. Y. 

“ Robt. H. Pruyn Newark. 

“ Samuel Sloan New York. 


4 


50 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 

Division III. — United States. — Continued, 
Reformed Church in the Ufiited States. 

(Slated Clerk— Rev. I. II. Reiter, D. D., Dayton, Ohio.) 


Rev, 'rhomas S. Porter, D. D., LL. D Easton, Pa. 

“ John PL A. Bomberger, D. D Collegeville, Pa. 

“ Thomas G. Apple, D. D Lancaster, Pa. 

“ Franklin W. Kremer, D. D Lebanon, Pa. 

“ D. Earnest Klopp, P.). D Philadelphia, Pa, 

“ George W. Williard, D. D Dayton, Ohio. 

« Scott F. Hershey Denver, Ind. 

“ F. W. Berlemann Philadelphia, Pa. 

“ Jacob H. Dahlmann, D. D Philadelphia, Pa. 

“ JohnM.Tilzel Irwin, Pa. 

‘‘ Thomas J. Barkley Sunbury, Pa. 

“ Jacob O. Miller, D. D York, Pa. 

« George W. Glessner, D. D Shippensburg, Pa. 

“ Nicholas Gehr, D. D Philadelphia, Pa. 

“ John F. Busche New York City. 

Jacob Rader, Esq Easton, Pa. 

Thomas W. Chapman, Esq Navarre, Ohio. 

Henry Tons, Esq Fort Wayne, Ind. 

Christian M. Bousch, Esq Meadville, Pa. 

John P. Reeds, Esq Bedford, Pa. 

United Presbyterian Chtcrch of North America. 

(Stated Clerk— R ev. Wm. J. Reid, D. D., Pittsburg, Pa.) 

Rev. President E. T. Jeffers, D. D New Wilmington, Pa. 

“ W. H. McMillan, D. D Allegheny, Pa. 

“ President David Paul, D. 1) - . .New Concord, O. 

“ Professor With am Bruce, D. D Xenia, O. 

Professor D. R. Kerr, D. D Pittsburgh, Pa. 

« J. B. Dales, D. D Philadelphia, Pa. 

“ D. A. Wallace, D. D., LL. D Wooster, O. 

“ James Brown, D. D. . . Keokuk, Iowa. 

“ John Comin, D. D Rix Mills, O. 

General D. W. Houston Leavenworth, Kan. 

Hon. James Dawson Washington, Iowa. 

Professor E. F. Reid Monmouth, III. 

S. B. Clark, Esq., M. D Cambria, O. 

Thomas McCance, Esq Pittsburgh, Pa. 

James McCandless, Esq Philadelphia, Pa. 

'W. K. Carson, Esq Baltimore, Md. 

Associate Reformed Synod of the South. 

(Stated Clerk — R ev. James Boyce, D. D., Due West, S. C.) 

Rev. James Boyce, D. D . Due West, S. C. 

“ J. 1. Bonner, D. I). . . “ “ 

Ho 7 i. C. B. Simofttan Covington, Tenn. 

General Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. 

(Stated Clerk — R ev. David Steele, D. D., Philadelphia, ?a.) 

Rev. David Steele, D. D Philadelphia, Pa. 

Alexander Kerr, Esq ‘‘ 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 51 

Division III. — United States. — Continued. 

Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America. 

(Stated Clerk— R ev. T. P. Stevenson, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa.) 

Milligan, D. D Pittsburgh, Pa. 

wn- ■ & D Philadelphia, Pa. 

William Neely, Esq York City. 

Samuel A. Sterrett, Esq., M. D Pittsburgh, Pa. 

DIVISION IV.— BRITISH COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES. 

CANADA . — Presbyterian Church in 

(Stated Clerk— R ev. William Reid, D. D., Toronto.) 

Rev. Donald Macrae, M. A. B. D St. John, N. B. 

“ Principal A. Me Knight, D.D HMifax, N. s! 

“ Principal D. H. McVicar, LL. D * Montreak 

' “ Principal G. M. Grant, D. D Kinerstom 

“ Principal Wm. Caven, D. D Toronto,' 

“ Wm. Reid, D. D «« 

“ John Jenkins, D. D., LL. D *. .'. V. '.Montreal. 

Robert F. Burns, D. D Halifax, N. S. 

“ D. J. Macdonnell, B. D Toronto. 

“ George D. Mathews, D. D Quebec. 

T. W. Taylor, Esq., M. A., Master in Chancery Toronto. 

Hon. Alex. Morris, D. C. L •< 

James Croil, Esq .'. Montreal. 

Hon. John McMurrich Toronto. 

J. D. McDonald, Esq., M. D .'.'.’.'.'.'.'.'.'Hamilton'. 

Thomas McCrae, Esq Guelph. 

y. B. Fairbairn, Esq Ottawa! 

James K. Blair, Esq Truro, N. S. 

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE . — DtRch Reformed Church in South Africa. 

Rev. Professor Nicholas Hofmeyr Stellembosch. 

“ John Albertyn Middleburg. 

Presbytery of Ceylon. 

(Stated Clerk — R ev. Henry Mitchell, Galle, Ceylon.) 

William Smith, Esq Kandy, Ceylon. 

EASTERN AUSTRALIA .— of 
Stated Clerk — 

NATAL . — Dutch Reformed Church. 

Presbytery of Natal. 

Christian Reformed Church South Africa. 

NEW HEBRIDES.— Mission Synod of 

Rev. Thomas Neilson 

NEW SOUTH WADES.— Presbyterian Church of 

(Stated Clerk — R ev. James S. Laing, Muswellbrook, N. S. W.) 

Rev. Principal John Kinross, B. A.. Sydney. 


52 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

Division IV. — British Colonies and Dependencies. Contiriued . 

NEW Presbyterian Oiurch of 

(Stated Clerk — 

ORANGE FREE STATE .— Reformed Ckurch of the 
OTAGO AND Presbyterian Church of 

(Stated Clerk — 

QUEENSLAND . — Presbyterian Church of 
SOUTH Presbyterian Church of 

(Stated Clerk — 

Rev. John Henderson Adelaide. 

TASMANIA , — Presbyterian Church of 

(Stated Clerk— Rev. James Scott, Hobart Town.) 

Rev. Robert S. Duff, M. A Evandale. 

VICTORIA . — Presbyterian Ckurch of 
(Stated Clerk — 

Rev. James Nish Sandhurst, 

Thomas Baillie, Esq Melbourne. 

Francis Ormond, Esq 

The following' additional names appear on the programme to 
read papers, and were enrolled as associate members : [See p. 23.] 

Benjamin L. Agnew, D. D Philadelphia, Pa. 

Lyman H. Atwater, D. D., LL. D Princeton, N. J. 

W. W. Barr, D. D Philadelphia, Pa. 

Hon. S. M. Breckinridge. St. Louis, Mo. 

Rev. A. F. Buscarlet Lausanne. 

Wm, H. Campbell, D. D New Brunswick, N. J. 

T. W. Chambers, D. D New York City. 

Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D Brooklyn, N. Y. 

John De Witt, D..D Philadelphia, Pa. 

Hon. Chief-Justice C. D. Drake Washington, D. C. 

Jonathan Edwards, D. D., LL, D Danville, Ky. 

Rev. O. Erdman Elberfeld, Germany. 

George Eisch, D. D Paris, France. 

Rev. Fritz P'liedner Madrid, Spain. 

Rev. Hervey D. Ganse St. Louis, Mo. 

William Gregg, D. D Toronto, Canada. 

Leroy J. Halsey, D.D Chicago, 111. 

PMvvin F. Hatfield, D. D New York City. 

Hiram C. Haydn, D. D Cleveland, Ohio. 

Roswell D. Hitchcock, D. D., LL. D New York City. 

A. A. Hodge, D. D Princeton, N. J. 

E. P. Humphrey, D. D,, LL. D Louisville, Ky. 

Herrick Johnson, D. D Chicago, dll. 

Robt, Lewis, Esq New York. 

Herman Krummacher, D. D Stettin, Germany. 

Rev. A. Mabille. Basuto Land, South Africa. 

G. A. Matile, Esq., D. C. L Washington, D. C. 

James McCosh, D. D,,LL. D Princeton, N. J. 

Arthur Mitchell, D. D Chicago, 111. 

C. Chinquy Kankakee, 111. 

Wilhelm Krofift, D. D Bonn, Germany. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


53 


Edward D. Morris, D. D 

Win. Omiiston, D. D 

R. M. Patterson, D. D 

H. G. Pfleiderer, D. D 

William J. Reid, D. D 

Philip Schaff, D. D., LL. D 

Sylvester F. Scovel 

Rev. Prof. J. R. W. Sloane, D. D 

A. B. Van Zandt, D. D 

y. y. Van Oosierzee, D. D 

Samuel J. Wilson, D. D., LL. D, 
T. D. Witherspoon, D. D. . ! . . . . 

Rev. S. O. Wylie 

Ed. de Pressense, D. D 


Cincinnati, O. 

New York. 

Philadelphia, Pa. 

. .Kornthal, Germany. 

Pittsburgh, Pa. 

New York City. 

Pittsburgh, Pa. 

Allegheny, Pa. 

New Brunswick, N. J. 
. . . .Utrecht, Holland. 

Allegheny, Pa. 

Peters!) _ rg, Va. 

Philadelphia, Pa. 

Paris, France. 


The report of the Committee on Credentials was adopted ; 
and the following committee was appointed in accordance with 
its recommendation : the Rev. Principal D. H. McVicar, LL. D., 
the Rev. D. A. Wallace, D. D., LL. D., C. A. Dickey, D. D., 
William Brown, D. D., W. Wood, and James M. McDonald, Esq. 


ELECTION OF OFFICERS. 

The Rev. Professor Henry Calderwood, LL. D., was chosen 
as President for the afternoon session. 

The Rev. Drs. W. G. Blaikie and G. D. Mathews .were chosen 
Clerks of the Council, and the Rev. Matthew Newkirk Assistant 
Clerk. 

OBITUARY. 

Rev. Dr. S. I. Prime. — Allusion has been made, in the sermon 
this morning, and in the address of welcome this afternoon, to 
the remarkable providence of God in the removal by death of 
some of the most distinguished members of this Council, and 
of brethren engaged in the work of preparation for its meeting. 
In obedience to the directions of the Business Committee, I beg 
leave now to call the attention of the Council to the propriety 
of making a minute of it on their record, and for this purpose I 
propose the following : 


At the commencement of its sessions, and before proceeding to the 
order of business, the Council would pause to recognize with rever- 
ence and humble submission to the sovereign will of God, the re- 
markable dispensation of his holy providence by which three of its 
official members and chosen leaders have been called to their rest, 
while in the midst of their labors in the service of this Alliance. 


54 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


The Rev. Elias R. Beadle, D. D., LL. D., was designated by the 
First General Council of this Alliance as the Convener, or Chairman 
of the Committee of Arrangements for this the Second Meeting. In 
the midst of his distinguished usefulness, in the apparent enjoyment 
of vigorous health, and glowing with the fervor of the pulpit, he was 
suddenly summoned home. 

The Rev. Henry A. Boardman, D. D., LL. D.,an eminent, hon- 
ored and useful pastor, was called by the unanimou's voice of the com- 
mittee to take the vacant chair. In the midst of his duties he too 
was overtaken by the call of the Master, and full of years and honors 
rests in Christ. 

The Rev. William Adams, D. D., LL. D., was fitly chosen to 
preach the sermon at the opening of this Council. With great reluc- 
tance he consented to accept the service. His wisdom and eloquence, 
his position in the Church, and his distinguished virtues and accom- 
plishments, rendered the appointment appropriate and deserved. It 
has pleased God to take this beloved servant to himself, before his 
voice could be heard by us in this Council of the Church. 

In addition to the brethren named above, the Council is called 
upon also to record the decease of the Rev. Peter Lorimer, D. D., 
Principal of the Theological College of the Presbyterian Church of 
England, a man of great distinction and attainments, who was expected 
to be present with us to-day, and to take part in our deliberations. 

And also the death of the following members of the Committee of 
Arrangements for this Council, viz. : 

Elder Morris Patterson, of Philadelphia, 

Rev. W. C. Jackson, of Philadelphia. 

Elder Henry B. Webster, of Canada. 

Rev. Alexander Topp, D. D., of Canada. 

Elder James Lennox, of New York. 

Rev. Mancius S. Hutton, D. D., of New York. 

The death of these elders and ministers of Christ, bearing official 
relations to this Council, is an event of solemn significance, which 
the Council would humbly recognize by making this minute in its 
proceedings, and by devoutly praying the Great Head of the Church 
to make this providence useful in quickening each one of us to holier 
diligence in the work of the Lord, that when w'e are called we too 
may be found so doing. 

Rev. Dr. Blaikie. — It must be considered a very superfluous 
.duty to second a resolution of this kind which, by its own words, 
commends itself to the acceptance of every member of the body. 
But Dr. Prime, having spoken very properly as representing the 
Churches with which these honored fathers were more immedi- 
ately connected, I would like to say that we, on the other side 
of the ocean and in other parts of the globe, do most cordially 


SECOND GENED A L COUNCIL, 


55 

concur in the tribute which it is proposed to render to the mem- 
ory of these departed fathers and brethren. 

I had the privilege three years ago of forming the acquaint- 
ance of the three American fathers that have been taken away 
from us, and I know how worthy they were of the positions to 
which they were called. I had the privilege of knowing and 
hearing Dr. Adams and Dr. Beadle W'hen they were in Edin- 
burgh three years ago, and would say more especially in refer- 
ence to Dr. Adams that we cannot forget the .service he ren- 
dered upon that occasion. We cannot forget his kind presence 
and his countenance beaming with intelligence and brotherly 
love. We have cause to be grateful for the tone his opening 
and closing addresses gave to the Edinburgh Council. Dr. 
Beadle, though occupying a less conspicuous position, com- 
mended himself, I might say, almost equally to our admiration 
and esteem, and Dr. Boardman, though less known among us, 
was as well known to be worthy of the position which was 
assigned to him. 

While thus referring to these names, I cannot help likew'ise 
bringing under the notice of the Council two other names, not 
of persons who had any official connection with it, therefore 
not of persons whom it would be right to include in the minute 
about to be adopted, but of persons who took a very lively 
interest in this enterprise and were very useful in laying its 
foundation. The first the late Dr. Duff, who presided at the 
first session of the conference held in London in 1875, when 
this organization was formed, and who to his dying day retained 
a very lively interest in this Council. The other was a layman. 
He was a member of the Edinburgh Council, a devoted 'Chris- 
tian — Lord Kintore. He likewise, in a quiet way, as I have 
good reason to know, lent very valuable assistance in bringing 
this enterprise into existence. He expected to take part in this 
meeting, but in the month of May last he found that other con- 
siderations would prevent him from doing so, and, both, by a 
letter I hold in my hand and by a personal message he gave to 
my son, he charged me to express his very deep regret, in the 
most respectful terms in which I could do so, and say how much 


56 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


he would have liked to be present among persons whom he had 
learned in Edinburgh’ and elsewhere to love and esteem so highly. 

It cannot but throw a cloud upon us to think of so many who have 
passed away ; but I do not think our feelings are those of entire deso- 
lation, because these, our fathers and brethren, have now entered on 
their rest and their reward. We rejoice to think of so many friends 
of this Alliance who have joined the General Assembly and Church 
of the First-born. It is sometliing, I think, to begin our conference 
with our hearts and minds turned upward to where they are. 

I trust that all our proceedings with be carried on with something- 
of their spirit, and that we shall feel, while we sit here, as if they were 
among us — at least as if they were addressing us and urging us to be 
steadfast and immovable in the work of spreading the gospel and in 
all the work of the Lord, so that God’s will may be done on earth as 
it is in heaven, and to use our utmost diligence while we have oppor- 
tunity to bring our fellow-men to enjoy the blessings of which they 
have now been put fully in possession. 

ddie minute was then agreed to. 

REPORT OF COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS. 

The Rev. Dr. W. P. Breed, from the General Committee of 
Arrangements, made the following report : 

The Council at Edinburgh appointed a committee consisting of 
members of the various bodies represented there, to act as a General 
Committee of Arrangements for the Second Council, to be held in the 
city of Philadelphia, in the year 1880, the Rev. E. R. Beadle, D.D., being 
Convener. On the nth of March, 1878, the committee met, when 
additional niembers were elected. The Rev. Matthew Newkirk, of 
Philadelphia, was appointed secretary. A sub-committee of their 
members to prepare a programme was also appointed to meet in the 
city of New York, having the Rev. Philip Schaff, D. D., LL.D., as 
Its chairman, and the Rev. G. D. Mathews, D. D., as its secretary. 
A Business Sub-Committee was also appointed to meet in Philadel- 
phia, with George Junkin, Esq., as its chairman, and Samuel C. Per- 
kins, Esq., its secretary. On January 6th, 1879, the Rev. Dr. Beadle, 
chairman of the General Committee, was suddenly called to his reward 
above. On his way home, after having conducted divine service on 
Sabbath morning, he was seized with pain, and in a few hours was with 
us no more. At the following meeting of the committee the Rev. 
Henry A. Boardman, D. D., was chosen chairman, and at a subse- 
quent meeting the Rev. Wm. P. Breed, D. D , was elected vice-chair- 
man of the committee. On June 15th, 1880, Dr. Boardman was also 
called to his heavenly rest. At the next meeting of the committee the 
vice-chairman was elected chairman. Besides Dr. Beadle and Dr. 
Boardman, eight other members of the General Committee have since 
the adjournment of the Council at Edinburgh been removed from the 


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SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


57 


scenes of time to those of eternity. Their names have been recited, 
and we need not repeat them. They call us loudly to “work while 
it is day, for the night cometh when no man can work.” The Pro- 
gramme Committee have held many meetings, and have labored hard 
to discharge the duty assigned them. Through what toil, anxiety 
and perplexity the duties of the chairman and secretary of this com- 
mittee have led them, no one can appreciate except those who have 
gone through a similar experience. The Business Committee met on 
the 20th of December, 1878, and appointed the following sub-com- 
mittees, viz. : A Committee of Finance and Audit, a Committee of 
Publication of Proceedings, a Committee of Reception and Entertain- 
ment, a Committee pn Place of Meeting and Decoration, and also a 
Committee on Railways and Transportation. These various commit- 
tees at once addressed themselves to the tasks severally assigned them, 
and have spared neither time nor labor in their efforts to reach the 
desired results. The Committee of Arrangements herewith submit 
the programme, prepared with great outlay of thought, care, and cor- 
respondence on the part of the Committee on the Programme, to be 
adopted and followed by the Council, subject to such modifications 
as expediency or necessity may demand. In accordance with an express 
provision of the Constitution of the Alliance, the Committee of Arrange- 
ments, through their Sub-Committee on the Programme, invited a num- 
ber of men, distinguished in the various departments of church thought 
and work, to prepare papers for or make addresses before the Council. 
The committee therefore respectfully suggest that these gentlemen be 
invited to sit as associate members of the body. The committee 
would also recommend that all missionaries from heathen lands at home 
on leave of absence from their fields. of labor be admitted to seats as 
associate members of this body. Following the precedent set by the 
Edinburgh Council, it is further recommended that a separate Presi- 
dent be chosen for each session of the Council. The Committee on 
the Publication of the Proceedings have made arrangements to secure 
a full and accurate stenographic report of the debates and doings of 
the Council. They have also, subject to the approval of Council, 
accepted an offer on the part of a responsible publishing firm, to pub- 
lish in an attractive volume such of the proceedings as may be sanc- 
tioned by an editing committee to be appointed by this body, and to 
place this volume at an early day before the public at a very reasona- 
ble price, and all without any expense to the Council. This commit- 
tee therefore respectfully suggest the appointment of the Rev. J. B. 
Dales, D. D., of the United Presbyterian Church, of this city, and the 
Rev. R. M. Patterson, D. D., of the Presbyterian Church, also of this 
city, as a committee to revise and edit the Proceedings of the Council. 

The following is the Programme referred to in the report and accom- 
panying it: 

The Committee of Arrangements will entertain the Delegates to 
the Council at a Social Reception, to be held on Wednesday evening, 
September 22, in the Academy of Fine Arts. The regular sessions 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


58 

of the Council will be held in the Horticultural Hall, and in the 
Hall of the Y. M. C. A. 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23. 

(ii A. M. — Academy of Music. 

Opening Sermon. 

William M. Paxton, D. D., New York City. 

(3 — 5 p. M.— Horticultural Hall.) 

Business Meeting. — Organization. 

Address of Welcome. William P. Breed, D. D., Philadelpnia, Pa. 
Report of Committee on Statistics. 

Prof. William G. Biaikie, D. D., LL. D., Edinburgh, Chairman. 

P. M.) 

The Cere7tionial^ the Morale and the Emotional in Christian Life and 
Worship. 

Prof. Roswell D. Hitchcock, D. D., LL. D., New York City. 
Modern Theological Thought. 

Principal Robert Rainy, D. D., Edinburgh. 

Religion in Secular A fairs. 

Principal G. M. Grant, D. D., Kingston, Canada. 


FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24. 

(9 14 A. M. — I p. M. — Horticultural Hall.) 

Inspiration, Authejiticity and Interpretation of the Scriptures. 

Prof. E. P. Humphrey, D. D., LL. D., Louisville, Ky. 

Prof. Robert Watts, D. D., Belfast. 

1—2)4 P. M.— INTERMISSION. 

( 2 ) 4 — 4)4 P. M.) 

Distinctive Principles of Presbyterianism. 

Prof. Samuel J. Wilson, D. D., LL. D., Allegheny City, Pa. 
“Worship of the Reformed Churches.” John DeWitt, D. D., 
Philadelphia, Pa. 

R u ling Elders. 

Hon. S. M. Breckinridge, St. Louis, Mo. 

C. H. Read, D. D., Richmond, Va. 

{ lYz—gYz P. M.) 

The Pulpit in Relatio7i to Fatnily Worship and Children. 

Alexander McLeod, D. D., Birkenhead. ’ 

The Application of the Gospel to Employers and Employed. 

William G. Biaikie, D. D., LL. D., Edinburgh. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


59 


Christianity the Eriend of the Working Classes. 

Hon. Chief-Justice C. D. Drake, Washington, D. C. 


SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25. 

(9)4 A. M. — I P. M.) 

Eetiealed Religion, in its Relation to Science and Rhilosophy. Eotyns 
of Modern Infidelity. 

“The Relations of Science and Theology.” 

Prof. Henry Calderwood, LL. D., Edinburgh. 

“ How to deal with young men trained in science, in this age of 
unsettled opinion.” President James McCosh, D. D., LL. D., 
Princeton, N. J. 

I— p. M.— INTERMISSION. 

2%—Ay2 p. M. 

Forenoon subject continued. 

“Apologetics.” Ed. de Pressense, D. D., Paris. Paper. 
“Agnosticism.” Prof. Robert Flint, D. D., LL. D., Edinburgh. 

(7)4 P. M.) 

Reception given to the Delegates by the Board of Publication, in 
their building on Chestnut Street, which has been placed at 
the disposal of the Council during its Sessions. 


MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27. 

(9)4 A. M. — I p. M. — Horticultural Hall.) 

Report of Committee on Creeds and Confessions. 

Prof. Philip Schaff, D. D., LL. D., New York, Chairman. 

A. B. Van Zandt, D. D., New Brunswick, N. J. 

Bible Revision. 

T. W. Chambers, D. D., New York City. 

I— 2j^ p. M.— INTERMISSION. 

(2)4— P. M.) 

Presbyterianism and Education. 

Prof. Edward D. Morris, D. D., Cincinnati, Ohio. 

“ Religion and Education in New South Wales.” 

Rev. Principal Kinross, Sydney. 

Presbyterianism in Relation to Civil and Religious Liberty. 

Sylvester F. Scovel, Pittsburgh, Pa. 

“Religion and Politics.” Prof. Lyman H. Atwater, D. D., 
LL. D., Princeton, N. J. 


6o 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


p- m.) 

Pi'esbyterian Catholiciiy. 

George C. Hutton, D. D., Paisley. 

Principal D. H. MacVicar, LL. D., Montreal. 
William H. Campbell, D. D., New Brunswick, N. J. 


TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28. 

(9^ A. M. — I p. M. — Horticultural Hall.) 

The Vicarious Sacrifice of Christ. 

Principal John Cairns, D. D., Edinburgh. 

Prof. A. A. Hodge, D. D., Princeton, N. J. 

Future Retribution. 

T. D. Witherspoon, D. D., Petersburg, Va. 

I— p. M.— INTERMISSION. 

( 2 ) 4 — 4 p. M.) 

Church Extension in Large Cities. 

R. M. Patterson, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa. 

William J. R. Taylor, D. D., Newark, N. J. 

Church Extension in sparsely settled Districts. 

W. J. Reid, D, D., Pittsburgh, Pa. 

“ The Evangelization of Ireland,” Robert Knox, D. D., Belfast. 

iiyi—gyi p. M.) 

Sabbath-Schools — Their Use and Abuse. 

Arthur Mitchell, D. D., Chicago, 111 , 

Evangelists and Eva^igelistic Work. 

Recent Evangelistic Work in Paris.” George Fisch, D. D., 
Paris. Paper. 

Joseph R. Wilson, D. D., Wilmington, N. C. 


WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29. 

(9j^ A M. — IP. M. — Horticultural Hall.) 

The Theology of the Reformed Church. 

“The Conflict between Faith and Rationalism in Holland.” 

Prof. J. J. Van Oosterzee, D. D., Utrecht. Paper. 
“The Theology of the Reformed Church with special reference 
to the Westminster Standards.” 

Prof. Alex. Mitchell, D. D., St. Andrews. 

“ The Theology of the German Reformed Church.” 

Prof. Thomas G. Apple, D. D., Lancaster, Pa. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


6i 


1 — 2 % p. M.— INTERMISSION. 

{ 2 %—^% p. M.) 

Grounds and Methods of A dmisston to Sealing Ordmances. 
Rev. D. D. Bannerman, M. A., Perth. 

“Baptism.” T. P. Stevenson, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa. 
Church Discipline — Its Province a7id Use. 

Prof. Jonathan Edwards, D. D., LL. D., Danville, Ky. 
Prof. Leroy J. Halsey, D. D., Chicago, 111. 

( 7 J 4 — p / 2 , p. M. — Academy of Music.) 

Sabbath Observance. 

Prof. William Gregg, D. D., Toronto. 

Rev. Hervey D. Ganse, St. Louis, Mo. 

Temperance. 

Hon. William E. Dodge, New York City. 

Popular Amusements. 

Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D., Brooklyn, N. Y. 


THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30. 

{ p / A. M. — I p. M. — Horticultural Hall.) 

Report of Committee on Foreign Mission Work. 

Wm. M. Paxton, D. D., New York City, ] • 

J. Murray Mitchell, LL. D., EdinburghV j 
J. Leighton Wilson, D. D., Baltimore, Md. 

“Co-operation among Missionaries.” A Communication from 
the U. P. Church of Scotland. 

John C. Lowrie, D. D., New York City. 


I— p. M.— INTERMISSION. 

{^ 2 / 2 — p/2 V . M.) 

The Proper Care, Support and Trainmg of Candidates for the Ministry. 
Herrick Johnson, D. D., Chicago, 111. 

“Church Order and Church Life.” J. Marshall Lang, D. D., 
Glasgow. 

“The World’s Demand for Ministers.” A Communication from 
the U. P. Church of Scotland. 

Systematic Beneficence. 

Hiram C. Hayden, D. D., Cleveland, Ohio. 

“Christian Beneficence.” W. W. Barr, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa. 
Mmisterial Support. 

Benjamin L. Agnew, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa. 

p- M.) 

Reports on the State of Religion in Heathen Countries. 

“Liberia.” Rev. Edward Blyden, D. D. Paper. 

“South Africa.” Rev. A. Mabille, Basuto Land. 


62 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER i. 


M.- 


Horticultural Hall.) 

Modes of Helping the Churches of the 


I Joint 


Chairmen. 


(9^ A. M. — I p, 

Report of Committee on 
Europea 7 t Continent. 

]. A. Campbell, Esq., LL. D., Glasgow, 

David Maclagan, Esq., Edinburgh, 

“ Our Relations to the Churches of the European Continent.” 

Rev. J. S. Macintosh, Belfast. 

Reports on the State of Religion in 

“France.” Rev. Adolphe Monod, Carcassonne, Aude. 
“Switzerland.” Rev. A. F. Buscarlet, Lausanne. 
“Moravia.” Rev. Ferdinand Cizar, Klobouk. Paper. 
Letter from the National Evangelical Union of Geneva. 


p. M.— INTERMISSION. 

(2>^— 4^ p. M.) 

Report of Committee on Desiderata of Presbyterian History. 
Alexander Mitchell, D. D., St. Andrews, ChaBman. 

“Diffusion of Presbyterian Literature.” 

Wm. P. Breed, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa. 

“ Church Work in Australia.” 

Revivals of Religion. 

Edwin F. Hatfield, D. D., New York City, 

Personal Religion. 

Prof. David Steele, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa. 

“Regeneration.” Prof. J. PI. A. Bomberger, D. D., Ursinus 
College, Pa. 


(7/4— 9)4 P. M. — Academy of Music.) 
Reports on State of Religion in 

1. “Bohemia.” Rev. Justus Em. Szalatnay, Velim. 

2. “Spain.” Rev. Fritz Fliedner, Madrid. 

3. “Italy.” Prof. Emilio Comba, Florence. 

4. “Belgium. Romanism and the School Question.” 

Rev. Leonard Anet, Brussels. 


SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2. 
(Horticultural Hall.) Miscellaneous Business. 

SABBATH EVENING, OCTOBER 3. 
Farewell Meeting. 

O 


During the sessions of the Council, a meeting will be held in the 
Hall of the Y. M. C. A., on the evening of P'uesday, September 28th, 
at which addresses will be given in the German language, by Rev 
Wm. Krafft, D. D., of Bonn ; Prof. Pfleiderer, Ph. D., of Kornthal : 
Rev. O. Erdman, of Elberfeld ; and the Rev. Fritz Fliedner. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


63 


The Rev. Principal Robert Rainy, D. D. — It is hardly neces- 
sary that anything should be said on this report. At the same 
time it is not right that this piece of business should pass with- 
out a very express recognition of the invaluable services which 
have been rendered to this body by the committee and sub- 
committees, whose labors have been referred to by Dr. Breed. 

Any one who thinks a moment of what is implied in our meet- 
ing will understand that the members of this committee, espe- 
cially those that have special charge, must have passed and must 
be still passing through a period of great anxiety, and, in addi- 
tion, that they have been expending an immense amount of 
labor in a series of very severe and distracting services with a 
view to our comfort and the success of our meeting. I am sure 
that we feel deeply grateful to them, and our hope is they may 
have the reward of seeing their labors crowned by a very suc- 
cessful, happy, and useful meeting. If that should be the case, 

. to them certainly will belong a very great share of the credit. 
I shall venture to say that they have furnished us with an ad- 
mirable programme ; indeed, the only feeling I have about it is 
a sort of fear that it is almost too good a programme. I wish 
we may prove worthy in our part of the programme set down 
for us to fill. I hope we shall, and that the committee will have 
the comfort and satisfaction of seeing that they have not overrated 
our ability to go through this very remarkable roll of work which 
they have put before us. I beg leave to move that the report now 
read be accepted and that its recommendations be adopted. 

Rev. John Jenkins, D.D., of Montreal, Canada. — Mr. Chair- 
man, before you put the motion in regard to the programme, I 
would like to suggest to the committee whether it might not 
be desirable to review the programme with a view to its being 
shortened, so that there might be more time left for our taking 
counsel together. It does seem to me that, if all that we reach 
during this Council shall be the reading of papers and a few re- 
marks on each paper at the close, even if there be time for such 
remarks, which is not at all likely, we shall go away with- 
out having accomplished what every one of us desires to ac- 
complish, namely, taking counsel together in regard to the 


64 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


great work which we, as Presbyterian Churches, have at heart 
and are seeking to accomplish. I do not desire to move an 
amendment to this report. I would rather throw it out as a 
suggestion. If the suggestion is adopted, and if it is understood, 
then I shall move no amendment. With my conviction I could 
not allow the motion to pass without making these remarks. I 
have every appreciation of the difficulty which the committee 
has had in preparing this programme. It is a wonderful pro- 
gramme, and the production is worthy of the committee, but in 
my judgment it is too large a programme for ten days. 

Dr. Breed. — May I call attention to the statement in the 
report that this is adopted subject to such modifications as may 
be expedient and necessary ; and therefore .in the report itself 
there is an opening made for the very modification that Dr. Jen- 
kins suggests? 

Dr. Jenkins. — That is all I desire, if that is understood. As 
I heard the report read, it struck me that it was capable of two 
interpretations. The interpretation of which it is capable and to 
which I take exception is this : that if a paper were too long you 
could cut it short, or if we overstep by five minutes the length 
of a session you could suspend it. If it is understood that we 
can modify this programme according to the necessities of the 
Council, I am satisfied. 

Rev. Dr. Knox, of Belfast. — I am in entire sympathy with the 
proposition made by Dr. Jenkins. It was the only thing that I 
regretted in the proceedings of the Council at Edinburgh, that 
we had not the opportunity, owing to the number and length 
of the papers, of opening our hearts to each other as members 
of a council might be expected to do. I am not prepared with 
any proposition that might carry out the idea of Dr. Jenkins, but 
I do hope that in some way or other this programme may be 
modified. 

Rev. Philip Schaff, D. D., of New York. — Allow me to say 
as a member of the Programme Committee, that I feel it is due 
in justice to all these distinguished gentlemen from Europ’e and 
America, to give them a full chance to read their papers within 
thirty minutes — papers which have been prepared with great 


SECOND GENEEAL COUNCIL, 


65 

care, and which I have no doubt will be very instructive and 
very interesting to us all. If we begin to cut down, to rule out 
some, where shall we begin ? where shall we end ? Can we do 
that at all without a palpable act of injustice to those that are 
thus ruled out ? I feel the difficulty which has been suggested. 
We had precisely the same difficulty at the General Council of 
the Evangelical Alliance in New York in 1873, and we got over 
the difficulty by dividing the conference into sections, two or 
three meetings being held simultaneously in the Young Men’s 
Christian Association, and in two or three surrounding churches, 
and in that way we got through the whole programme ; and I 
think it would be wise to make a similar division here, as 
from appearances we may not only expect this building, but two 
churches in the neighborhood, to be very comfortably filled, so 
as to give to all the speakers on the programme and to other 
delegates a chance to make themselves heard. 

Dr. Jenkins. — I shall venture to propose a resolution, and I 
will do it, not for the purpose of opposing or undervaluing the 
work which has been undertaken by our friends of the Pro- 
gramme Committee, but for the very reason which has been 
urged by my friend Dr. Schaff I do it for this reason : I want 
the Council to keep together ; I do not want the Council to 
divide itself into half a dozen sections to go— what for? to 
read their papers not to the Council, but in each case to a tenth 
part of the Council, leaving nine-tenths not to listen to perhaps 
the very best paper that may be brought before it. I think 
that this Council has come to keep together, and we have come 
to hear each other, to exchange views, to take counsel ; and I 
feel that we are competent to express an opinion as a Council as 
to the propriety of going through this programme suggested by 
the Programme Committee. I understand that this is now to 
be voted upon by the Council ; and I venture, therefore, to move 
that the programme be referred to a committee for revision, with 
a view to limit, if possible, the number of papers, and thus give 
more ample scope for taking counsel together in the Lord. 

Rev. Alexander Mackenzie, of Edinburgh, seconded Dr, 
Jenkins’ motion. 

5 


66 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


Rev. J. Murray Mitchell, LL. D., of Edinburgh. — Allow 
me a few words as one who has prepared a paper with some 
pains. I should be perfectly willing that only a part of that 
paper should be read, and that I be assigned as little time as 
the Council pleases. Surely the fact that the paper is, as I un- 
derstand, to be published ought to be perfectly satisfactory to 
every one that has prepared a paper. I should exceedingly regret 
if any papers were thrown out ; should very much prefer that a 
shorter time than was intended should be given to each paper; 
and then I entirely agree with Dr. Jenkins that discussion and 
friendly intercourse is unspeakably to be desired. 

Dr. Schaff. — Those gentlemen who have been invited to 
prepare papers for the programme were, in the very letter of the 
invitation, restricted to thirty minutes for delivery, while at the 
same time they were assured that their papers would be printed 
in full in the volume to be published. We have made an exact 
calculation of the time, and if every speaker strictly confines 
himself to thirty minutes, we can go through the whole pro- 
gramme as it is, and have ample room for discussion. 

Rev. Dr. S. I. Prime, of New York. — I most heartily desire 
that this resolution may be either withdrawn or laid upon the table. 
The committee has been nearly three years in correspondence 
with our brethren in different parts of the world, asking them to 
prepare themselves to present their best thoughts upon the great 
questions that come before this Council ; and I do not think it 
would be right, after the labors of that committee with their cor- 
respondents, at the very opening of the Council to appoint an 
extempore committee with the power to run a ploughshare 
through its work, and shut the mouths of any of these brethren 
that have come from all parts of the world. That appears to me 
to be too sudden an operation for even us Americans to submit 
to. There is not the slightest necessity for any apprehension 
of the Council being bored to death with these papers. I pledge 
my word to you that there is not a man here who will transgress 
upon the time after the very eloquent intimations that have been 
made by these beloved brethren that they do not want to hear 
him. I therefore beg that this resolution may be withdrawn,. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


67 

and that you will allow the Council to go on with its own work; 
when you see that there is any want of time for counsel, it 
will be perfectly easy for you to ask the^brethren to shorten their 
papers ; but do not appoint a committee now with the power tO' 
revise this programme, and cut out any of the speakers. You 
are needlessly alarmed, brethren ; there is plenty of time. 

Dr. Jenkins. — I ask leave of the Council, with the consent of 
my seconder, to withdraw the amendment. 

The President. — The amendment is now withdrawn. I un- 
derstand, under the statement made by the chairman of the Com- 
mittee of Arrangements, that, if at any time the Council wishes, 
a motion may be submitted for an alteration of the plan. 

The report, with its recommendations, was then adopted. 

REPORTS OF THE PROCEEDINGS. 

Dr. Schaff. — I wish to offer a resolution supplementary to 
the item which refers to publication. I do not want to interfere 
with the arrangements already made for the publication of the 
volume of proceedings ; I only want this Council to give more 
definite instruction concerning the amount of matter to be pub- 
lished, with an additional suggestion which, I think, is of con- 
siderable importance, and ought to be acted upon now. The 
resolution is as follows : 

Resolved, i. That under the provisional arrangement made by 
the Business Committee, the opening sermon, the essays and 
documents prepared by invitation of the Programme Committee, 
and a resume of the discussion on the topics of the programme, 
together with an introductory sketch of the Council and a full 
list of members, be published under the direction of the Editorial 
Committee. 

2. That a complimentary copy of the proceedings be sent to 
every programme speaker who has prepared a paper, and to 
every theological seminary in Europe and America in con- 
nection with the Presbyterian Church, at the expense of the 
Council. 

The Rev. Prof. Nicholas Hofmeyr moved to amend that 
Africa be included in the resolution. 


68 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

The amendment was accepted, and the resolution, as amended, 
agreed to. 


presidents of the council. 

The Rev. Robert Knox, D. D.— I would like to submit the 
names of certain members of this Council who may be invited 
to preside at some of our meetings. There has not been time 
to make out a complete list, but the following are submitted as 
brethren who may preside at the forenoon meetings of the follow- 
ing days, namely : The Rev. Dr. Wallace, Chairman for the fore- 
noon to-morrow ; the Rev. Dr. Niccolls, on Saturday in the fore- 
noon ; the Rev. Dr. William Brown, on the forenoon of Monday ; 
the Rev. Dr. Main, on Tuesday; the Rev. Dr. Lang, on Wednes- 
day ; the Rev. Dr. Watts, on Thursday ; Rev. Dr. Van Geison, 
on Friday, and the Rev. Prof Caven, on Saturday. In addition 
to this there is one other nomination, namely : that the Rev. 
Dr. Stratton preside this evening. I move the appointment 
of the brethren whose names you have heard to preside on the 
occasions I have spoken of 

Rev. Principal Caven, of Toronto. — I had the honor of being 
appointed to this position by the last Council, and I think it is 
well that these honors should be distributed as widely as pos- 
sible. I would therefore ask that the Council would allow my 
name to be withdrawn from that list. I very highly appreciate 
the honor, but I think some other members should be given an 
opportunity in my place. 

The name was withdrawn. 

Rev. Villeroy D. Reed, of Camden, N. J. — Certain gentle- 
men are there named to preside at the morning meetings : is it 
understood that they preside at all the sessions ? 

The Chairman. — No, sir. 

Dr. Reed. — I would suggest that the committee who have so 
kindly prepared the list, appoint chairmen for all the ses- 
sions. 

Dr. Knox, of Belfast. — I mentioned at the outset that there 
had not been time to complete the list, but I understand that 
the committee who have presented the short list which I read 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 69 

will be prepared very soon to complete the list of chairmen for 
all the meetings. 

The motion of Dr. Knox was then agreed to by the Council. 
The following is* the list of Presidents as finally perfected: 


Rev. Professor Henry Calderwood, 
LL. D. ' 

“ Joseph B. Stratton, D. D. 

D. A. Wallace, D. D. 
Thomas C. Porter, D. D., 
LL. D. 

Hon. Wm. Strong, Justice Supreme 
Court, U. S. A. 

Rev. Professor Wm. Henry Green, 
D. D.,LL.D. 

Hon. Horace Maynard, Postmaster- 
General, U. S. A. 

Rev. Wm. Roberts, D. D. 

Francis Brown Douglass, Esq. 

Rev. Professor D. 


Rev. John Marshall Lang, D. D. 

' ‘ Professor Nicholas Hofmeyr. 
Wm. P. Webb, Esq. 

Rev. Thomas Main, D. D. 

“ James M. Rodgers. 

T. W. Taylor, Esq. 

Rev. Robert Watts, D. D. 

“ James Dodds, D. D. 

Wm. Wood. 

“ Abraham R. Van Gieson, 
D. D. 

Hon. Samuel Sloan. 

Jacob Rader, Esq. 

Rev. James Nish. 

R. Kerr, D. D. 


BUSINESS COMMITTEE. 

The Chairman. — The next point is the appointment of the 
Business Committee. 

Professor Flint, of Edinburgh.— The motion which I have 
to lay before the Council is one in connection with which it 
would be unseasonable that I should take up the time of the 
Council any longer than it requires simply to read it. Its neces- 
sity is self-evident, and the names included in it will be an addi- 
tional recommendation of it. I therefore move that the follow- 
ing members constitute the Business Committee of the Council 


Ministers. 


Rev. S. Irengeus Prime, D. D. 
Philip Schaff, D. D., LL. D. 
James McCosh, D.D.,LL. D. 
‘‘ Robert Knox, D. D. 

D. R. Kerr, D. D. 

Wm. Paxton, D. D. 

E. T. Jeffers, D. D. 

“ Wm. H. Green, D.D., LL.D. 
William Brown, D. D. 


Rev. Joachim Elmendorf, D. D.. 
Charles A. Dickey, D. D. 
Robert Rainy, D. D. 

‘‘ John Marshall Lang, D. D. 
“ Wm. J. Reid, D. D. 

Wm. Roberts, D. D. 

‘‘ John H. A. Bomberge^D.D. 
“ R. McCheyne Edgar. 

Wm. P. Breed, D. D. 


70 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Elders. 


Rev. Prof. H. Calderwood, LL. D. 
David Corsar, Esq. 

Edmund A. Stuart Gray, Esq. 

Jas. Thin, Esq. 

A. T. Niven, Esq. 

Jas. Croil, Esq. 


Jacob Rader, Esq. 

Thos. McCance, Esq. 
Hon. Thos. ‘A. Hamilton. 


‘‘ John L. Marye. 

“ Wm. Strong, LL. D. 


With the Clerks. 


The motion was agreed to. 


STANDING ORDERS. 


Dr. Dales, of Philadelphia. — I hold in my hand the Standing 
Orders of the last Council, and I move you that they be adopted 
as the orders and rules for this Council, with such modifications 
as the Business Committee may think proper to present to the 
Council. 

The motion was agreed to. 

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON STATISTICS. 

Professor Blaikie. — The report on statistics which I have 
to submit is in the form of a large tabular sheet, which it is 
utterly impossible to read to the Council, but which may be 
printed in the proceedings of the Council. I have to state that 
this sheet contains a summary of statistics, received in reply to 
a query issued by the committee, to which replies have been 
obtained from thirty-four of the Churches connected with the 
Alliance. Of these thirty-four, thirteen Churches are on the 
continent of Europe, nine in the united kingdom of Great Britain 
and Ireland, six in the United States, and six in the British 
colonies. I have to state that the return might be made a little 
more complete if a day or two were allowed for the purpose, 
and if this sheet is remitted to the convener he will endeavor 
to make it as complete as possible. At the same time it is to. 
be observed that it is difficult to get a uniform system of statis- 
tics, because different Churches have different ways of acknowl- 
edging various things, and therefore you cannot always be sure 
that the return from one Church corresponds with the return 
from another. We may do our best by a few notes to indicate 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


71 


these exceptional cases. I have likewise to state that I think it 
would be of great benefit for this Council to authorize a com- 
mittee to request Churches that have no statistical committee to 
consider the propriety of appointing such committee in order 
that we may get authorized returns from all. In that way I 
think before another meeting of the Council, we shall be in a 
favorable position to obtain a uniform and satisfactory set of 
statistics applicable to all the Churches that are associated 
with us. 

The Council then adjourned to 7^ o’clock in the evening. 

EVENING SESSION. 

The Council was called to order at 7^ o’clock, by the Rev. 
Joseph B. Stratton, D. D., of Natchez, Miss., as President for 
the session, and was opened with prayer. 

The Rev. Roswell D. Hitchcock, D. D., LL. D., read the fol- 
lowing paper : 

/ 

THE CEREMONIAL, THE MORAL AND THE EMOTIONAL 
IN CHRISTIAN LIFE AND WORSHIP. 

Alliance always implies, always confesses separateness and differ- 
^ence, both before and after : as of families allied by intermarriage, 
nations allied by treaty, Christian communions allied by covenant. 
With families and nations, alliance is the highest and final good in 
that direction. Mankind will never be literally one family, but only 
a great conglomerate of families ; nor one nation, but, at best, only a 
grand confederacy of nations, of republics it may be, as Gervinus 
dreamed. But the Church of Christ is properly and strictly one, or 
ought to be, and will be: not ^^one fold,” as most of our English 
versions have had it, but, as Tyndale had it, and the Greek has it, 
^‘one flock,” under the One Shepherd. Such oneness must certainly 
be more than mere union : it is unity. 

This our Presbyterian Alliance of course emphasizes Presbyterian- 
ism ; but in no hard, narrow, narrowing way. It looks out in all 
directions, and is actually leading out, into wider fellowships. Its next 
logical consequent had already in fact preceded it : I mean the 
ecumenic Protestant Evangelical we call it, which, in 1552, 

John Calvin, as he wrote to Cranmer, would have crossed ten seas to 
assist in consummating. In time we shall see that still better ecumenic 
Christian Alliance, of which there is scarcely a sign as yet. And then 
;at last, in God’s own time, far down the horizon now, we shall have 


72 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


not union only, but unity, the real unity, for which our Lord prayed,, 
and the ages wait. 

Christendom is not Occident alone, nor Orient alone, but the t\yo 
together. Nor is the Occident either Protestant alone, or Roman 
Catholic alone, but the two together. And these nineteen Christian 
centuries are more and better, taken all together, than any three of 
them, whether the first three or the last three, or any six of them, or 
any eighteen of them. The one Christ is in them all, in all and in 
each. 

Christianity, even its bitterest enemies will admit, has been one of 
the great religions of the world. Is it likewise one of the decadent, spent 
religions? Is it now losing, whether fast or slowly, its old conquering 
power, and relaxing its old grasp everywhere ? Many men are saying 
this. And some signs might be so interpreted. Leaving the Latin 
Church, and leaving the Oriental Churches, all of them, out of the 
account, is there or not, in our own Protestant Christendom, a real 
decay of faith? How is it on the Continent of Europe, in Holland, 
Switzerland, and Germany ? How is it in Great Britain ? In the 
United States? Everywhere, I think, most of the great denomina- 
tions are lamenting, for one thing, a diminished and diminishing 
attendance upon Sabbath services. And they are complaining, for 
another thing, that the old doctrines of the Reformation, as we have 
called them, the doctrines of our earlier Protestant Confessions, are 
neither so stoutly preached, nor so cordially received, as they used to 
be. Mistake is easy in regard to such matters, and exaggeration is 
easy, in our present mood of mind. For one I think I see both mis- 
take and exaggeration here. And yet I cannot wholly deny the 
alleged decay. In philosophy, which always rules at last, materialism 
was never, probably, quite so thoroughly worked out, nor quite so 
overbearing, as it is to-day. Everything spiritual is very sharply 
challenged. The air is full of frost. The crops are all gathered in. 
Nothing saintly or heroic grows any more. Winter appears to be 
coming on. Is it the final winter of the solar system, the great 
central sun itself steadily burning out ? Or is it only the winter of a 
revolving planet ? 

We must not take things too easily, to be sure. Puritanism has 
been a great factor in history over and over again ; and, in some 
matters of vital moment, has undoubtedly had the right of it. But 
Puritanism is discontent, protest, resistance, revolution perhaps ; and 
is liable to be harsh, angular, one-sided. Its fellowship is strict,, 
jealous, intolerant. It is hard on the weak and foolish. It cuts 
down the number of the saved. The Novatians of the fourth century 
deserved the rebuke they got from Constantine in the person of their 
champion at the Council of Nice: ‘‘Take a ladder, O Akesios, and 
climb alone into heaven.” The mediaeval Puritans were, many of 
them, dualists. In England, two hundred and fifty years ago,. 
Puritanism and Presbyterianism were not synonymes, neither yet 
now are they synonymes, there or here. The Westminster divines^ 





y CATECHISM 

,„rnr„,r.,.^ proclaimed t 

mm A- D- 1583 .,, THtPIfltiS 

KffflH-AUCSBURC ''' 

AO'IEBS. 

MEtAN^HON 
URSINUSOLEVIANUS 
aOQUINDATHENUSTRSMILLIO 
PRE6BYTERIEN ESTABLISHED A-D 1570 

BAVARIA • A D -ISOa BADEN 
UNITED-ADI855-CATECHISM 



MICHAEL SCHLAmRSGALLSWITZERlANII 
WEISS BECHTEL - BOEHM 
FIRST COETUS.PHIIAOEIPHIA SEPT.Z9.I747 
REUTI0NS’"H0LLAND DISSOLVED A-DI792 


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SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 73 

of them, were much broader Christians, and much 
broader Churchmen, than some of us have supposed. At any rate it is 
a long while since Cromwell died, and we are now in the nineteenth 
century nearing the end of it, with infidel cannon thundering against 
us all along our line, from wing to wing. The old polemic theology 
IS anachronistic. What we had bettef have to-day, and must have 
to-morrow is an irenic theology, our guns all trained on the common 
toe. Such certainly is the moral lesson, and such, possibly, the 
special providential purpose, of this infidel artillery. We have done 
our part, ana have done it well, in pleading for and working up 
t^owards the maximum of faith, experience and character. The time 
has now come for us to be looking after the minimum. In Christian 
living we know pretty well how much there ought to be. It would 
now be well for us to find out how little there may be. Let us 
allow the Lord as many helpers as possible. He has none to spare. 
Whoever is really casting out devils, I will not say in any name, 
but in the name of Christ most surely, forbid him not. He may 
not be going just our wa,y ; but our way, even though it were the 
best, ^ not the only way. Folds may be many, while the flock is one. 

1. Of this common Christian life, which must needs be many-sided 
and manifold, the lowest type is what may be termed the ceremonial. 
Lowest, but not low. There is a great hiding of power in it. Con- 
sider the Mosaic system. Possibly we may be surprised to see how 
little there was in it of what we now consider indispensable to the re- 
ligious life of a people. There was really but very little of instructive, 
stimulating public discourse, very little of united prayer, and very 
little apparently of what has been called experimental religion. It was 
not exclusively, to be sure, but mainly, a ritual of sacrifice. The people 
stood looking on, while Priests, Levites and Nethinim performed their 
offices. Spencer may call it Egyptian. Others may call it puerile. 
Let us rather call it divine. At all events, it answered a great purpose. 
In sacred history it conserved monotheism ; in secular history it in^ 
spired and elaborated the toughest nationality which Rome en- 
countered in all her march around the Mediterranean. 

Mohammedanism is also worth studying. We cannot afford to 
misunderstand a religion which was cradled within eight hundred 
miles of Bethlehem, under strongly similar conditions of climate, soil, 
race and social state, has become the religion of other races than the 
one which gave it birth, has endured already for more than twelve 
hundred years, and though now, like Romanism, weakened, like it 
probably not very near its end. The Turkish Sultan, arrogating to 
himself the Caliphate, might be put into an iron cage to-morrow, and 
Mecca would not be sorry for it. Five times a day millions of men 
would still go down upon their knees on every continent, facing in- 
wards towards the Kaaba. Five times a day one little prayer, easily 
learned, quickly recited, not long enough to be irksome, and yet in- 
exorably required : this, more than any other one thing, holds the 
Moslem world to its allegiance. 


74 


THE' PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


If Christianity were a body without a soul, its life would not be 
worth insuring. But neither is it a soul without a body. The dis- 
ciples of our Lord asked him for a form of prayer, and he gave it to 
them. The Ten Commandments they possessed already. The 
Apostles’ Creed had not long to be waited for. These three are the 
germ of all the liturgies. At first the liturgies were oral, flexible and 
varied. Not till after the Nicene epoch were they reduced to writing. 
Later still was the Roman usurpation, with intolerance and exclusion 
of other forms. Now, in all liturgical churches, or nearly all, the 
liturgy is no longer servant, but master. There is too much of it for 
constant repetition. Liberty of omitting portions not always ap- 
posite, is unwisely denied. The absolute exclusion of individual ex- 
tempore petitions is equally unwise. And the over-shadowed, 
dwarfed discourse would be a great misfortune were good discourse 
otherwise more likely to be had. 

But these abuses of liturgy are no argument against the use. Our 
present Presbyterian baldness of public service is hurting us, hurting 
us in many ways which need not be specified. And the hurt is 
quite gratuitous, since the cause of it is not one of our old Presby- 
terian traditions. Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, and the 
early reformers generally were liturgists. Even the Westminster As- 
sembly, which was anti-liturgical, set forth its Directory of Worship, 
which concedes, of course, the liturgical idea. A liturgy, it has been 
said, is for children. Very well. What place have we now for 
children but in the Sunday-school ? And by what arts of responsive 
reading, light secular singing, amusing anecdotes, annual parades and 
picnics, the institution is kept agoing, you need not be told. This 
whole Sunday-school interest will have to be taken in hand by and by 
for review and revision. Children who now go to the Sunday-school, 
but not to church, will be brought also to church. And one of these 
days, though not probably till we are all gone, there will be a form 
of public service, which shall suit the mature and cultured none the 
less for suiting also the immature and uncultured. In this matter of 
public worship we have yet to learn, and we shall learn, that what is 
really best for any body is best for every body. No existing Prayer 
Book satisfies any good Presbyterian. Still less would any good, wise 
Presbyterian ask to have a new Prayer Book made up out of material? 
that are new. The materials mostly are old ; some of them very old, 
such as the Gloria in Excelsis, the Tersanctus, and the Te L)eum. 
The Doxology of Bishop Ken, Praise God, from whom all blessings 
flow, is our chief modern contribution to the worship of the ages. 
Prayer especially is a great inspiration and a high art. Somehow the 
old Collects put us all to shame. Christendom to-day could better 
spare any treatise of Athanasius than the prayer ascribed to Chrysos- 
tom, Fulfil now, O Lord, the desires and petitions of thy servants, as 
may be most expedient for them, granting us in this world knowledge 
of thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting.” The 
farther on we get down the centuries, the more precious will be to us 
the long unbroken melodies of praise and prayer. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


75 


I anticipate also a revival of the old Church year. Clear back, 
close up to apostolic times, we find at least Passover, Pentecost, and 
Epiphany. Christmas appears not long after. And then the calen- 
dar is crowded rapidly with festivals which disgusted our Protestant 
fathers, bringing the whole system into disrepute. As between Puri- 
tan and Papist, we side, of course, with the Puritan. But the older 
way is better than either. Judaism had more than its weekly Sab- 
bath ; and^ Christendom needs more, and is steadily taking more. 
Christmas is leading this new procession. Good Friday, Easter, and 
Whitsuntide are not far behind. These, at least, can do us no harm. 
They emphasize the three grand facts and features of our religion ; 
Incarnation, Atonement, and Regeneration. 

II. Next in order is the moral type in experience and character. 

It was a capital thing for Judaism that the moral law was its national 
code. There had been nothing like this in the world before. Bad 
institutions, the Hebrews had, and bad laws, to be sure. They had 
polygamy, easy divorce, inequality of guilt as between husband and 
wife^ in breaking the marriage vow, blood-avengement for murder, 
servitude, and semi -barbarous severities of penalty. But not an in- 
stitution, nor a usage, now considered immoral, was really sanctioned 
by Moses. What had to be tolerated was yet discouraged and re- 
strained. Hence, on the part of the people, a moral stamina more 
impressive, if not more pronounced, under the Maccabees than under 
David and Solomon. 

Christianity, besides the Decalogue, has also its Sermon on the 
Mount. Portions of it, at least, should, with the Decalogue, be made 
a part of our weekly service. That sermon is Sinaitic. It did for 
Christianity, in its first conflict with heathenism, what the Ten Com- 
mandments had done for Judaism. The superior morality of Chris- 
tians was the strongest argument of the apologist, the final argument 
of history. 

The old penitential discipline of the Mediaeval Church was one of 
its redeeming features. Slowly but surely it lifted Europe from lower 
to higher levels of condition and of character. The strong appetites 
and bad passions of men were punished, curbed, and often conquered 
by this power which pursued them beyond the grave. Declension 
followed, not as a wayward reaction against this steady sacerdotal 
pressure upon the conscience, but, logically at last, from the scholastic 
co-ordination of faith and works. 

Our Protestant reformers erred at first in their depreciation of 
works. The Epistle of James, which is to save our civilization from 
apoplexy and paralysis, if anything can, was rashly denounced as a 
straw-epistle. Things went loosely and wildly after a time, and for 
a time, till Luther was alarmed, dying at last, it might almost be said, 
of a broken heart. Justification by faith alone proved to be a dan- 
gerous doctrine in unskilful hands. 

This danger is chronic.- The change now most needed in preach- 
ing is just in this ethical direction. The moralities are called for, the 


5r6 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


great and the little. Instead of so much systematic and apologetic 
theology in the pulpit, arguing out the good old doctrines in the good 
old way, setting forth and establishing the things which men ought 
to believe, there is desperate need of our telling men, in the plainest 
terms, and in minutest detail sometimes, just what they ought to be 
and to do. Morally, Protestant Christendom, in most respects, is 
clearly superior to Roman Catholic Christendom, and always has. 
been. But we shall do wisely not to think too well of ourselves. Our 
Protestant civilization has a great deal to answer for. Great pros- 
perity is bringing in great luxury. Our industrial arts and trade 
stimulate greed, sharpness, hardness, and social abuse of wealth and 
power. The best thing which can ever be said for us, is also the 
worst thing which can ever be said against us; “ Ye shall know them 
by their fruits.” 

Many real Christians will never get much beyond the moralities. 
They have little sentiment, or imagination, and no great depth of 
spiritual insight or conviction. But they can appreciate the Ten. 
Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. They can lead good,, 
clean, square lives. Zaccheus of Jericho illustrates this type of char- 
acter. On a large scale, it is the Mongol type : not spiritual, but 
ethical. It embraces a third of the human race. When evangelized, 
it will be after its own kind. 

III. It remains to speak briefly of the emotional, which is highest 
of all the types. 

This adjective is not a very good one. Intuitional would suggest 
some things which emotional does not. Mystical, were it oftener used 
in a good sense, as in Germany, would suit us better. But we all know 
very well what is meant. The life of religion in the soul of man, 
what we call the experience of it, is a great thing. 

Standing face to face with the Unseen, there is, first of all, a keen 
and overpowering sense of the Divine Personality. The starry spaces 
are awful, not as being boundless and empty, but as being swept for- 
ever by the vision and the breath of God. The only shadow any- 
where is of sin. Self-impeachment begins just where and when self- 
consciousness begins. Till God has pardoned there is no peace. 
But when He pardons, we see new, great depths in Him, which His 
angels have never seen, and our little life lays hold on His for time 
and for eternity. Out of such experience come all the great psalms, 
and hymns, and prayers, and meditations, and high discourse, of all 
the Christian generations. 

The one inspired Book which best answers to this experience, is 
John’s Gospel. The one uninspired book which best answers to it,^ is 
A’Kempis’ Imitation of Christ. Such experience, vouchsafed, in 'its 
fulness, to here and there a favored saint, is for the advantage of us 
all. ^ These high raptures kindle lower raptures in us. Nearer to 
Christ than we are, these finer saints tell us things we should not 
otherwise have learned. Still we beckon, as Peter did, to the disciple 
that is leaning on the Master’s bosom. ^ 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 77 

But John is only one of twelve, some of whose names are altogether, 
•or almost, colorless in the catalogue. Peter, Matthew, James, and 
Jude we know — also Thomas and Philip. But not the rest. Thus, 
in l^rge degree, Christendom began with commonplace, undistin- 
guishable men \ has so continued, and continues. Its men and 
women, most of them, know little or nothing of any religion except 
their own. But of their own religion they have learned enough to 
live and die by it, and for it. 

This religion is, of course, essentially a religion of sentiment. 
Relationship to Christ, with no more feeling towards him than 
towards Confucius, or Socrates, is impossible. Religion, towards 
this incomparable Personality, is enthusiasm, mounting to great heights 
in its higher types. Of such men as Bernard, Tauler, A’Kempis, 
Spener, Fenelon, the Wesleys, and Payson, the succession shall 
never fail. But such men are_ few and far apart ; and evangelical 
Christians must not be too exacting in regard to the terms of fellow- 
ship. By such men we may measure ourselves, but may not measure 
one another without a tremendous risk of hypocrisy and cant. 

We also must have revivals. Feeling is always tidal, ebbing and 
flowing. But revivals, as we manage them, are full of peril. Times 
of refreshing are times of fervor. And if there be fever in the heat, 
we know what follows. 

Finally, without this high emotional type, we shall have no missions, 
at home or abroad. Mankind must be, not merely our brethren, 
ignorant^ and distressed, but sinful, imperilled beings, for whom 
Christ died. The sign of conquest in our sky to-day is still the 
same old passionate sign of the cross. 

The Rev. Principal Robert Rainy, D. D., of Edinburgh, 
read the following paper : 

MODERN THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT. 

There is great difficulty in framing a brief statement on this sub- 
ject. Modern Theological Thought is not one thing, but many ; a 
wide field of energetic, varied, and antagonistic movements. The 
methods relied on, and the results reached, by its various schools, 
could not be enumerated, much less discussed in a paper like this. It 
would not be becoming for me, nor worthy of the Council I have the 
honor to address, that I should pretend to pass judgment on move- 
ments and tendencies which I have not time to discuss. On these 
accounts I feel constrained to renounce the idea of being comprehen- 
si\se or complete. I will only notice influences which sway Theo- 
logical thought, and give it a special character. Even here I will 
speak mainly of one aspect of things, and I will treat it with great and 
intentional generality. 

Theological thought is subject of course to many influences. It is 
affected by the progress, the natural progress, of the various subordi- 


78 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


nate departments of theological science, which are, as it were, the 
tools with which theology works. For example, it has benefited by 
improved methods of exegesis, and by the increasing agreement about 
the principles according to which the sense of Scripture should be 
elicited. For another instance — the prosecution of the work of Bib- 
lical theology, as a distinct department, has done much both to clear 
and to enrich theological thought. Again, a very sensible effect has 
been produced by the study of historical theology. The calm, com- 
parative survey of the work of different schools of thinkers, the curi- 
ous dissection of each competing system, with a view to assign the 
theological motive of each — these studies have produced a mental at- 
titude toward controversies distinctly different from that which once 
obtained. Still further, new modes of centring theological thought, 
new assignments of the axis on which it should revolve, modify from 
time to time the cast of prevailing conceptions. Such changes may 
be influenced by pressure from without ; but they are much more 
to be referred to internal developments of religious life, which de- 
mand to be represented in the field of thought. Of this we have an 
instance in the Christological turn which so remarkably prevails in 
modern discussions. Many other sources and forms of influence 
might be specified. But I pass on to fix on this as the most interest- 
ing at present, and also as one that includes in itself many streams of 
influence — I mean the pressure exerted by the general thought of our 
time. 

During a period of great mental activity, maxims and methods have 
formed themselves on the general field of intellectual effort. They 
are found, or are supposed, to be valid in that field, and they claim 
universal application. They embody strong impressions adverse to- 
the admission of authority, incredulous of the supernatural, inclining 
to trust exclusively to what may be called material and tangible proof. 
They embody strong impressions also as to the condition of human 
existence, the measure of human responsibility, the past history and 
the future destiny of man. These maxims and methods press on the 
convictions and habits heretofore cherished in believing minds. 
They claim a right to alter or to subvert. How is this pressure to be 
dealt with? What is to be made on theological ground of these max- 
ims, of these methods? By various schools this question is diversely 
answered. Sometimes a hostile, or a precautionary, attitude is as- 
sumed toward the tendencies whose pressure is felt. Sometimes, on 
the contrary, they are welcomed, and their influence in a new shap- 
ing of theology is studied with predilection. Hence arise problems 
for all the theologies and for our own. 

There are various ways in which the working of this pressure may 
be observed. In all of them I think it will be found that the char- 
acteristic tendency is to abridging and qualifying dogmatic assertions, 
and throwing a haze over dogmatic distinctions. 

For example, we may mark the pressure I speak of in the apolo- 
getic character so largely assumed by our theological literature. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


79 


The occasion of this apologetic tone is familiar to all of us. We 
are passing through a period of very great, if one should not say un- 
exampled, unsettlement of opinion. Every theological principle and 
position is boldly called in question. 

The progress of this unsettlement is to be traced chiefly in the 
great critical movement which took definite shape in the middle of 
last century, proceeding generally on rationalistic principles, and 
which has ever since been unfolding its tendencies and results. A 
powerful and persistent attack has been directed against Christianity, 
considered as the religion of revelation, and as a divine interposition 
into the course of this world’s history. 

But along with this other currents have been running. Results of 
the critical process, or portions of its method, have been adopted by 
believing men. These off-shoots of the critical activity have been 
combined in various forms with the belief of revelation. And thus a 
variety of schemes have been put forth, none of which have won gen- 
eral assent, or proved able to supply a working basis for theological 
movements of the general mind. 

So far I have spoken of the critical movement which wrought in 
the field of theological and biblical questions. But of course one re- 
members how largely this was itself due to general tendencies of the 
human thought, transferring themselves into this special field . One may 
name the growing determination to be strict in the demand of proof 
for all positions not immediately obvious to the human mind, to meet 
all assertions with doubt, and to question the proof until its sufficiency 
had been assured. One may name also the disposition to doubt all 
arguments which seem to reason downwards from alleged first princi- 
ples, and to place the whole reliance on facts that can be verified as 
present and obvious. But besides these, and working more pro- 
foundly, there was the disposition to cross-question the human con- 
stitution, the bases of truth and of belief. Men learned to take the 
ideas of the human mind, even the most primitive and those which 
passed for most authentic, to question their origin and growth, to 
debate how far they represent anything real, and can be made the basis 
of any reliable assertion whatever. This tendency, applied to the de- 
partment of religion, has operated with great power. 

One effect then of all this, pressing on the theological mind, has 
been to produce an apologetical mode of handling Christian doc- 
trines. The theologian is conscious of addressing himself to a public, 
of which important sections are haunted more or less by doubt. 
Therefore he pleads for his positions j and he pleads for such positions 
as he hopes can be made credible or acceptable to that state of mind. 

In so far as the critical process bears on the sources of Christianity, 
i. e., on the Scriptures, we touch on the subject of inspiration, which 
is to be taken up in other papers. But I may observe that the apolo- 
getic tendency often reveals itself in this relation as follows : e. g.y by 
consenting to discuss Christian doctrine upon large concessions as ta 
the certainty and authority of the Scripture record. Grant that much 


So 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


doubt hangs over these Scripture writings, yet those cannot be suc- 
cessfully impeached. Grant that the measure of Divine guidance 
vouchsafed to the writers is debatable, yet even as mere human wit- 
nesses, or as good and spiritual men, they have great weight; and 
even on this basis it shall be made apparent that Christian faith and 
doctrine stand their ground. It is not meant that those who shape 
their reasoning so are themselves unfixed from the Christian convic- 
tions which they consent to hold in suspense in argument. They 
may be, but more commonly they are not. Dealing with minds envi- 
roned by a haze of doubt, they regulate their argument by the esti- 
mate they make of what can still be made visible through the haze. 

Criticism, however, has been applied not only to the sources and 
warrants of Christian theology, but to its contents. The doctrines 
commonly accepted in all the great theologies and those which are 
characteristic of each have been questioned and sifted. The con- 
gruity of the Christian system to its own principles and the conso- 
nance of its doctrines with truth and goodness have been powerfully 
assailed. And here again room is naturally made for that apologetic 
mode of handling doctrines to which I have referred. It is pleaded 
that at least so much of the Christian position can be made probable 
or acceptable, whatever modifications or retrenchments fail to be made 
upon the rest. 

How much precisely should be ascribed to this apologetic motive, 
in influencing theological statement, it is not easy to say. By the 
nature of it, it is an indeterminate and persuasive influence. It com- 
bines readily with other theological tendencies that are at work from 
other sources. But in general it is plain enough that so far as it 
works, it disposes men to retreat from definite dogmatic assertions, 
because those, at present, are in many quarters distrusted and dis- 
liked. Positively the tendency is to concentrate on the defence of 
the Divinity of our Lord (but with strong and careful dwelling on 
his humanity), and on the fact of the resurrection ; the one as the 
central article of spiritual Christianity; the other as the event by 
which the first is expressed and guaranteed. It is a modified and re- 
trenched theology, shorn of many of its leaves, that is apt to be pre- 
sented on these terms. 

So far theologians are seen in the attitude of guarding their domain, 
or what they reckon central positions in it, against influences or ten- 
dencies, conceived, on the whole, as pressing from without. But 
theology is swayed also from within. Theologians of various schools 
accept as valid, as ascertained and authoritative, positions, and 
methods of thought which suggest or require an altered, a modified 
theology. They welcome the co-operation of the rising intellectual 
-forces, in constituting the structure of theological thought. This may 
present itself as an altered exposition of old belief, or as an improved 
statement of rationalism, or as any of a hundred shades of belief or 
-unbelief that lie between. 

I may name the modern systems of speculative theology, from Kant 


SECOND GEN.EJZ COVNCJL. 8i 

downwards (to go no further back) as one of the forms in which 
the working of this influence may be studied. This precise way of 
exhibiting theology is not very conspicuous at present, among us at 
least. But it has been very influential and will be so again. Of the 
remarkable efforts which have been made in this direction much 
might be said, if they could be looked at individually. I can only 
advert to what is in some degree common to them all. 

One thing is clear: speculative systems are the very field in which 
one might expect to see how theology is moved by the forces that 
work in the general intellectual world. Here those forces ought to 
be reckoned with and weighed. For the object of such systems is 
not, directly at least, the practical service of the Church, nor is it 
edification. The want they meet is purely intellectual. The aim is 
to exhibit theology in its relation to philosophy ; or to exhibit it as 
one department of the whole of reasoned knowledge, continuous and 
coherent with the rest. It proceeds on the idea that theology, like 
other systems, must be pervaded by the questions : How do I know 
that I know? in what sense do I know? Theology is to be placed in 
harmonious relation to man’s faculties ; and not to these alone, but to 
the whole world of thought and impression which man has acquired, 
and to the maxims he has learned to hold valid. In short theology is 
to be contemplated in the light of man’s best conceptions of the intel- 
lectual world he lives in, and his best conceptions of the conditions 
of liis intellectual and moral life. 

Speculative theology is not in the best repute in orthodox schools, 
and has indeed proved very apt to overrate its powers, overdo its 
work, overpass its limits. It is easy here to err by adapting theology 
to a philosophy that is false ; easy also to err by identifying it too 
absolutely even with a philosophy that is true. But whatever exag- 
gerations or extravagances have taken place in this field, I do not 
refer to it for the purpose of denouncing the whole discipline. On 
the contrary I cordially recognize the aspiration, or ambition, which 
inspires it. I believe the effort is, in its own nature, one of the 
tributes which thoughtful minds pay to Christian truth, a legitimate 
tribute and a useful one, viz., by striving to bring their whole thinking 
into light, harmony and order. It may well be that we should 
recognize the impossibility of ever reaching a complete speculative 
scheme. At any rate it is the part of sound speculation to mark its 
limits; particularly, it .should establish the place and significance of 
mysteries, and it should learn how to pause in the presence of them 
when they are established. But this is only to say that speculation 
should be wise, not that it should cease. The great believing thinkers 
have commonly been, more or less, speculative divines. 

Now I have said that I cannot advert to the characteristics of special 
systems. Even the great distinction between those which are radically 
rationalistic, and those which recognizing faith strive to bring out its 
relations to reason, can only be touched, not followed out. But this 
may be said, that in all cases the tendency of speculation is to overdo. 


82 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


its work in the direction of rationalizing. This must be so ; and 
people need neither be surprised nor offended to find it so. There 
must be some besetting danger in every field of mental effort, and 
this is the danger here. The reason is plain. For the purposes of 
speculation, in order to explain, to unify, to theorize, the utmost use 
must be made of ideas which speculction reaches or suggests— ideas 
gathered in the fields of philosophy and natural religion. These offer 
themselves as the continuous threads on which the parts of a system 
may be strung, as the open pathways by which the mind can easily 
travel, as the explicative principles along which unity of thought may 
be attained. The temptation always is to make more than a fair 
use of these : tliey are apt to be worked so as to explain away the 
peculiarity of Christianity, and to disenchant it of its glory. For 
the same reason there is a temptation also to deal unfairly with those 
elements of Christianity that do not readily yield themselves to be 
theorized by principles of reason, or which, at any rate, prove 
refractory to the methods which prevail in the thinking of our time. 

The tendency, then, is to minimize these, or to set them aside. Join 
this temptation, which is naturally incidental to speculation, with the 
special conditions of our time, and one can see how readily the 
genius of Christianity, as represented in the speculative systems, may 
be controlled and dominated, even when not oppressed and slain, by 
the influence of ideas which are foreign to itself. And yet in each 
particular case one must ask the question fairly — has the theologian 
yielded to the danger of his art ? or has he only rendered a service to 
Christian truth, by clearing it of confusion, and setting it in its 
proper intellectual light? Still, looking at theological thought, 
as in fact exhibited in this field, it is, to say the least, a retrenched 
and moonlight theology, on the whole, that is most commonly ex- 
hibited. Most commonly one sees the old dogmatic ideas pale and 
shrink somewhat in the general adjustment. 

Before I pass on to another head, I will add a remark, partly by 
way of qualification, partly of explanation. 

Germany is the home of speculative systems. Though the influence 
of these is felt among us, yet in Britain, and I suppose in America, 
no such strenuous and sustained efforts in this department are made. 
I may be thought therefore to have gone too far afield in adducing 
this matter at all. But influence really of the same kind with that 
which I have just been describing, works powerfully among us, though 
>it does not so readily take a form in which it can be definitely reckoned 
'With. Thoughts, which in Germany would be weighed in a speculative 
system, exert their force among us in a looser, but an equally effective 
way. 

For example ; a very special place in the Reformed Theology, as 
we have received it, is occupied by what I may call the juridical ele- 
ment — the conception of reckoning according to justice. Our the- 
ology has had much to say of merits and deserts, and of the justice 
which deals with these. I do not put this forward as the central ele- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


83 

ment in our theology, or as the most influential. But perhaps it 
might be called the organizing or dogma-building element : by means 
of it relations take shape, and the other elements are measured, so 
that all fall into dogmatic structure. Desert, rendering of what is 
due upon trial, under law, is made the key to the whole state of 
nature ; it is the explicative principle in that department. Then 
grace takes character in so far as it appears over against this as its 
proper contrast and counterpart. Nay, grace itself is unfolded and 
understood by the manner in which it resolves the problem of desert, 
introducing a higher and more durable merit, which becomes the 
foundation of eternal life. 

Now in the theological mind of our time, there is a distinct retreat 
from this juridical way of conceiving and bringing out the divine 
procedure. ^ Of course I am not saying that this is universal ; but I 
do say that it is notably conspicuous. 

I do not mean that all reference to punishment and reward is ex- 
cluded ; although sometimes, certainly, even these ideas are denounced 
as not consistent with right conceptions of virtue. Generally, how- 
ever, the bixioBvvTi cfuittjptoi of the old Alexandrian writers is willingly 
recognized ; that is, an administration of government which en- 
courages goodness by benefits, and follows sin with sorrows that tend 
to school men out of it. But this energy is not, nor could it be, so dd- ' 
cisive in its operation as the vindicative righteousness of the Reformed 
Theology. It is disciplinary only. It is not conceived to issue con- 
clusive judgments nor to prescribe a decisive probation. It patiently 
follows the story of the race, and all the relations between man and 
God with salutary admonition — that is all. Naturally, the inference 
follows that , the same system will endure beyond the grave. And 
indeed the ’present stirring of Eschatological questions is just one con- 
spicuous illustration of the tendency I speak of. 

I am not now reasoning on the merits. I am willing to take it for 
the present, not only that the Reformed Theology can be mended 
and supplemented, but that the amendment, now under consideration, 
may have right to prevail. Only I point out that, if so, it is a great ' 
step. If the juridical element has to be obliterated from the Re- 
formed Theology, than, as a dogmatic structure, that theology is a 
mistake. It fails, in common no doubt with the Lutheran, and even 
with the Roman, but still more signally than they. 

Now the point to observe is the source to which this conspicuous , 
bias — not more conspicuous in theological literature than perceptible 
in privatcc onversation — is due. It is not due to any new light in 
the passages of Scripture, which sustain the conceptions of Reformed 
Theology in this part of its teaching. These remain as they were, 
not less clear and cogent. It is due it, may be said, wholly to certain 
impressions or general ideas in the minds of men, which produce the ' 
result by swaying the whole mode of thinking. Nor is it difficult to 
point them out. At one time much effect was due to the manner of ^ ' 
dwelling on the Fatherhood of God which began to prevail, implying 


84 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


certain affections always to be ascribed to him in dealing with his 
creatures, certain claims which all men have on him, as his children, 
and can never cease to have. These considerations were powerfully 
pushed in the attack made some years ago on the older theology, by 
a powerful English school, led by the singularly earnest and impres- 
sive personality of Mr. Maurice. This has ceased to be influential. 
'For, as the result of recent movements, the whole thought of God is 
becoming in many quarters something dim and distant. The sense 
of relation to him is becoming too indefinite, to admit of the enthu- 
siasm which, should push the argument, or of the eager and confident 
assertions on which its advocates must rely. 

More is due now to other forms of thought. Among these is to 
be especially named, I think, the thought of the education of the 
race. This is accepted as the true motive of providence, and the 
true key to history; and it has been gaining steadily ever since 
Lessing. The race starts from a point about which men may differ : 
perhaps it was indefinitely low. But the vindication of the Theo- 
dicee is found in the aim which Providence always pursues. Mistakes, 
follies, sins, take their place in a process, by which discipline is 
administered, and progressive advance is effected. The theory thus 
falls in with the i-dea of development, at present so acceptable in all 
departments. Looking from this point of view alone it is easy to 
conclude that the fall could not be a decisive failure of the race, as 
regards its natural conditions. Still less could it denote a judicial 
sentence carrying a doom which only supernatural interposition could 
reverse. Then the completely redeeming character, which we have 
been taught to ascribe to our Lord’s work, becomes something super- 
fluous and incongruous, and the individual man finds himself on this 
scheme related to law and gospel in a quite new way. In fact the 
distinction between them is abolished. 

This thought of a divine training of the race, always proceeding, 
lias been forcing itself into the minds of men from various quarters. 
It is present and operative everywhere. The elements of truth which 
it embodies deserve to be fully recognized. But it must be shown how, 

> along with the patient processes of the Divine trainer of men, another 
aspect claims equal regard. There remains on the side of man, ever 
present, that capacity and necessity of decision, that solemn, inex- 
plicable personality, which find expression only in liability to judg- 
ment, and in the solemn alternatives of righteousness and guilt. 

I might be content to have offered these illustrations. But I will 
recall to your minds one other instance of the fields in which we may 
watch the working of the forces which sway theological thought. 

Underlying the province of speculative theology (into the founda- 
tipns of which it enters) is the theory of religion. On this a great 
deal of discussion has arisen, and it has taken great hold of the gen- 
erabmind. 

The topic is taken up as one chapter of the study of man. What 
is that in the nature of man in virtue of which religion is possible or 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 85- 

necessary? What, viewed from this point, ought religion to be? 
How far can knowledge or belief in connection with religion claim to- 
be valid— on what grounds, within what limits ? The theory adopted 
may virtually exclude Revelation. If it admits that idea, it may per- 
haps undertake to assign what the objects and conditions of Revela- 
tion must be, and how it can relate itself to the religious capacity of 

In an earlier portion of this paper it was remarked that the effort 
of the modern mind is applied not only to criticise proofs, in the 
ordinary sense, but to sift and analyze the primitive ideas of the mind 
Itself, questioning each as to its origin, its authority, and its right to 
furnish suggestions or to ground beliefs. The discussions concerning 
t^he theory of religion illustrate this statement. Those discussions 
have proceeded along a double line, not always with harmonious- 
results. On the one side, metaphysical or psychological discussion 
has been applied to the human consciousness, with a view to settle- 
the nature and worth of its testimony. On the other hand, histori-- 
cal inquiry is directed upon the phenomena of human religion in 
various ages and among various races, with conjectural outlook towards 
prehistoric times and peoples. Hence, it is thought, conclusions may 
be gathered as to the causes from which religion spring and the man- 
ner in which they grow. Either way, the phases assumed by human- 
religions are classified, and the relation in which Christianity stands 
to other forms of religion is assigned. 

In this line of discussion, the place and claims of religion, its root 
in human nature, and its connection with the noblest human aspira- 
tions may be brought out with great force. Moreover, the dignity 
of Christianity can receive very welcome illustration, as presenting the' 
worthiest conception of religion ever embodied in a popular form, 
and as embracing among its teachings some which never henceforth, 
can be omitted in any reasonable speculation on the nature of man. 
No doubt Christianity sometimes receives this place at the cost of 
being made to figure only as a human system, excellent in some' 
aspects, but mixed and imperfect in others. Still, the advantage- 
pointed out, as opened to the Christian thinker, remains, and use' 
should be made of it. 

On the other hand, it must be admitted that the too frequent ten-- 
dency of this class of discussions is to obscure or to obliterate the dis- 
tinction between the natural and the supernatural. Even when not 
directly aimed at or expressly claimed, the current is apt to drift that 
way. Theories, such as we are now speaking of, necessarily start from 
below. They are projected from the human point of view. They 
havq man as the centre, and human wants and capacities as the ruling 
thoughts. In so far as Christianity comes into view, it is estimated 
by the degree in which it answers to a standard which the progress 
of history has suggested, or which science ruminating in human nature 
has assigned. That is all right if it were rightly done. Speculation 
might say, “ So far I can go with my resources ; I do not claim that 
this is all.” But, in point of fact, speculation is seldom so bashful. 


86 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

Discussions of this class have become a powerful force in the public 
mind. The theologian, in his own province, is aware that his con- 
clusions will have to justify themselves over against presumptions 
which those discussions have created. And besides, he is personally 
swayed by the impressions on this subject which have gained his 
mind. His representation of Christianity will be swayed by his concep- 
tion of the nature and office of religion. And his conception of the 
nature and office of religion has been formed, probably, in full con- 
tact with all the tendencies of the modern time, as these shape them- 
selves when religion comes into view. It is not my business, nor my 
intention, to decide whether a due or an undue use of suggestions aris- 
ing in this quarter has been made by modern theologians. But I may 
say that when the temptations here arising are allowed unduly to pre- 
vail, the result is a tendency to refine away everything in Christianity 
that goes beyond natural religion. The theologian stumbles on the 
person of Christ ; he looks with suspicion on the supernatural. He 
may take note of sin, but he cannot give effect to the intense concep- 
tion of it which Christianity embodies. To this habit of mind the 
dogmatic Christianity in which God is heard speaking, and man is 
for God, comes to be felt as something strange. Most of all will 
reformed theology suffer under such influences — reformed theology, of 
which it is either the opprobrium or the glory that it follows Scrip- 
ture teaching up to the supreme heights and launches forth its theology 
from thence. Doctrinal truths will be minimized, attenuated, and 
toned down, and the whole Christian theology will assume a dim 
moonlight aspect. 

I am far from imputing these characteristics as attaching generally 
wherever theology has been influenced by the course of thought on 
the theory of religion. All such sources of influence may be used 
well or used ill. But I think I may point to two effects which have 
been produced so generally by it that they are in a good degree charac- 
teristic. They prevail widely, and mark the works of honored and 
valued men. I attribute them as effects to the discussion on the theory 
of religion ; but under this I include all recent discussion on man’s 
religious capacities and susceptibilities. The close scrutiny of these 
has led, first, to what I may describe as a solicitous attention to the 
natural. Where the natural and supernatural come together, the ut- 
most care is taken to give to nature everything that can in reason be 
ascribed to her. It is become a kind of punctilio. The natural, 
which used perhaps to be rather a ste]:>child in orthodox houses, is 
now become the spoilt child of the family. Secondly, the same close 
analysis of human capacities and cravings in the matter of religion, 
and the stress laid on the idea that all revelation must be relative to 
the subject who receives it, have produced another effect. An altered 
mode of conceiving and stating doctrines may be observed. Formerly 
doctrines used to be presented as the expression of revealed fact, or 
as divinely prescribed methods under which God deals with men, or 
men may deal with God. But now they appear- rather as modes of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


S? 

human feeling and experience. They are moulds into which human 
thought may or ought to shape itself; they denote the character and 
movement which human experience may assume in certain relations. 
1 he object aimed at by this manner of conceiving and stating is 
probably this, viz., to fix attention on the principle that whatever 
divine element Christianity contains, it is not the divine simply, but 
die divine under human conditions. Now let it be granted that some- 
thing is gained when theology shows strict regard not only to the 
divine source from which Christian teaching comes, but also to the 
human conditions under which it must both be presented and received. 
Yet it must be granted also, on the other hand, that the tendency 
which I describe gives an altered color even to the truths which it re- 
tains ; and it suggests as the test of truth, not so much the question, 
What has God revealed, but rather the question, What will prove ac- 
ceptable and workable in the line of human experience? 

I have touched on topics casually selected from among others that 
might have been adduced as fitly. But what I have said may suffice 
to indicate the forms and avenues of force I have in view, when I 
speak of the pressure of the general thought of the time on the theo- 
logical mind. I repeat that this is not adduced as by any means the 
only noteworthy characteristic of modern theological thought, but it 
seems to me the most important. Nor do I imagine all modern theo- 
logical thought to be biased in one direction, for some schools and 
men react with vigorous antagonism against the views that prevail. 
But then it is just against this they feel it needful to react. All 
schools feel and reckon with the pressure of the time. 

Thus considered, modern theology bears the aspect of one who re- 
volves and ponders the necessity of a revision and the propriety of 
a reaction. A question is in presence about the earlier theologies, 
the theology of the churches and the confessions. These earlier the- 
ologies — take them as a whole-may be described as projected simply 
from the point of view of Bible teaching and of faith. In inten- 
tion, at least, that was their character, whatever perversities of method 
clung to them. The question now everywhere in the air is. Did not 
all those theologies overdo the confidence of their interpretations and 
the sweep of their conclusions? Did they not, as some think, trust 
their sources too simply, i. e., trust too much to the Bible? Or did 
they not, as others say, interpret those sources too unguardedly, tak- 
ing that as absolute which was true only under qualification, and that 
as universal, which was true only secundwn quid? And if such errors 
do attach, is it in great and substantial matters, or only in small and 
circumstantial, that the errors arc ? 

Working at the question thus suggested, modern theological thought 
takes counsel 'in a great variety of quarters. It meditates much on 
the method and mental movement of the sacred wuiters in order that, 
discovering how the general truth lay in their minds, it may the bet- 
ter judge how far their particular utterances were meant to go and 
what inferences they were meant to warrant. It ruminates on the 


88 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


history of theology, tracing the influences under which particular 
doctrines rose into prominence, in order that it may the better weigh 
their character and worth. It takes counsel with philosophy as the 
exponent of man’s deliberate tlmugbt on the intellectual world he 
lives in, and labors to adjust its interpretation of Christianity to rea- 
sonable views of that. It surveys the history of religions; it listens 
to discussions on man’s religious instincts and capacities, and lays 
great weight on any corroboration of its teachings which it may receive 
from that quarter. But I need not run on, though the list could 
easily be extended. Thus busily pondering, theological, thought may 
claim, perhaps, to be more calm, more catholic, more considerate, 
more human, perhaps, in so far as it bears so strict a regard to what 
human nature asks or seems capable to bear. Whether these claims be 
allowed or not, we must add, that of this modern theological thought 
a portion must be characterized as distinctly unbelieving ; and where 
it is believing, the faith is seen rather dealing with perplexities and 
feeling its way through niceties and competing considerations, than 
faith uttering the trumpet-notes of confidence and enthusiasm which 
ring in the older theology and echo even through its dialectic and 
polemic. Yet let us remember that patient dealing with doubts may 
be indeed a work of faith, and sometimes ihe work. 

Therefore also I hold it to be not in my right, in a general sketch 
like this, and antecedently to discussion of the merits, to make any 
sweeping assumptions as to the merits or demerits of this tendency 
as a whole. In so far, indeed, as it is visibly unbelieving and ques- 
tions the authority of revelation, it is judged already and its doom is 
sure ; but in so far as it brings into question the thoughts of men 
about revelation, we must be ready to join issue without fear or favor. 
No doubt the Lord of providence has some good ends in view in con- 
nection with this long revision of the grounds and contents of-Chris- 
tianity ; but these ends may be very different from those which the 
promoters of the process intend. 

We who meet here are not of the number of those who anticipate 
that sweeping changes will prove inevitable or imperative. That which 
we doubtless all desire for the churches we represent is that they may 
be found ready to vindicate the place and the testimony of God’s word. 
There is need of this, for the variety of sources from which argument 
is drawn and influence accepted does tend to turn the minds of men 
from due thoughts of the place and rights of Scripture. And yet this 
duty is not always so simple as is seems ; for it is always possible 
that the older theology may have retained a leaven from the maxims 
and methods of the days when it was formed — a leaven which claims 
no respect now ; and it is possible that the modern theology, in its 
busy converse with various forms of human thought and learning, may 
receive suggestions on some points which do not mislead from Scrip- 
ture, but which help to discern and seize their true sense. The ques- 
tion after all is how the mind of Christ bears upon and is related to 
the mind of our time in its various forms. “ Such and such have 






PICTET TURRETINLAVATER 
BUXTORFKNOX'WETTSTEIN 
OSTERWALD D’AUBIGNt 
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SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


89 

said unto you, but I say unto you.” One would wish to be able 
v^igilantly to mark and clearly to enunciate how the very mind of 
Christ — his pvealed mind — strikes upon and strikes into the human 
ferment, dividing, judging, guiding. In order to this we must study 
the revealing word ; but we must also study our time in its mental 
workings, and that with candor, and as much as may be with sym- 
pathy. We must encounter with God’s help the pressure of its 
thought, and seek both to know and to show how the thoughts of 
our Lord bear on it. Without this there may perhaps be high medi- 
tation in some directions ; without it there may be useful theological 
rehearsals of truth received, and there may be useful preaching, theo- 
logical or not ; but without it there will not be in any sense that that 
will be helpful in our time — Theological d'hought. 

It is a practical question how best to gain a hearing for the word 
of Christ, supposing we are in any measure furnished to declare it, 
especially in such an age as ours, which is, I think, less unbelieving 
than it sometimes seems, but which certainly scrutinizes keenly what- 
ever is alleged on the authority of revelation, and subjects whatever 
comes in that character to a hundred tests and questions. It will not 
improve our influence if we bring Christ’s word mixed copiously with 
the wisdom of our own minds or our fathers' ; nor will it improve our 
influence if men see cause to think that we have no especial anxiety 
or care to avoid that mixture. 

I will here propound what is perhaps a paradox. If so it may be 
useful to any one that wishes something to object to. It is a com- 
mon feeling, and the practice of controversy confirms it, that the 
true way to be impressive and successful is to take the attitude of 
those who are sure of everything, and to put one’s whole case with 
undoubting strength and force. Now I have sometimes thought that 
Christian theologians — or let us say at ];resent, the reformed — will 
not make much way, or not so much as the time requires, unless they 
are seen, applying to their processes and results, a kind of self-criti- 
cism. An impression is extensively entertained, and it is not wholly 
groundless, that our Christian argument, as commonly propounded, 
is a kind of conglomerate. It contains various not very coherent 
materials. It is drawn from various sources. In different parts it 
relies on different orders of proof, aiid varies indefinitely in degrees 
of cogency. And yet the results are j)ut to men very much in the 
same way and have the same claims made for them. Hence a con- 
fused impression about the kind.and amount of obligation to believe 
that attaches to each element of the whole. Now we need not be 
ashamed of holding conclusions, some of which are less strongly 
grounded than others. That is exactly what we are meant to have. 
But then the varying strength of reason should be owned. It should 
be seen to be a matter that interests ourselves. Suppose the old ques- 
tion of the reason of faith — the grounds and method of our assurance 
that God speaks — were revived with more of care and interest than 
have been commonly evinced of late. Suppose that instead of only 


90 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


setting it as an argument against unbelievers, we applied our own 
principles on this subject to the general body of our opinions, and 
the structure of our arguments. Suppose it became usual for us to 
recognize degrees of certainty in our conclusions on different points, 
and to seek to appreciate those degrees — distinguishing what is funda- 
mental in the faith, and ranks as clear Christian certainty, from what 
is more or less matter of reasonable likelihood, of inference, or of 
speculation. We all own, in a general way, that our positions vary 
in strength of evidence and in cogency of obligation in the under- 
standing. But could not effect be given to this in a habit of candid 
self-criticism? It might be a bold undertaking to try this, in detail. 
But may we not doubt whether much impression will be produced on 
the age, till in some way or other it appears to men that we take a 
cordial and candid interest in the gradation and proportion of strength 
pertaining to our own arguments? In this way perhaps something 
would be done towards meeting a desideratum which some have signal- 
ized. There are believing theologians who desire that a discrimina- 
tion may be made in the practice of our Churches, between two the- 
ologies, a biblical one, and one that is speculative or philosophical. 
The first would represent the matter of Christian creed, and would 
contain the main things which the Bible propounds to faith. The 
other should be the platform on which men might propound without 
offense any revered thoughts they had as to the manner in which 
Bible teaching should be conceived to relate itself to philosophical 
questions or efforts, to the human soul, or to the whole world of truth 
which the mind of man from various sources has received. I need 
not argue the point. But I do not myself see how this distinction is 
to be made. At least I do not see it, if the distinction is to be more 
than ideal, if it is to affect the practice of the Churches and the theo- 
logical responsibilities of office-bearers. But the practical ends desid- 
erated might perhaps be gained along the line I have suggested, if 
our theology accustomed itself to mark differences of the kind I have 
indicated; if, with its believing fervor it combined more of a critical 
reflection on itself ; if it exhibited an effort, cordial and habitual, to 
estimate, how far it is dealing with immutable certainties, and how 
far moving into regions and along lines where the consciousness of 
human liability to err should be not only cherished but acknowl- 
edged, and even emphasized. 

The Rev. Principal G. M. Grant, D. D., of Kingston, Can- 
ada, read the following paper : 

THE REL.\TION OF RELIGION TO SECULAR LIFE. 

Secular life: what does it include? The life of the senses; family 
and social life ; industrialism; trade and commerce ; politics; science, 
opening new pages to its students every day; art, revealing fresh 
beauty to each young age that steps on the old scene ; literature, 
reaching all classes with its multiplying hands. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


91 


Religion, what does it include? God, the soul. Immortality. 
More particularly, Jesus Christ and his salvation. 

What relation can there be between those two spheres ? the secularist 
asks. Secular life deals with facts ; religion' deals with words. We 
cannot demonstrate even the existence of God, much less the pecu- 
liarities of any religion. We cannot know that Jesus rose from the 
dead, as we know, for instance, that good food is desirable. Let us 
then be satisfied with the sphere of the knowable. 

What shall we say to this? I believe that we can know the truths 
of religion. Let us clearly understand how, and under what condi- 
tions. Intellectually, we must be satisfied with probable evidence. 
This evidence is certainly ncrt lessening. The most destructive 
modern criticism, in admitting into court the great epistles of St. 
Paul, really admits all the historical and philosophical basis that is 
required ; and each new generation of believers contributes to the 
cumulative force that the evidences have as a whole. The sceptic has 
no right to demand more. The lines traced by Bishop Butler are 
impregnable here. But, at the same time, I admit at once that prob- 
ability is not enough. Religion, like morality, must speak in the 
‘‘categorical imperative.” No people ever embraced religion be- 
cause there was probable evidence of its truth. No one ever “greatly 
dared or nobly died ” in the faith of a Perhaps. The certainties of 
the secular will as a matter of fact be supreme, unless there are more 
supreme certainties. 

And there are. How do we know? By spiritual perception. So 
have men obtained spiritual certainty in all ages ; so must they obtain 
it still. The senses reveal material things. Experience and judg- 
ment correct the evidence of the senses. Direct intuition reveals 
spiritual things. Reason and conscience purify our intuitions. 
Spiritual revelations must be seen in their own light. God, says Holy 
Scripture, “reveals them to us by his Spirit.” The Spirit witnesses 
to our spirits of spiritual truth. No higher certainty .than the cer- 
tainty of vision is possible. When a man is in the light, can any 
number of men persuade him that he is not ? 

To what does the witness of the Spirit extend? To no question the 
decision of which rests with science: science must continue to toil 
at every problem that its instruments can reach. To none"' of the 
questions raised by criticism and scholarship; these must be deter- 
mined by criticism and scholarship. Their solution may be hindered, 
but certainly cannot be helped by jmpal bulls or the votes of Pres- 
byterian General Assemblies. The Spirit witnesses to our spirits of 
God. The Spirit revealed Jehovah to the Jews, and reveals Jesus to 
us. The Old Testament promise was, “ To him that ordcreth his 
conversation aright shall be shown the salvation of God.” The 
New Testament promise is, “ If any man will do His will, he shall 
know of the doctririe whether it be of God or whether I speak of my- 
self.” The promise is the same and indicates the condition of the 
Spirit’s acting upon our spirits. The more unreservedly we trust the 
promise, the more completely is our faith vindicated. 


92 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


As regards influence on life, the difference between probability and 
certainty amounts to a difference of kind rather than degree. To 
believe that Jesus is risen, merely on the testimony of witnesses who 
might have been mistaken, is not a working faith. To believe, be- 
cause the Spirit of Jesfts also witnesses to our spirits that he is living 
and dwells in us, is the faith that conquers the world. Whoso hath 
this faith, though an angel from heaven preached another gospel, 
would not be unsettled. To whom else should he go ? Jesus has the 
words of eternal life. No one else can solve for him all spiritual 
problems. Jesus Christ and him crucified is for him the supreme 
verity. This great historical fact has become an all-satisfying spiritual 
fact. It brings the two opposite sides of God’s character revealed in 
the Old Testament into the unity of a living person. It lays hold 
upon us by the two opposite sides of our character — the self and the 
not-self, one or other of which all other philosophies of life ignore. 
We die to the lower, and we find the higher self. Dying, we live. 
We are born again, and nothing can be more certain than our con- 
sciousness of life. 

Standing on this foundation, other than which no man can lay, we 
are on the rock. Unless we can get on this foundation of spiritual 
certainty, it is useless to expect that religion will influence secular 
affairs. The current of human life, with its manifold interests, will 
sweep on its course, indifferent to all the appeals and argumentations 
of priests or presbyters. But, standing on this foundation, all life 
becomes religious. Life here will consist in following Jesus. Life 
hereafter will be to see him as he is ; to be with him ; to be like him. 
Religion, then, is not a matter of words that clever men can dispute 
about. It is the supreme reality. Its relation to the subordinate 
realities of secular life is the next point to be clearly understood. 

The relation is not of one form to another, but of spirit to all 
forms. As far as the religious and the secular are separate spheres, 
they are not independent, much less hostile, but concentric. They 
revolve round one axis, have one centre and one law of life. 

Historically, this has not been their relative positions. Christianity 
has often been regarded as formal, rather than spiritual; as having a 
department of its own distinct from and over against the department 
of ordinary life, which has been called, with more or less accentua- 
tion, “ the world.” Even when regarded, as spiritual, its object has 
been h :ld to be not so much the development of liumanity, in the 
school of this world, to all its rightful issues, as the deliverance of 
man from future penalties and his preparation for future bliss. And 
as the future is eternal and the present temporal, the interests of the 
present were felt to be insignificant, and the religious man was de- 
scribed as trampling upon and despising the present, and longing for the 
future world. It is not to be wondered at that Clu-isri inity developed 
in this direction when the powers of this world were leagued against 
It, ana sought to destroy it by persecutions that followed each other 
in quick succession. And subsequently, when floods of barbarians 


93 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

monuments of ancient civilization, and the church 
who could be winning the Roman empire, had to control hordes 
uin Tt k not only through the senses and the imagina- 

tion, It IS not to-be wondered at that religion felt it necessary to 
retreat behind mysteries into which superstition dared not penetrate 
?hmi th’^e’^Tn' ^ the senses as a vast organization more august 
!trd ^'"gl°'"^t>f,earth. Secular life was allowed its sphie, 

to the other^’i^n^r'i^ ’ ^^*=itgmn had its own spliere, unrelated 

on ^ supposed no one breathed aught save the 

aunosphere of heaven But this disruption of the secular and the reli- 
gioub proved fatal to both. Horrible are the true pictures of mediaival 

un h^th^V universal ignorance, filth, violence, lust, lit 

i p by the lurid light of superstition. Equally horrible the pictures 
ot meduEval religious life, even to him who discerns the soul of beauty 
. and good m those “ ages of faith ; ” developments of unnatural asceti- 
cism, side by side with spiritual pride, and prie.stly craft, and a love 
of power that towered to heaven, and beside which the ambitions of 
barons and kaisers seemed contemptible; enforced poverty, enforced 
celibacy, the hair shirt, the iron girdle, side by side with the forged 
decretals, interdicts, Canossa, the triple crown. Mediaeval art reveals 
to us the saintship of the middle ages, and even when we admire the 
laitn, we shrink back from the unnatural manifestations. At length 
religion divorced from ordinary life, became divorced from morality.’ 
When Eorgias jssued interdicts; when monasteries became the homes 
ol Ignorance and sensuality ; revolt had to take place. Humanity had 
been outraged intellectually and spiritually. Accordingly the revolt 
assumed two phases, the Renaissance and the Reformation. The two 
movements, sympathetic at first, did not understand each other 
because they did not understand the whole content of humanity. The 
one ignored the spiritual, the other did not do full justice to the 
.secular. And so the two sides of our nature, the two spheres in which 
we all live, were not and have not yet been harmonized. Religion 
rejected asceticism, but was still unwilling to admit secular life as 
divine, or a sphere as capable of being divinized as its own chosen 
sphere. Was not the world the home of sin? Alas! sin comes 
nearer us than that. Sin is within, not without. 
While in the heart, it enters with us into the sanctuary or closet as 
readily as into the counting-house or the opera-house. When cast 
out of the heart, then the world is seen filled with divine order 
and purpose, its laws the thoughts of God, the work of life and the 
relations of society the appointed means of education. But it is not 
to be wondered at that this was not seen all at once. Slowly the 
education of the race proceeds ; and well that it is so. Religion had 
so long assumed that the world was a desert, the enemy’s country, and 
the body the soul’s prison and enemy, that radically different concep. 
tions could not be reached at once. Besides, when the pendulum, 
having swung so far in one direction, began in the ca.se of general 
society to swing to the other extreme, religious men dreaded lest their 


94 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


newly-won freedom should degenerate into licentiousness. In the 
chosen parable of Puritanism, the world is therefore pictured as the 
City of Destruction, from which it is man’s first duty to escape for 
his life. The relation of religion to secular life was still one of hos- 
tility, or, at the best, of watchfulness. Pluman ties, the work and play 
of life, the attractions of art, were believed to be on the whole inimical 
to religion. Did they not chain the heir of heaven to this dunghiU 
earth ? Did they not by their fascinations continually lure him Irohi 
the gates of paradise ? And so it came to pass that, at one time or an- 
other to the hurt of religion and to the hurt of the various departments 
of secular life, religion and industrialism, religion and politics, reli- 
gion and literature;, religion and art, religion and science, religion and 
culture have stood not shoulder to shoulder but on opposite sides, or 
at the best in the attitude of compromise and bare toleration of each 
other. It has been popularly felt in a confused kind of way that the 
Christian must be distinguished outwardly from “ the world,” by 
some badge of look, tone, dress, or manner; by something different 
from that which characterizes ordinary men ; that his life should be 
hedged in by rules and restrictions positive and negative ; that the 
soul should be on its guard lest the fence round the sacred precincts 
of religion might be broken down; and that the very joys of family 
life were secular and to be suspected. Have not laws been enacted 
prohibiting a. man from kissing his wife on Sunday ? When such a 
hard and fast line was drawn, naturally enough men* came to feel it 
as great an impropriety to read a religious book on Mondays, as to 
kiss their wives on Sundays. 

It is difficult to say where this identification of religion with the 
formal has done most harm. We see its evil influences not in Roman- 
ism only, but less or more in every Protestant Church ; in the popular 
conception of the sacraments as talismans and of the Bible as a book 
let down from heaven in the original Hebrew and Greek, if not exactly 
in King James’ version, instead of a literature that took shape under 
unique literary and historical conditions which are only now being 
fully considered ; in the conception of Christianity as an arbitrary 
scheme rather than light from heaven delightful to the spiritual eye, 
food from heaven that alone can satisfy and that satisfies abundantly 
the spiritual necessities of humanity ; in the Church’s lack of sponta- 
neity and of heroism; in its timidity in the presence of great social 
questions, or even of very small questions ; in its frequent preference 
of repression over educational development, and of “ thou shalt not,” 
over the much more important “ thou shalt ; ” in the divorce between 
the religion, and the commercial, political, and international life of 
Christian nations; in a secularized literature and in the namby- 
pamby attempts to Christianize literature ; in the ignoring of art, and 
in the too frequent attitude of hostility to science betrayed by a tone 
of irritation, suspicion, or depreciation regarding eminent scientific 
men indulged in by people from whom better things might be ex- 
pected. For dislike to science on the part of truly religious men is 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


95 


especially irrational ; uneasiness displayed when new facts are discov- 
ered, or new theories broached — it may be only as working theories — 
especially humiliating, and calculated to remind sceptics of the atti- 
tude assumed by the monks three or four centuries ago towards those 
dangerous languages — Greek and Hebrew. 

It is not merely neutrality that science has a right to expect at the 
hands of religion, but boundless encouragement and favor. The 
alarm into which sections of the Church have again and again been 
thrown by astronomy, geology, biology, and indeed by every new 
science, and the passive resistance offered to increase of knowledge is 
simply bewildering to one who has correct conceptions of the proper 
sphere of religion, and has done much to discredit all religion with 
the partly educated working classes, who, though unable to dis- 
tinguish the real state of the case, are shrewd enough to in-fer that only 
they are opposed to science who believe that science is opposed to 
them. Naturally enough, many scientific men have become coarse, 
arrogant and one-sided in their turn ; and so instead of theologians 
determining the boundaries of science by the Bible, we now more 
frequently have scientific men excluding religion from the sphere of 
the knowable, unless it meekly submits to its tests of prayer-gauges in 
hospitals, and the crucibles and retorts of the laboratory. 

In giving this historical sketch of the actual relations that have ex- . 
isted between religion and the various departments of secular life, 
there is, of ccnirse, no intention of depreciating the great ones of 
other days on whose shoulders we stand. Those who subdued the 
Roman Empire and won it for Jesus Christ; those who, out of the 
raw material of savage Lombards, Huns, Goths, Wends, Slavs, 
Saxons, Northmen, laid the foundations of European Christianity ; 
those Reformers and Puritans to whom we owe the freedom, the 
purity, and the power of modern life, we could not depreciate even 
if we would. Criticism itself is out of place until our deeds equal 
theirs. Let us clearly understand that Christianity came as a new life 
to a world corrupt and dying. The life had to contend with all op- 
posing forces. In every age it won more or less of triumph.' Jt 
alone lifted the world ; it alone bore fruit. In our own modern 
times, too, we might almost say that it alone has been fruitful — fruitful 
in elevating man, in ensuring the purity of family life, political order, 
industrial development, philanthropic endeavor, missionary activity, 
educational development, and even scientific progress. There is 
scarcely a college in the new even as in the old world that does not 
owe its existence directly or indirectly to the Church. That one fact 
ought to outweigh the fanaticisms of the more ignorant of the clergy, 
were these multiplied an hundredfold. It shows that the Church has 
been guided by a wise instinct ; that it knows that religion must be 
founded on the eternal principles of knowledge connected with tlie 
highest purified convictions of humanity, and co-extensive with the race. 

As Matthew Arnold, whom no one will suspect of depreciating culture, 
puts it, Even now in this age, when more of beauty and more of 


96 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

knowledge are so much needed, and knowledge at any rate is so highly 
esteemed, the revelation which rules the world, even now, is not 
Greece’s revelation, but Judaea’s; not the pre-eminence of art and 
science, but the pre-eminence of righteousness.”* 

But we are not called upon to praise or blame men. Apart from 
their deeds and what they left undone, their wisdom and their mis- 
conceptions, we must determine from the central thought and life of 
Christianity the ideal relation between it and our secular life. Here 
there can be no mistake. To Jesus nothing that came from the 
Father was common , or unclean ; that is, nothing was merely sec- 
ular. To him nature *and humanity were reflections and embodi- 
ments of the Father’s will ; to be studied by the man of science, in- 
terpreted by the spiritually minded, loved by the artist and by all. 
Behold the lilies, the grass, the fowls, he says to us. The labors 
of husbandmen, vine-dressers, fishermen, householders, stewards, 
traders are made to yield spiritual teaching. He does not preach, 
like the ascetic or pietist, “ Do not seek for money, food, clothes, for 
you can do without such trifles ; attend to the soul ; that is the great 
thing.” No, but he does say, “Have no heart-dividing cares about 
those things. Such cares only hinder work. Your Father knows 
that you need these things, and will he then withhold them from his 
children?” He consecrated nature and human life, work, ties and 
relationships. The Manichean view of life, even in the mild form of 
j)etty asceticisms in which we know it, divorces the kingdom of nature 
from the kingdom of grace, and by degrading the former deforms the 
latter. The secularist view of life denies that there is any kingdom 
of grace, and so robs nature of its meaning and beauty. For “ when 
heaven was above us, earth looked very lovely ; when we came down 
on the earth, and believed that we had to do' with nothing but it, 
earth became flat and dull ; its trees, its flowers, its sunlight lost their 
charms ; they became monotonous, more wearisome each day, be- 
cause we could not see beyond them. ” To Jesus the kingdoms of 
nature and grace always appeared in their ideal unity. The Author 
of the one was the Author of the other. Fie had made the one to 
correspond with and lead up to the other. Man had broken the di- 
vine unity and harmony. The Son of Man came to restore that which 
had been broken. 

The relation of religion to the secular, then, is the relation of a law 
of life to all the work of life. This law of life is not a catechism, not 
a dogma, but a spiritual power or influence. Its relation to the sec- 
ular is not arbitrary, but natural ; not statical, but dynamical ; not 
mechanical, but spiritual. Freedom is the condition of its healthful 
action. 

Let us define this law of life. It is the old law, old as humanity, 
which yet is new ; the old law of love, the full meaning and extent 
of which, Godward and manward, is shown in and by the cross. 


* “ Literature and Dogma,” p. 356. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 97 

It is the child’s love to the Father, and to the Father’s children, and 
to the Father’s works and purposes. Love means self-renunciation, 
and self-renunciation implies the new birth. 

He in whom this law of life is supreme, and who carries it victori- 
ously into every department of life with which he has to do, is truly 
a religious man. Religionists seem to fancy that it can survive only 
in the atmosphere of the sanctuary, the prayer-meeting, the confer- 
ence, the church court, or directly religious work. Not -to speak of 
the fact that it is sometimes conspicuously absent from those spheres, 
perhaps because it went into them unproved, deprived of the dis- 
cipline of common life, there can be no doub*t that such a theory dis- 
honors that which it pretends to honor. Both religious and secular 
life suffer accordingly. Secular life becomes mean, spiritual life 
ham.pered and twisted by arbitrary restrictions and minute observ- 
ances. The resultant type of manhood and womanhood-— the true 
test of the theory — is far from being the highest. It is apt to give us 
the Pharisee, the fanatic, or at best the inoffensive and goody man, 
instead of heroes; the gossip, back-biting, holy horror, and sleek 
self-satisfaction of the religious tea-table, instead of the acts of 
the' apostles ; the suppression of truth, the self-glorification, the 
spiritual pride, the teaching of whom to suspect, the malice of the 
denominational coterie, instead of the inspiration that should ever 
be breathing from the church of Christ upon a world lying in 
wickedness. Religion and conduct must be harmonized in every in- 
dividual, or one being is divided into two beings, with different faces 
and pulling different ways. Such a division is fatal. You cannot 
split a man into two "^lithout killing him. The different sides of 
our nature, like the different periods of our life, should be bound each 
to each by natural piety. Work should be prayerful, and prayer true 
work ; all life a psalm, and praise the breath of life, for the Chris- 
tian’s life is love, and love is the only sufficient source of happiness. 

This law of life is not a formula, however sacred ; not a dogma 
constructed laboriously by the intellect in councils ecumenical or 
national, but ‘‘ a force, a sap pervading the whole of life. It is at 
bottom not a book, though it has a book for basis and support. It is 
an unique but new fact that occupies the heart and moulds the con- 
duct, ... a fact which, when accepted, changes the whole position 
of man, operates a revolution in his entire being, moves, draws, re- 
news him.”* 

This law of life acts not by mechanical rules, which are the same 
in all circumstances, but under the inspiration of the living spirit of 
wisdom which discerns the signs of the times — a spirit which 
Pharisees never possess, and for not possessing which Jesus declares 
them blameworthy. It can be gloriously inconsistent. At one time 
it refuses to circumcise Titus, though such a refusal threatens the unity 
of the whole apostolic church. At another time, the principle of 

* Vinet’s “Outlines of Theology,” p. 131. 


7 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


98 

toleration having been established, it spontaneously circumcises Tim- 
othy simply to conciliate prejudiced people. In one chapter it says,, 
“Eat whatsoever is sold in the shambles;" in another, “ I will eat 
no meat while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to stum- 
ble." To the Jews it becomes a Jew, to the Greeks it becomes a 
Greek. In the nineteenth century it would become a Hindoo or 
Chinaman to gain the Hindoos or Chinese, grandly indifferent to the 
reproach of inconsistency. For centuries it may cherish a sacred 
symbol. When the symbol is turned into an idol, it sees that it is 
only a bit of brass, and ^grinds it to powder. In one age it consecrates 
the wealth of provinces to build a cathedral. It paints “ storied 
windows, richly dight," and sings grand chorales like the sound of 
many waters. In another, it hardly regrets to see the cathedral dese- 
crated and the windows broken. It calls the organ “ a kist fu’ o’ 
whistles," and delights only in Rouse’s version of the Psalms. When 
kindlier days come again, it restores cathedrals, listens to voluntaries,, 
joins in chants, and sets committees of General Assembly to work 
laboriously to compile hymn-books. When ordered to use only strange 
forms of prayer, that teach what is thought to be contrary to sound 
doctrine, it will have nothing to do with liturgical forms at all ; 
when Christian liberty is fully conceded, it will gladly avail itself in 
, public worship of everything that the congregation finds to be help- 
ful. So too in all other departments of life it discerns the signs of 
the times. At one time it imposes oaths and obligations to con- 
formity and sacramental observances on all officials ; at another, it 
abolishes the oaths and the obligations. Eternal principles guide it in 
legislation, but the application of these principles is determined by 
the changing circumstances of the people and the times. When cap- 
ital forgets its responsibilities, religion takes its stand on the side of 
labor, and speaks with no uncertain voice. When labor forgets, it 
asserts the rights of capital and the inviolability of economic laws. 
One day it fights for liberty, the next it reminds us of the sacredness 
of authority. To-day it pleads for man in the name of God, to- 
morrow for God in the name of man. At one time it preaches the 
gospel of peace, at another it invokes the Lord of Hosts and goes, 
forth to war. All the time it is gloriously consistent, just as nature 
is consistent that gives the light and the darkness, the summer and the 
winter, the many-voiced laughter of the sunlit sea and the storm- 
wrack mingling sea and sky ; just as God is consistent who gives to- 
the world one day John the Baptist and the next day Jesus of Naz- 
areth. But blockheads’ eyes are sharp enough to see that there is a. 
difference, and so they cry out, “Inconsistency," “Treachery to 
ordination vows," and such like. Unfortunately too the blockheads 
as a rule have loud voices — to make up for their lack in other respects 
— and they delight to make themselves heard in the market-place. 

All this is very vague, it may be said. A precisian desires specific 
rules. I know no way of satisfying the precisian save by assigning ta 
him a spiritual director, into whose hands let him surrender his own 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 99, 

personality as the price of rest for his soul. The director will tell 
him exactly what to do, and exactly how far to go on each occasion 
that arises. Of course this means spiritual slavery — that is, the de- 
struction of religion — for Christianity appeals to* the individual, and 
individuality means liberty. Religion must be rooted in the essence 
of the individual, in his spirit by which he is linked to the divine 
spirit. It can live only in the atmosphere of liberty. Liberty is its. 
basis and its breath. Only in an atmosphere of liberty can religion 
live. Then it works wonders, even though dogmatically incompfete. 
It controls conduct by divine right, speaks with “ the dogmatism of 
a God,” calls upon men to follow it, and men obey. With regard 
to conduct, then, which we are rightly told is three-fourths of life, na 
more precise rule can be given than that the individual must obey his. 
own conscience, not another’s. His conscience is another name for 
his spiritual life or the life of Christ in his soul. Is he living, or has 
he only a nam6 to live ? That must be for him the first great ques- 
tion. How can he know ? The test Christ gives is,^ Does he obey, 
and obeying find his commandments not grievous ? Such obedience, 
I believe, was never as widespread as it is to-day. Christianity is 
permeating secular life as it never did before. There are appearances 
to the contrary, of which the newspapers naturally enough make the 
most j but the very outcry proves that these are exceptions. The ex- 
cesses of the Turks in Bulgaria three years ago sealed the doom of 
their empire in Europe. Better for the sultan had his armies lost, 
half a dozen battles. But three or four centuries ago the armies of 
the most Catholic and Christian kings considered such atrocities the 
ordinary usages and rights of war. Even in war men have now to- 
remember that they are not wholly brutes. 

As the bounds of freedom have widened, religion has woven itself 
in with the warp and woof of the people’s life. Religion has become 
less a dogma or ritual, and more of a life. ‘'The lower classes in 
this country care as little for the dogmas of Christianity as the higher 
classes care for its practice,” said Mr. John Bright, lately, with' 
righteous scorn of what he believed to be sham zeal for religion. 
The same lower classes preferred to starve, and even to see their wives 
and children “clemmed” rather than get work and bread at the 
price of the recognition of American slavery by their country. 
There is more true religion and even decorum in the average 
mechanics’ institute, or co-operative society, or working men’s, 
reading-room or club, or farmers’ grange of to-day, as I have seen 
them, than there was in the average religious organization of some 
centuries ago. Skepticism itself has become not only moral, but 
almost religious in its language. But our advance only shows us how 
far we are from the ideal Jesus sets before us. The nineteenth cen- 
tury has still to learn from him. Do we as a people take his law 
into society, trade, industry, politics? We do not. Some one will 
say, we would be counted fools if we did. I doubt it. But even if we 
were, ought that to settle the matter? Certainly not, if Jesus be to 


loo 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


us the supreme reality, not a word only. Again with regard to science, 
scholarship, art, which make up the remaining fourth of life, liberty 
is also essential. Their claims on their students are as absolute as 
the claims of conscience over conduct. A man’s science may be 
wrong, his scholarship inaccurate, his art false. He and we can find 
out that it is so, only when we have faith in the truth so absolute that 
we believe that the only cure for the evils caused by liberty is a little 
more liberty. 

In a word, without liberty there cannot be religion, and without 
religion life loses inspiration, and society loses cohesion. Without 
liberty there cannot be science, scholarship, or art, and without 
these life loses beauty, and humanity the hope of progress. The 
more fully we trust religion, the more it vindicates oyr trust. It will 
govern all life ; it will go down to the pettiest details and the most 
vulgar secularities, and consecrate them. But to do so it^ must 

be free. . 

It may be asked here, is not the relation of religion to various 
departments of secular life complicated when we consider man not as 
an individual but as a member of society ? When a man joins even a 
guild or trades-union, does he not part with a portion of his liberty 
the better to secure the rest? ‘‘ It is not telling a lie, it is only voting 
with your party : ” is not this a legitimate plea in politics ? Must 
not the statesman have a code of morals for the sphere of diplomacy 
' — home and international — different from that which binds him in 
private life? Can a church exist, if its members criticise dogmas 
that no longer express their living faith? Does not the Head of the 
Church sometimes need our silence or our lie ? 

The precise question is, whether or not the liberty that religion 
demands as the condition of its life is consistent with political and 
ecclesiastical organization. 

As regards politics, the citizen’s difficulty is not with the nation, 
bufwith his party. What is the constitution of any free nation but 
the expression of the nation’s life? The proudest boast of any con- 
stitution is that it has not been made, but has grown. Its next boast 
should be that it has the promise and potency of indefinite growth, 
that it can expand with the expanding life of the nation, without the 
necessity of revolutions. Revolution means that the nation has grown 
and that the constitution cannot expand. Nations will grow, and 
constitutions can expand accordingly, only in a free atmosphere. 
The nation therefore should encourage the utmost liberty of thought 
in political matters as the necessary condition of its peaceful devel- 
opment. Party organization may be thought incapable of allowing 
such liberty, because party aims at immediate and definite results. 
He that will not submit to its platform must be read out ol the party. 
But political wisdom dictates the most sparing exercise of this power. 
The critics may see rocks ahead, of which they are warning the party 
they have long been connected with ; and to cast them out is not the 
way to encourage others to watch. The Trojans did not heed Cas- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


lOI 


sandra, but they did not expel her from the city. That party remains- 
powerful which best understands the signs of the times. The reason 
why they often do not understand is because they treat criticism as re-* 
bellion, and instead of welcoming light see only what they wish to see. 
No party then should demand the sacrifice of liberty from its adherents, 
and no citizen should make the sacrifice. The interests of his party 
require' him to be free ; much more the interests of the commonwealth ; 
much more his own interests. 

As regards ecclesiastical organization also, the Christian’s difficulty 
is not with the ideal Catholic Church — about which there ought to be 
no question, for ‘Syhere the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” 

but with the particular section of the Church with which he is con- 
nected. What then is the object for which any church as an organi- 
zation exists? For the development in its members of religious life, 
and the dissemination of that life by preaching the gospel to those 
who are without. But we have seen that religious life is impossible 
without liberty. There may be marvellous organization ; there may 
be a dogmatic system that the intellect has accepted as the best pos- 
sible compromise ; there may be superstition that calls itself devotign, 
and fanaticism that calls itself zeal for the truth, and all these for a 
time may do vvonderful works; but religion, the life of die free spirit, 
going forth into secular life, as assured of the reality on- which it is 
based as it is of the realities of sense, and equally assured that the 
relation of the two realities is that of supreme to subordinate, such 
religion is impossible without liberty. The very suspicion that it 
dare not think out every subject, that it dare not investigate every 
province, deprives it of its divine power. The Church therefore that 
opposes itself to the demand for the fullest liberty of thought, and the 
results of the most exact scholarship, opposes itself to religion. It 
gives aid and comfort to those who denounce religion as a clerical 
imposture. There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of hard- 
headed working men who think thus of religion ; and — with sorrow 
let us confess — religious men have at one time or another given 
them some cause for so thinking. To connect questions of criticism 
with the cause of religion ; to prohibit inquiry, and inquiry is pro- 
hibited when the critic is forbidden to publish the results of inquiry, 
lest those whose faith stands not in the power of God but in the 
wisdom of men should be “unsettled,” or when he must submit to 
the severest pains and penalties that the civilization of the age will 
tolerate, unless he come to certain previously understood conclusions, 
is inconsistent with the idea of religion at any time. 

But in our time such a position is directly fatal to the cause it pro- 
fesses to befriend. It puts religion at once out of court with free men; 
for in every other region where inquiry is possible, thought is abso- 
lutely unfettered and reason is trusted. Men have come to the, con- 
clusion that the human mind is. the only organ for discovering truth, 
and that truth can take care of itself ; that baseless theories perish 
soonest when least noticed ; and that the only way to correct the mis- 


102 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


takes of scholarship and speculation is by a riper scholarship and more 
fearless and comprehensive thought. 

This is a large liberty that religion claims. Less will not suffice, if 
religion is to be the supreme force in human character and life. As 
a matter of course, men who exalt the traditional above the spiritual 
will refuse the claim. They point to the excesses, seen of all, that 
accompany the reign of liberty in Church and State, and declare that 
salvation requires repression, by “sect-craft” or “State force.” 
There are thousands of men, for instance, who, as they read choice 
extracts of the various effusions of unreason spoken and published 
every day from the Pine State to the Golden Gate, are honestly con- 
vinced that this republic is going headlong to ruin, and that its gov- 
ernment is on the eve of overthrow. Let them know that on the 
-contrary to this very fact of boundless liberty alone is the country 
indebted for its stability; that the government acknowledges the king 
ship of all freemen, and declares all men free, just because it is based 
not on arbitrary authority, but on the authority of reason and morality. 
In the same way men of weak faith dread discussions and differences 
of opinion in the Church. Let them learn to ffiave more faith. Let 
them know that the Church is based on the rock which is Christ. 

The only possible religion for man is Christianity, because it alone 
can stand all the tests of philosophy, science, history, and life. No 
•other religion can stand those impartial tests. Is any Church more 
fitted than ours, by its essential principles, to accept them fully and 
frankly, to occupy the lofty ground of liberty resting securely on the 
possession of absolute spiritual truth, and so, winning the confidence 
of all Christians, become the wide and beautifiil Church of the future? 
Let us be true to our history. Our fathers had a higher ambition than 
to form one of a number of sects. Let the Church truly believe that 
the truth it preaches can alone save the world ; let it fearlessly allow 
the widest liberty consistent with the acknowledgment of the central 
fact that constitutes Christianity, and it will best solve the problem 
of the right relations in which religion should stand to secular life. 
Knowing only Jesus Christ and Him crucified, it has the key to all 
life. Truly inspired by, and altogether satisfied with, this faith, what 
new victories would the Church gain ? It would precipitate itself 
upon the world instead of keeping snugly and respectably within its 
own lines. It would aim at what the timid would pronounce impos- 
sibilities. It would dare all things. It would give not a tenth, not 
a half, but all to Christ. By sublime deeds it would vindicate itself 
as the Church of the living God. “ The religion of God, if there be 
one, cannot tolerate mediocrity; the mediocre is the false.” * 

Rev. Dr. Prime. — I beg leave to nominate Judge Strong as 
an additional member of the Business Committee. 

The nomination was confirmed by the Council. 

* Vinet’s “Outlines of Theology,” p. 117. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


103 


The Council then adjourned until the following morning at 
o’clock. 


Friday, September 2dLh, 1880. 
MORNING SESSION. 


The Council was called to order at 9^ o’clock, by the Rev. 
Dr. D. A. Wallace, of Wooster, O., President for the sessioil. 

After devotional exercises, the minutes of the last session were 
read and approved. 

Dr. Prime. — I wish to report from the Business Committee 
the following resolution : 

Resolved, That papers of which the writers are not present be re- 
ferred to a member of the committee, and that not more than five 
minutes be occupied in stating the substance to the Council, or read- 
ing a part of it. 

This will make a material reduction in the programme, as 
quite a number of the names upon it will not be presented in 
person. It has been ordered that the rule already adopted, lim- 
iting the reading of the papers to thirty minutes, should be 
strictly enforced, and the very odious and onerous service of see- 
ing that the rule is enforced has been imposed upon the chair- 
man of the committee. The committee also recommend to the 
Council the adoption of the following resolution : 

Resolved, That liberty of discussion be allowed at this morning’s 
session, on the papers both of this morning and of last evening ; the 
discussion to be in the order in which the papers were read, and each 
speaker to be limited to five minutes. 

There are but two papers to be read this morning of half an 
hour each, and therefore an hour and a-half will be free for dis- 
cussion, each speaker to be limited to five minutes, if the Council 
so elect. 

Rev. Dr. Jenkins. — I move the adoption of the resolutions ; 
we are going on in the right direction. 

The resolutions were agreed to. 

An invitation was read to the members of the Council to visit 
the College of New Jersey, at Princeton. 

Rev. Joseph T. Smith, D. D., of Baltimore. — In connection 
with this matter allow me to say that I was authorized and in- 
structed by the Presbyterian brethren connected with the 


104 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Church North, in Baltimore, to invite the brethren there. We 
are informed by the Chairman of the Business Committee that 
it will be altogether impracticable for the Alliance to adjourn 
for that purpose. I desire, however, to discharge the duty that 
was imposed upon me, and further to say that if after adjourn- 
ment we can in any way facilitate the desire of the brethren 
to visit Baltimore and Washington City, we would be most 
happy to do so. 

Rev. Dr. Knox. — I regard with great pleasure the invitation 
from Princeton, and I move that it be accepted by the Council. 

The motion was agreed to. 

The Rev. Prof. E. P. Humphrey, D. D., of Louisville, Ky., 
read the following paper : 

INSPIRATION, AUTHENTICITY AND INTERPRETATION OF 
THE SCRIPTURES. 

It is the purpose of this paper to suggest to our younger brethren 
in the ministry a convenient method of expounding the Church doc- 
trine of Inspiration. That purpose will control the choice and treat- 
ment of the topics now to be introduced. 

I. The subject may be opened by pointing out the two elements 
which coexist in the sacred records — the human and the divine. 
‘‘Holy men of old spake” — there is the human; “as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost ” — there is the divine. Very instructive 
here is the resemblance between the combination of the divine and 
human in the person of Christ and in the Holy Scriptures. Both are 
expressly called by the sacred writers the Word of God ; the first is 
the Word incarnate, the last is the Word written. Again, the mani- 
festation of both proceeded from the Holy Ghost : the first by the 
way of a miraculous conception, the other by the way of a super- 
natural inspiration. Next, the Son of God came down from above 
and took upon him human nature ; even so saving truth was revealed 
from heaven, and was embodied in human language. Further, in the 
one person of our Lord two whole, perfect, and entire natures were 
inseparably joined together in one person without conversion, com- 
position or confusion ; in like manner the Bible is one book, only 
one, wherein the two elements are inseparably combined in such man- 
ner that the divine does not absorb the human, nor does the human 
adulterate the divine. In Christ the two natures are so related that 
he is at once the Son of God and the Son of Man ; in the Scriptures 
the two elements coexist in such fulness that the whole book is God’s 
Word and the whole is man’s word. In neither case are we able to 
explain the mode of union, but we are not at liberty to solve the 
problem by rejecting either of its conditions. 




J,E R p M E 
PR AG U E 


JOANNES HUS 

BORN AO 13^3 

“exustus non CONVICrUS" 

JULY S A D 1415' 








SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 105 

We should bear in mind, however, that in Christ the manifestation 
of the divine is personal, but in the Bible it is verbal. Therefore we 
worship the incarnate Word as God over all; we do not worship the 
written word, but we bow to its authority as the only infallible rule 
of faith and practice. 

II. From this topic the transition is easy to the operations of the 
Holy Spirit in the composition and saving power of the Scriptures. 
According to the word of God, in i Cor. ii., these operations are 
three in number. First, the Holy Spirit communicated to certain 
prophets and apostles infallibly these essential truths of religion, which 
were beyond the reach of human discovery. This operation is com- 
monly called Revelation. Next, the Spirit guided holy men of old in 
their work of reducing to writing the entire contents of the Scriptures, 
producing an infallible record of an infallible revelation. This is 
called Inspiration. Thirdly-, the Holy Spirit enables the believer to 
discern the beauty and excellency of divine things, and this work is 
termed Spiritual Illumination. 

We are not able to describe the mode of these divine operations. 
Here certain analogies present themselves. The Bible does not ex- 
plain the mode according to which the Holy Spirit acted in the crea- 
tion of the world, or in the incarnation of Christ, or in the new birth 
of the sinner, or in clothing the apostles with miraculous gifts, or in 
ordering the dispensation of grace under which we live. We respect 
the silence of the Scriptures in regard to these inscrutable operations ; 
and we should not search into the unsearchable mode by which the 
Holy Spirit communicated to chosen men a supernatural and infalli- 
ble revelation, then guided them in the composition of a supernatural 
and infallible record, and evermore graciously leads the believer into 
a spiritual discernment of the truth. 

But we are competent to discover the fact that these three opera- 
tions are separable in thought, and were, in fact, separated in the dis- 
tribution made of them by the Spirit. To many persons only one 
was given, to others two, to others three. The unbelieving Jews who 
heard the words of Christ, received from his lips supernatural revela- 
tions, but they were not inspired to record them, nor led into a spirit- 
ual discernment of them. For another example, true believers receive 
one only of these gifts, spiritual discernment ; they are not the subject 
of special revelation or inspiration. Two of these operations were 
granted to a few of the sacred writers. It is thought that Luke, for 
instance, was inspired to write his Gospel and the Acts, and was 
spiritually illuminated, but did not receive any original revelation. 
But to chosen men, like Moses and John, w'ere granted the three 
endowments in their fulness — abundant revelations, inspiration and 
spiritual discernment. The importance to be attached to this sov- 
ereign distribution of divine gifts will hereafter appear. 

III. At this stage of the* inquiry the religious teacher may be able 
to verify these statements and expose certain current errors, by bring- 
ing face to face what is false and what is true in the doctrine. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


io6 

In regard to Revelation, we are met by the assertion that the 
knowledge of what we call divine and saving truth is derived from 
the light of nature ; or from an elevation of the religious faculties 
analogous to the stimulus of passion or enthusiasm ; or from the in- 
tuitional consciousness ; or from a native-born insight into the sphere 
of the spiritual. In the popular treatment of these explanations, it is 
easy to reduce them to several bald and unwelcome conclusions: 
First, according to these definitions, the fundamental truths, even the 
most profound, the very essentials of Christianity, came to man from 
within {ab infus), not from without {ab extra). Secondly, man, not 
God, is the revealer; and saving* truth was discovered not by the 
Holy Spirit searching all things, even the deep things of God, but by 
man stirring up and exploring the shallows of his own degenerate 
nature. Thirdly, the rule of faith and life rests not on the authority 
of God, but on the intuition and experience of man. Fourth, these 
several theories begin by confounding revelation with spiritual illu- 
mination, and end by reversing the order of divine grace, which is, 
first, the knowledge of saving truth, then the motion of the religious 
affections. Finally, the young preacher can make it plain to the hum- 
blest understanding that no spiritual elevation can enable a man to dis- 
'Cover the essential facts in the Christian religion ; such as the existence 
of the one God in three persons, the two natures in the one person 
of Christ, atonement for sin by the death of the God-man, the resur- 
rection of the dead, the final judgment and conflagration, future and 
eternal rewards and punishments. None of these are rniversal or 
necessary truths ; and no man could discover them by the use of his 
intuition or spiritual insight or natural reason, any more than he could 
walk by the use of his feet along the smooth surface of the perpen- 
dicular side-walls and overhanging ceiling of a chamber. The two 
cases are substantially alike. The mind of man is incompetent to 
the discovery of these Scripture facts, no less than his feet are incom- 
petent to the act of locomotion just described. Revelation, then, is 
the work of God. 

IV. In meeting popular objections to inspiration, our young 
brethren should, at their first necessity, hold fast to the distinction 
between inspiration on the one hand, and revelation with illumination 
on the other. They should also see clearly the precise nature of the 
office committed to inspired men. These persons were the official 
organs of the Holy Spirit. Their office work was solely to utter by 
tongue or pen, without error or defect, whatever the Spirit moved 
them to utter — nothing more, nothing less, nothing other. They 
were inspired to do tliis one thing, and were infallible in this one 
thing, and in nothing outside thereof. An analogy has been dis- 
covered between their position and that claimed for the Pope by the 
Church of Rome. He is held to be infallible in his official acts and 
deliverances, but not in what he does or propounds when off 
duty.” No doubt there is a good and sound distinction between 
official judgments and unofficial dicta. But the case of the Pope 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


107 


breaks down just at the point where the case of the apostles is established. 
They were, by divine appointment, the organs of the Holy Spirit ; the 
Pope is not. They were supernaturally inspired ; the Pope is not. 

What the sacred writers spoke, as the organs of the Holy Ghost ; 
what, as such, they committed to writing, in regard to all subjects 
whatsoever, is infallibly true. What they knew or did not know of 
their own private knowledge, about geology or history or the Coper- 
nican system, is nothing to us. They made no mistakes in regard to 
any of these subjects in their inspired writings, and that is enough 
for us. Indeed, the more conspicuous their ignorance in human 
learning, the more remarkable is the inspiration, which protected 
them from declaring as historically or scientifically true what is his- 
torically or scientifically false. Moses was learned in all the wisdom 
of the Egyptians; what withheld him from adopting, into the Penta- 
teuch, Manetho’s scheme of chronology, reaching back thirty thousand 
years anterior to the Christian era? Daniel was wise in Chaldean 
lore ; how did he escape, as a sacred writer, from lending the 
authority of inspiration to the monstrous cosmogonies of the Babylo- 
nians ? Paul was educated in the best learning of his time ; why do 
we find nothing in his speeches or epistles ‘‘ like Augustine’s scornful 
denial of the existence of the antipodes? nothing like the opinion of 
Ambrose, that the sun draws up water to cool and refresh himself in 
his extreme heat?” [Dr. T. V. Moore.] 

With this doctrine of inspiration kept steadily before him, the 
youngest of our ministers will find a ready answer to such worn-out 
puzzles as these : Was Satan inspired when he said to Eve, “Ye shall 
not surely die; ” or Abraham when he declared that Sarah was his 
sister; or Peter when he denied his Master with “cursing and 
swearing; ” or the Pharisees when they said of Christ, “ He hath a 
devil ; ” or the mob when they cried “ Crucify him ! crucify him? ” 
The distinction between matter dictated by the Spirit and historical 
recitals committed to writing under the guidance of the Spirit is so 
plain that it would seem to be a waste of time to point it out. Yet a 
writer of Mr. Coleridge’s ability, through a singular confusion of 
thought, holds our doctrine of inspiration accountable for the “ shallow 
and malignant insinuations” made by the “three bigots in Job.” 

We are helped to answers to other objections by Paul’s dis- 
tinction between inspiration and spiritual illumination. These gifts 
differ, first, in the persons to whom they are granted ; inspiration- 
being given to a few chosen men like Isaiah and John; illumination to 
all true believers. Next, the gifts differ in their nature : the first is 
infallibility in teaching ; the last is spiritual knowledge. One may 
be infallible who is not illuminated ; another may be illuminated who 
is not infallible. Again, inspiration was given from time to time, 
and withheld in the intervals, as it seemed good to the Spirit ; illu- 
mination is light which shines upon the believer every day unto the 
end of life. Further, inspiration is perfect unto its end always ; illu- 
mination admits of degrees. Further still, inspiration has ceased out 


io8 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


of the world j illumination abides in the Church evermore. Finally, 
inspiration, though rarely, was really bestowed on wicked men. 
King Saul was among the prophets ; Balaam was inspired ; so w^as 
Caiaphas ; so were those who prophesied in the name of Christ, to 
whom Christ will say : “I never knew you, depart from me ye that 
work iniquity.” Here we find the distinction between the gifts and 
the graces of the Spirit. Inspiration, like the foresight of prophecy, 
like the power to work miracles, was a gift that might or might not 
be associated with saving grace. Accordingly, the Saviour points 
out the distinction between a prophet and a righteous man. Our 
cautious Dr. Charles Hodge did not go too far in -this direction 
when he said: Judas wrought miracles, and might have been, in full 
consistency with the doctrine of inspiration, as infallible a teacher 
(had Christ seen fit to employ him) as Paul, although he had a devil.” 

With this rule before us, we are ready with answers for such 
questions as these : Was Moses, who spake unadvisedly with his lips, 
inspired to compose the Pentateuch ? Was David, who sinned in the 
matter of Uriah, taught of the Spirit to write the Psalms ? Was Sol- 
omon one of the chosen organs of the Holy Ghost ? Was Jonah 
another? Was Paul, who quarrelled with Barnabas, another? Was 
Peter, who denied his Master and afterwards abandoned his principles 
at Antioch, still another ? The young preacher who remembers that 
Balaam and Caiaphas, incorrigible sinners, were inspired, at least once 
in their lives, will not stumble over the infirmities of holy men into 
the conclusion that they were not also inspired. Augustine’s remark was 
good, I do not inquire how Paul acted ; I seek what he has written.” 

V. Close attention should be given to the extent of inspiration, mean- 
ing always by that term the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the com- 
position of the Scriptures. It will be convenient for the religious 
teacher to enter upon this part of the subject by examining the pre- 
tence that God revealed the spiritual truths of religion to the sacred 
writers, and then left them to the use of their unaided faculties in 
reducing these truths to writing, and left them to themselves in the 
selection and treatment of historical and geographical details. Ac- 
cording to this theory the Bible is not a divinely- inspired transcript, 
but a human account of the divine communications. Then, also, 
these saving truths are distributed through a mass of historical and 
other secular matter which may or may not be true in the sub- 
stance, and if true substantially, may or may not be misrepresented 
in the telling of it, after the manner of fallible human authorship.. 
What follows from this theory ? First : It assumes that the veracity 
of the Scriptures is an open question, inasmuch as it is propounded 
for the avowed purpose of accounting for errors and mistakes which, 
it is alleged, occur in those contents of the Bible that relate to sub- 
jects lying within the range of human discovery. The theory does 
not explain, but impeaches inspiration. Secondly: For aught we can 
tell, misrepresentations have crept unawares into essential truths, like 
John’s testimony to God manifest in the flesh, or Christ’s exposition 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


109 

of the way to be saved, or Paul’s description of the resurrection of 
the body. Thirdly : God gave His Word, not for the private use of 
the fifty or sixty chosen men to whom it was first revealed, but for 
the salvation of the innumerable company of the redeemed. It is in- 
credible that these few men should be supernatural ly led into the 
exact knowledge of the truth, while God’s people everywhere and 
always were foreordained to all the chances of error or prejudice or 
passion, to all the slips of the understanding and the pen which beset 
uninspired human authorship. It is no good news to you or to me 
that the rejection of God’s Word is a sin to be answered for at the 
judgment day, while the exact expression of that Word as it came 
from the Holy Spirit is hidden from us under the mistakes of fallible 
men whom we never saw and who have been dead for centuries. 

VI. Now, the Word of God stands face to face with this theory, 
and alleges that a plenary inspiration extends to the entire volume in 
all its parts, from cover to cover. When once the canon is settled, 
and with it the genuineness and authenticity of the several books, we 
must believe that they are all equally inspired and infallible. The 
‘Bible is throughout and throughout “ God’s Word,” “ God’s Word 
written,” as really as if a pattern thereof had been shown in heaven. 
This supernatural inspiration extends to the subject-matter of the 
written Word, to the arrangement of its contents, to the language in 
which these are clothed. 

(i.) To the subject-matter inspiration contributed these among 
other elements : First, it has furnished us with the only knowledge 
in existence of the world before the flood. Next, it enabled the 
sacred writers to make, out of the enormous mass of human history 
and thought, a selection of the “infinitesimal percentage” thereof 
suitable to the plan of the record. Further, inspiration taught them 
what to omit. Among these omissions is an immense number of the 
signs which Jesus himself did and the words which he uttered. This 
thought is full of significance, for what man would presume to omit 
from the Gospels the very words of the Son of God, except he were 
moved thereto by the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to take the things 
of Christ and show them unto us ? Further yet, the Spirit enabled 
the writers to prepare unerring statements of the facts selected, to 
point out the relation of commonplace events to the truths super- 
naturally revealed, and to show how the whole sum of human affairs, 
men’s crimes and virtues, knowledge and ignorance, apostasies and 
reformations, were associated with the mighty works of creation, prov- 
idence and grace. And again, the guidance of the Spirit preserved 
them from error in the truth supernaturally revealed, and in all that 
they say in regard to history, geography, astronomy and natural sci- 
ence. It enabled them also to fuse down the whole mass of matter 
into one assimilated, homogeneous and self-consistent narrative. 

(2.) Inspiration extends to the orderly plan of Scripture history. 
The volume is not an encyclopaedia or miscellany of religious reading. 
It' is a amity — an organic unity — of veritable history, tracing consec- 


no 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


utively the progress of redemption from its foreordination before the 
world was to its accomplishment after time shall have run its course. 
An unbroken continuity, a close sequence of events, a steady advance 
in the development of the divine purposes link together all the sacred 
writings. This coherence, a consummate product of inspiration, shows 
itself conspicuously in the books which have been recently chosen as 
a point of attack — the Pentateuch. The attempt to lift any of them 
out of the close array in which they are marshaled is in derogation 
of their inspiration. What less should be said of a process which 
dislocates the plan of sacred history, which introduces confusion into 
chronologies and genealogies and majestic providences, and appalls 
the reader with the spectacle of Scripture broken in its backbone ? 
The criticism which assigns Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy to 
the reign of Hezekiah or to the post-exilian period might, with equal 
show of historical sequences, transfer Magna Charta to tTie restoration 
of the Stuarts, or the Solemn League and Covenant to the era of 
moderatism. Inspiration extends, then, to the plan as well as to the 
contents of Holy Scripture. 

(3.) Plenary inspiration extends to the words used in Scripture: 
“Which things,” says Paul, “we teach not in the words which man’s 
wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing 
spiritual things with spiritual,” or expressing spiritual truths in spirit- 
ual words. If it be proper to add anything to this decisive testimony, 
we may say, that just as a human soul could not be born into the vis- 
ible world without a body, even so spiritual truth, supernaturally re- 
vealed, could come into the sight and hearing of man in no other way 
than through spoken or written words or other signs of thought. The 
only question is whether the words in which divine truth is clothed 
are the words of unaided and erring man or the words taught by the 
unerring Spirit. 

Now, the religious teacher ought not to be perplexed by the popular 
suggestion that the doctrine of plenary inspiration strips the sacred 
writers of the liberty of spontaneous and characteristic speech, and 
turns them into pens or writing-machines or automatons. It is one 
of the first principles of saving truth that a man may be infallibly 
guided in his free acts ; why not also in his free speech? Never were 
men more free, never did they more surely execute the divine purpose, 
than Judas when he sold his Master, and the Jews when they crucified 
him. Never is the sinner more free than when he repents or believes, 
and yet it is God who enables and persuades him to repent and be- 
lieve. The saints and angels are secured in holiness by the gracious 
agency of God, while their acts of obedience are as free and joyful as 
if they were wholly self-moved. When these facts are well established 
in the minds of his hearers, the preacher will very naturally lead them 
to the adjacent conclusion, that in the choice of words for the sacred 
page there was a concurrent action of the divine and human agency. 
Although inscrutable as to the mode, this joint action in point of fact 
secured an expression of thought infallible because guided by the 
spirit, human because spontaneous and natural in the writer. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


Ill 


Nor should the young preacher be disturbed by the current objection 
to the infallibility of Scripture drawn from the acknowledged imper- 
fection of human language as an instrument of thought. The objection 
is met by the repetitions in the sacred records. They resemble the 
laws of the land, and indentures and indictments, where the intention 
is set forth in a multiplicity of terms and recitals. To the unprofes- 
sional mind these seem to be mere technical verbiage, but taken 
together, they convey the exact sense of the draughtsman. As 
instances of a similar abundant expression of the mind of the Spirit, 
we may cite under the head of doctrine the nature and necessity of 
regeneration, and under the head of practical piety the act of coming 
to Christ by faith in his blood. What is obscure or insufficient in 
one place is made as clear as the light of day in other places. By 
this explanation we not only solve this objection, but we show that 
one of the elements of surpassing value in the written word is this 
very quality which men call the redundancy wherewith Scripture 
repeats itself. 

Of what has been said this is the sum : Every word of Scripture is 
alike God’s word and man’s word. What God said, David said, the 
apostles prayed, saying Lord, thou art God . . . who by the 

mouth of thy servant David hast said,” etc. What Isaiah spake, the 
Holy Ghost spake ; for Paul said: “Well spake the Holy Ghost by 
Esaias,” etc. Looking at the Bible from one point of view, we must 
say that God is its author, as really as if he had written it with his 
finger, just as he wrote the two tables of stone ; examining it from 
another point, we must say that man was its author as really as 
Augustine was the author of the “ City of God.” The divine and 
human authorship was joint and co-operative. 

VII. Let us hope that our brethren now coming into the ministry 
will maintain, with undaunted resolution, the doctrine of the Holy 
Scriptures laid down in our Standards. It is essential to the existence, 
not of Presbyterianism only, but of Christianity itself. Imagine a 
company like the Westminster divines beginning its labors with the 
proposition that the Bible contains no revelation of religious truth 
other than that which proceeds from the unassisted intuitional con- 
sciousness or from the light of nature, or with the proposition that 
the revelation is from God, but the record thereof is the product of 
unaided human authorship. Will anybody maintain that these divines 
could construct out of such unsound materials a system of doctrine 
which would be true as God is true ? Or, imagine a controversy over 
the question, “What is truth?” between a strict Presbyterian, taking 
his stand on the Bible as the very word of God, in substance and in 
language, and a liberal thinker, taking his stand on the same book as 
the very word of man, in its subject-matter, or in its verbal expression, 
or in both these elements. Now, a book which is to be treated in 
debate as the very word of God, and a book which is to be treated as 
the very word of man, belong, so we may confidently say, to separate 
spheres of religious thought. According to the Church doctrine, the 


II2 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Christian Scriptures are, in all their parts, immediately inspired by 
God, and are everywhere infallible; according to the ^‘advanced 
thought ’ ’ of the day, they are filled with the half-truths and untruths, 
with the dissolving views, with the myths and fables and childish 
traditions, with the things incredible and impossible, which appear 
in all the sacred books of the heathen. And a debate as to what is 
Christianity, between disputants relying' on these incongruous ma- 
terials, would remind one of Bismarck’s imaginary fight between a 
whale wallowing in an uncertain sea and an elephant standing on the 
solid ground. We must insist on the preliminary question : Is the 
Bible supernatural and infallible in its revelations, and immediately 
inspired of God in the Hebrew and Greek texts ? ’ ’ What say you, 
yea or nay ? If you say nay, an agreement in regard to Christian 
doctrine is impossible, and a dispute on that point is mere child’s 
play. 

It may be proper, in the close of this paper, to point out to our 
young brethren a convenient mode of dealing with the discussions 
between belief and current speculation in natural science. We begin 
with the proposition that these disputes proceed from one or more of 
these sources; mistakes in biblical interpretation, blunders in science, 
or spiritual blindness. Next, all these disputes may be distributed 
into three classes, and these three exhaust the subject. 

The first embraces all those points wherein the meaning of God’s 
Word is clearly understood, and the opposing scientific theories are 
unsettled. As an example, we may take the unity in origin of the 
human race from one man and one woman. This oneness is unques- 
tionably affirmed by the word of God, while the opposing theories of 
ethnology and its kindred sciences are confessedly immature. The 
rule here is to hold fast to the sure word of God, not doubting that 
when ethnology shall understand itself it will confirm the testimony, 
of the word. The second class embraces those disputes wherein the 
facts in nature are established, but the word of God is not rightly 
understood. The doctrine of the Copernican system, for example, is 
well settled. But whether the places in Scripture which speak of the 
sun rising or setting, and the like, are to be understood according to 
what is astronomically true, or what is apparently true, is a question 
of interpretation. When we adopt the phenomenal meaning and 
take the language of the Bible in the sense of common life, and in the 
sense in which the skeptical philosophers themselves habitually use 
these very terms, the dispute is at an end. Under the third class 
should be arranged these particulars wherein neither the word nor the 
works of God are fully known. The creation of the world in six 
days falls into this category. The enlightened Christian will never 
doubt the narrative of Moses, nor will he doubt that it will be estab- 
lished as true by a perfected geology and astronomy. Meanwhile, he 
is at liberty to rest his mind, provisionally or ad interim^ on any 
working hypothesis which may seem to fulfil best the conditions of 
the problem so far as they are now known. He may accept the ex- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


planation of Chalmers and Hengstenberg, or that of Hugh Miller and 
Shultz, or that of the Westminster divines. He may rest there until 
Moses shall be interpreted aright, and the facts in nature shall be dis- 
covered. Ihen a generalization will be reached which will include 
and harmonize all the testimony of God’s word and all the phenomena 
of God s works relating to the matter. That being formulated, the 
subject will pass from what is provisional and doubtful to what is 
final, and beyond all doubt absolutely true, even the testimony of 
the written word. ^ 


IX. Our younger brethren may be assured that in its conflicts with 
hostile criticism the Church is on the high road to victory The 
num^ber, for example, of historical issues tendered by the Scriptures 
to their adversaries is simply enormous. It is estimated that the Bible 
contains the names of four thousand persons and places distributed 
through all the early ages, and over the surface of the whole earth as 
known to the ancients. Many of these persons and places have not 
been identified. But whenever a cylinder or tablet has been dug up, 
bearing one of these perished names, or the site of a buried city has 
been discovered, in no one instance, not one, has the testimony of 
Scripture been invalidated. We openly challenge and defy the un- 
believer to produce, out of all the lands of the Bible, one dead man’s 
name who is a myth, or one old ruin misplaced, aye, one out of the 
four thousand. In the controversy now waged over what the Bible 
says of the history, manners, customs and traditions of Egypt, Syria 
Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Palestine, Phoenicia, Greece and Rome, the 
enemy will be defeated at every turn. He is already fairly driven off 
the field in Egypt, and wherever he attempts to make a stand over the 
whole vast region from Thebes to Mosul, the witnesses for the truth 
will spring up out of the earth and lay siege to his encampment. 
.That entire domain, ‘‘from the river of Egypt to that great river, the 
river Euphrates,” was given by covenant to Abraham and his seed for 
an everlasting possession. We, his spiritual seed, will in due time 
make good our title to it all \ “ for the inheritance is ours and the 
redemption is ours.” 


The Rev. Peof. Robert Watts, D. D., of Belfast, Ireland, 
addressed the Council as follows, on 

THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. 

I think you will all agree with me, after listening to the paper read 
by our venerable father. Dr. Humphrey, that America is sound on 
inspiration. I hope it is not true in this, as in some other matters, 
that westward the Star of Empire takes its way. It is pleasant to find 
that there is not a single sentence expressed by Dr. Humphrey in that 
paper that I cannot indorse ; it is the historic doctrine of the Church ; 
it is the doctrine enshrined in the entire volume of inspiration. 

In his Second Epistle to Timothy, when about to affirm the Plenary 
8 


1 14 the PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

Inspiration of Scripture, the Apostle Paul singles out Jannes and Jam- 
bres, who withstood Moses, as standing prototypes of all opponents 
of the truth. The apostoli-c selection has proved peculiarly felicitous, 
for in almost all the intervening centuries, from the apostolic age to 
the present, the successors of these Egyptian magicians, in their assaults 
upon the faith, have, almost invariably, begun with the writings of 
Moses. This is not unnatural. It is natural that the adversary should 
begin where Christ began ; and Christ, in expounding in all the Scrip- 
tures the things concerning himself, was wont to begin with the great 
law-giver of Israel. The considerations determining this method of 
proof and disproof, of defence and attack, are, obviously, the peculiar 
characteristics of the contents of the Mosaic writings and. the relation 
of the Mosaic Economy to the New Testament dispensation. As the 
Prophets and the Psalms are but authoritative expositions of that 
ancient economy — unfoldings of its types and symbols, enhanced by 
fresh disclosures of the mystery which, from the beginning of the 
world, hath been hid in God— it is manifest that the most effective 
method of assailing the truth, as it is in Jesus, is to shake confidence 
in the Mosaic record. An assault on the Pentateuch is an assault upon 
the foundation of the Temple of Revealed Truth. 

Nor should we overlook another point of resemblance between these 
ancient withstanders of Moses and his modern opponents. They 
agree in this that they do not challenge absolutely the divinity of his 
mission. The wise men and sorcerers of Egypt called in question only 
some of the miracles wrought by Moses, while they recognized the 
others as wrought by the finger of God. In this they are followed by 
their successors, who recognize parts of the Pentateuch as his, and 
acknowledge portions of it as given by the finger of a divine inspira- 
tion. 

Another point of resemblance there is which forces itself very pain- 
fully upon our attention, viz. , that both have served as instruments of 
moral and spiritual induration. The magicians, by withstanding 
Moses, encouraged Pharaoh in his obstinacy, and the revolutionary 
critics of the Pentateuch have helped to confirm sceptics in their 
scepticism. The enemies of the Bible claim the representatives of 
the Higher Criticism as on their side, and quote their criticisms as 
arguments against Christianity itself. Much further they cannot pro- 
ceed, for their folly, like thi t of their prototypes, will soon be mani- 
fest unto all men. In the meantime it is proposed, in the present 
paper, in opposition to such irreverent handling of the word of God, 
to exhibit what the Scriptures themselves teach respecting their rela- 
tion to the agency of the Holy Ghost, by whose inspiration they claim 
to have been originally produced. 

When we speak of the doctrine of inspiration, we do not mean a 
doctrine in regard to the mc?Le of the Spirit’s action upon the minds 
of those whom God had raised up and trained and qualified as in- 
struments for the communication of his will to men. On this point 
we do not know, and cannot know anything. In its mode the divine 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 

agency is in^rutable, but in its effects it is cognizable. Regarding 
the former, God has given us no information; regarding the^ latter^ 
he has given us line upon line, line upon line, until the student of 
bcriptum who does not apprehend the doctrine is left utterly inexcus- 
able. The concurrent testimony of the sacred writings is, that the 
ettect ot the divine agency was such as to constitute the utterance of 
the human agent God’s utterance, and his record God’s record— the 
former as truly his as if he himself had uttered it, and the latter as 
truly his as if he himself, with his own hand, had written it. How 
he ehected this we do not know, but that he did effect it we must be- 
lieve or reject the Scriptures altogether ; for that they teach this doc- 
trine is as manifest as that they teach the doctrine of justification by 
faith. It IS, in fact, one of those all-pervading doctrines which cannot 
be erased vyithout the destruction of the Bible. Even though we were 
to adopt, in this case, the method observed by the author of ^Uhe 
Ecce Homo' \ in judging of the personal rank of Jesus of Nazareth, and 
restrict the inquiry to portions of Scripture which the most rational- 
istic of critics would hesitate to challenge, there would still be found 
sufficient evidence that the claim advanced is that of an inspiration 
determining the “ form ” of the record to its minutest literary detail. 
The claim to have been produced under an inspiration which deter- 
mined the times, and modes, and measures, and literary forms, of the 
revelation, as communicated by the sacred writers, is so interwoven 
with the record that the denial of it must involve not only the rejec- 
tion of the claim, but the rejection of the entire book, on whose be- 
half, as a whole, it is so persistently put forth. The position taken in 
this paper is, that there is no alternative but to accept the doctrine of 
an inspiration determining the ^fform" as well as the substance''' 
of Scripture, or to disallow altogether the claim it advances to be re- 
garded as the Word of God. These claims — to be verbally inspired, 
and to be the Word of God — are cognate and inseparable, and the 
rejection of the one must necessarily involve the rejection of the 
other. A book claiming to be the Word of God, even to its minutest 
clauses and terms, and whose infallibility depends upon the accuracy 
of its language, must, if received at all, be accepted as being what it 
professes to be ; and he who does not thus receive it, must, if he will 
act consistently, come at last to the conclusion that its words are not 
to be treated as the words of God. As the claim in question is the 
claim of claims, the claim on >Vhich all other claims depend, it is 
rnanifest that if this claim be disallowed no other claim can be estab- 
lished. 

In establishing the position that the Scriptures advance this claim, 
it will be most convenient, as it will be most satisfactory, to begin 
with New Testament references to the Old Testament; and it is but 
due to him who is the Author of both, to place in the foreground 
specimens of his own direct personal testimonies. 

In his Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 17, 18), he affirms, with all 
the solemnity of an oath, that not one ‘^jot” or “tittle,” that is, not 


ii6 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

even the smallest letter, or distinctive characteristic of a letter, should 
pass from the Law or the Prophets, till all be fulfilled. In his view, 
therefore, the integrity of the “form,” and the security of the sub- 
stance ’ ’ were indissolubly bound together. As the guarantee of the 
indestructibleness of the “form,” we have the word of Christ him- 
self while in proof of its perishableness, we have simply an array ot 
various readings, and alleged or actual discrepancies, among which, 
and in despite of which, no critic can prove that all the words of the 
original record may not exist. That is, we have on the one side the 
word of the unchangeable Jehovah, while on the other there is noth- 
ing but an illogical inference of an ever-shifting criticism. 

Equally explicit is our Saviour’s testimony to the inspiration of the 
Old Testament, John x. 34-36- Vindicating himself against the 
charge of blasphemy preferred by the Jews, because he had claimed 
to be the Son of God, he makes his argument turn upon the infalli- 
bility of one brief clause, said ye are gods,” Psalm Ixxxii. 6 . 
The infallibility of this clause he infers from the character of the 
record in which it is found. Stated formally, his argument is, 

Major. — The Scripture cannot be broken ; 

Minor.— I said ye are gods is Scripture ; 

Conch— I said ye are gods cannot be broken. 

In adopting this form of argument, our Lord has placed his faith 
in the infallibility of the sacred record, as a record, beyond question. 
In his estimation, all the writings designated Scripture by the Jews, and 
regarded by them as sacred, were infallible even to their smallest clauses 
and words. With him the claim of any sentence, or clause, or word, to 
absolute infallibility, was established as soon as it was shown to be a part 
of the sacred text. The assumption underlying this style of reference is, 
of course, that the infallibility ascribed to the Scripture as a whole 
extends to the sentences, clauses, and words of which it is composed. . 

Before passing from this testimony, attention is asked to the ''sub- 
stance” of this clause. 'As the subject-matter of it, "I said ye are 
gods,” is not Messianic, and as it contains no trace of "God’s re- 
deeming love toward men,” it cannot be regarded as one of those 
spiritual truths to whose inspiration alone, we are told by some critics, 
the Spirit sets his seal. It cannot, therefore, establish its claim to in- 
fallibility at the bar of the so-called Higher Criticism. The tests of 
that criticism, therefore, are not Christ’s tests, and, if applied, they 
must lead to the rejection of what he * has received and indorsed as 
invested with an absolute infallibility. The one makes the claim of 
a passage depend upon its subject-matter, whilst the other determines 
the claim, irrespective of the subject-matter altogether, by the simple 
fact that it constitutes a part of Holy Scripture. 

In harmony with these testimonies of the Master to the verbal pre- 
cision and infallibility of the Old Testament, are the testimonies 
borne by his apostles. In proving that the covenant of redemption 
was made with Christ, Gal. iii. 16, the apostle makes his argument 
turn upon the distinction between the singular and the plural of a 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

noun. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He 
saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, 
which IS Christ.” This argument is manifestly warrantable only on 
the assumption of an inspiration of the passage relied on, which deter- 
^ mu writer in using the singular, and not using the plural, 

1 he force of the argument from this passage has been questioned by 
^me biblical scholars, and has been recently challenged by Canon 
Farrar in his/‘Life and Work of St. Paul.” While admitting that 
this IS thQ prtma facie view of the apostle’s language. Dr. Farrar says 
^at It IS inconceivable that St. Paul— a good Hebraist and master of 
Hellenistic Greek— was unaware that the plural zeraim . . . could 
not by any possibility have been used in the original promise, because 
It could only mean ' various kinds of grain ’ — exactly the sense in 
which he himself uses sperfnata in i Cor. xv. 38 — and that the Greek 
spermata in the sense of offspring would be nothing less than an im- 
possible barbarism.” 

On this critique it may be remarked : i. That if valid at all, it is 
valid as a review of the apostle’s method of reasoning from the terms 
of the original promise made to Abraham, for that the apostle rests 
his argument on the fact that in the original promise the singular 
“seed,” and not the plural “seeds,” is used, admits of no dispute. 
2. Adopting the language of the author, it may be remarked, that “it 
is inconceivable that St. Paul — a good Hebraist and master of Hellen- 
istic Greek ” — would argue as he does if his argument had not been 
warranted by Hebrew and Greek usage. If the apostle was what his 
biographer says he was, surely we are warranted in adducing this pas- 
sage as one of the strongest proofs that both these languages recog- 
nized the usage which Canon Farrar pronounces “an impossible bar- 
barism.” Were a lexicographer to cite a similar instance from a 
heathen author in proof of a particular usage, no scholar would ever 
think of challenging the procedure. Why it should be so it is diffi- 
cult to imagine, but it is, nevertheless, a fact that a certain school of ■ 
critics will not accept, in the case of a sacred writer, evidence which, 
in the case of a profane author, they would regard as perfectly satis- 
factory. 3. It may be remarked that so far as the Hebrew is con- 
cerned the usage objected to was not unknown to others whose knowl- 
edge of Hebrew was at least equal to that possessed by most modern 
critics. As Professor Delitzsch notes, the plural of in the sense of 
offspring, is found in the Mishna, Sanhedrim iv. 5. A witne.ss when 
about to bear witness in a case of capital offence, is warned of the 
consequence of bearing false witness against the accused, in these 
terms : “ The blood of the accused and of his seeds to the 

end of time, will be imputed to thee.” In support of ihis admoni- 
tion, reference is made to the case of Cain, and the argument em- 
ployed is exactly the same in form as that of the apostle in the case 
before us. “ The voice of thy brother’s bloods crying. He does not 
say the voice of thy brother’s blood (Di), but of the bloods (’07) of 
thy brother, of his blood and the blood of his seeds 


•ii8 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


4. Y spermata, in the sense of offspring, be a barbarism in Greek, the 
apostle is guilty of it, for it can have no other meaning in the pas- 
sage in question. ‘‘Various kinds of grain’' it cannot mean in this 
verse, as any one may see who will but substitute that meaning for it in 
reading. He saith not, and to “various kinds of grain,” as of many, 
but as of one, and to thy “grain,” which is Christ. Comment is 
needless. 5. The interpretation given by Dr. Farrar himself is 
irreconcilable with any other than the theory which he opposes. 
“The argument,” he says, “does not, and cannot turn, as has been 
unhesitatingly assumed, on the fact that sperma is a singular noun, 
but on the fact that it is a collective noun, and was deliberately 
used instead of ‘sons’ or ‘children;’ and St. Paul declares that this 
collective term was meant from the first to apply to Christ, as else- 
where he applies it spiritually to the servants of Christ.” Such is the 
interpretation through which Dr. Farrar imagines he has removed 
from this passage all trace of an argument for verbal inspiration ! 
Surely it must be manifest that even according to this interpretation, 
the passage teaches the very doctrine our author has assailed. If the 
“deliberate use” of a particular word instead of other words closely 
allied in meaning, and that with a specific and far-reaching intent, 
do not carry with it all that verbal inspirationists contend for, it would 
seem to be difhcult to give an intelligible definition of verbal inspira- 
tion. The opponents of this doctrine gain nothing in dealing with 
the argument from this passage by substituting xYq collective'' for 
the singular," so long as they admit that the collective" was de- 
liberately used, and with a specific purpose ; for this is all one with 
admitting that the Holy Ghost determined the sacred writers in using 
the terms they employed in the sacred record. 

Equally conclusive is the testimony of this same apostle, 2 Tim. 
iii. 16, to the verbal inspiratiqn of the entire Old Testament: “All 
Scripture is given by inspiration of God, (GeoTivfvotos') ^^God-breathed." 

Now the scripture" of which this ajfirmation is made is unques- 
tionably the Old Testament ; for it is described in the context as the 
Holy Scriptures (ta ifpa ypa^^uara), which Timothy had known from 
his childhood.. Assuming, then, that ©fOTtvsDcfT'oj is a predicate, and 
not a part of the subject, the force of the argument from this passage 
depends upon two things — the comprehension of the expression “all 
Scripture” (?<a(ya ypa^p^), and the import of the term Ssortvivotoi, ren- 
dered in our version, “given by inspiration of God.” If (ytam 
ypa^jJ) all Scripture, means the entire Old Testament, and &s 6 jtv£v 6 T'oi 
means “God-breathed,” then it must follow that, in the apostle’s 
view, the entire Old Testament, without distinction of parts, was 
“God-breathed.” The only question for settlement is, whether the 
breath that breathed it reached to the ^^form" of the record. In- 
deed, this can hardly be a question, for it is of the record itself the 
affirmation is made. It is the Scripture, the writing itself, that is 
declared by the apostle to be ©fOTtvfvo-r'oj, or “God-breathed.” 
This, of course, is simply to affirm that the writing itself, as a writ- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


119. 

ing, that is, the language of the sacred record, is the product of the 
Spirit’s agency actuating the sacred writers. 

In 2 Peter i. 20, 21, there is a remarkable testimony to the doc- 
trine of verbal inspiration, in which the apostle institutes a compari- 
son between recorded prophecy and the audible utterance of God 
speaking from the excellent glory, and pronounces the record ‘'more 
sure” than the voice from heaven. This high claim the apostle 
bases upon two things: i. That though the prophecy came by man, 
it was not of man, but of the Holy Ghost. 2. That in employing 
human agency, the Holy Ghost took charge both of the will and the 
words of the agent. According to any fair interpretation, therefore, 
this passage teaches that the agency of the Spirit of God, upon which 
the certainty of the sacred record depends, was such as to determine 
the volitions and expressions of the men employed to communicate 
the “more sure word of prophecy,” which the apostle testifies was 
possessed by the Church when he wrote this Epistle. This is conclu- 
sive, for an agency determining the volitions and words of those 
through whom the “more sure word of prophecy came,” is, neces- 
sarily, the agency for which verbal inspirationists contend. 

Such is the doctrine of inspiration taught in this passage, and the 
language of the apostle proves that it was the view of Old Testament 
prophecy held byall those to whom he wrote, for he does not pro- 
claim it as a new doctrine or claim for it acceptance on his own 
authority; but assumes that they knew'' it, and appeals to it as a 
doctrine universally held. Evidently the apostle Peter, and those 
who had obtained like precious faith with him, held very different 
views of the way in which the “ more sure word of prophecy ” came 
to be so sure, from those which are at present current among the advo- 
cates of the so-called higher criticism. 

Equally decisive on the point at issue is the testimony of this same 
apostle in his first epistle, chapter i. 10-12, in which he avers that 
the prophets were anxious to know “what, or what manner of time, 
the spirit of Christ, which was in them, did signify, when it testified 
beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow,” 
and were refused the information they sought. They were informed 
that their message was for others and for other times, and not for 
themselves. If this be true, is it not manifest that the men who were 
employed as the organs of this testimony of the Spirit could not have 
ministered it to us, without having been supplied with the “ form ” in 
which they were to transmit it ? For example, how could Isaiah have 
written the fifty-third chapter of his prophecies if the Spirit had fur- 
nished him with nothing but the “substance” of it? If we are to 
give credit to the apostle, Isaiali did not know the import of what he 
was commissioned to communicate to us. How, then, could he, in 
communicating such a message to posterity — a message, let^ it be ob- 
served, which the Spirit refused to explain to him — throw it into the 
actually historic, evangelical “form” in which it stands in the im- 
mortal verses of that wondrous chapter ? Let us try to form a con- 


120 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


ception of the task which, according to the anti-verbalists, Isaiah was 
called to execute. He was asked to sketch the personal appearance 
of the Messiah, to predict the treatment he should receive at the hands 
of the Jews, to testify beforehand the substitutionary and sacrificial 
character of his sufferings, to tell of his death and burial, and of the 
fruit which, without fail, should spring from the travail of his soul,, 
and of the glory which should follow. How, it may be asked, could 
the prophet execute this task with nothing save the ‘^substance” fur- 
nished to his hand ? As well might an artist attempt to execute a 
‘‘bust” of one he had never seen, and of whose appearance the per- 
son giving the order will, of set purpose, give him no information or 
material, save the marble or the alabaster from which the “bust ” is 
to be fashioned. It may be said that the cases are not parallel, as 
there was a revelation made to the prophet on the points in question,, 
and that this revelation was made through the medium of a “ form.” 

To this the reply is obvious, i. The form employed as the medium 
of the revelation must have been in words determined by the Holy 
Ghost. 2. This “form” must have been regarded by the prophet 
as not only the most suitable, but as possessing the highest of all 
sanctions. 3. The prophet’s ignorance of the mysteries couched 
under this sacred “ form ” — an ignorance which the Spirit refused to 
enlighten — must have utterly disqualified him for framing a substitute. 
4. As the prophet was under the power of the Holy Ghost when he 
was receiving the revelation, so was he under the power of the Holy 
Ghost in communicating what he had received to others, whether 
orally or by writing ; for it is not simply of prophecies uttered, but of 
the prophecies of Scripture that it is said, they came not by the will 
of men, but through the agency of men who spake under the moving 
power of the Holy Ghost. Now, as the testimony of Peter covers all 
the prophets of the Old Testament, and every prophecy of Scripture 
delivered under the old dispensation, it follows, inevitably, that the 
“ form ” of the record bequeathed to us is not of man but of God. 

Such is the doctrine of our Lord and his apostles respecting the in- 
spiration of the Old Testament Scriptures. They teach that, both as 
to “substance” and “form,” it is of God. The passages quoted 
have been few, but they are truly representative of the whole, and,, 
taken together, cover the entire record whose claims are in question. 
They are, moreover, unchallengeable by any critic deserving of 
notice; and he who will not abide their arbitrament stands outside 
the pale of Christian controversy. 

In judging of the inspiration of the New Testament the foremost 
place must be given to the testimony of both Testaments to the rela- 
tion of the Incarnate Word himself to the “substance” and the 
“ form ” of the revelation he was commissioned to communicate. 

I. The Scriptures teach that the revelation which Christ, as the 
Prophet of the Church, delivered in the days of his flesh was a revela- 
tion given him of the Father. 2. They teach that this revelation was 
given to him not only as to “substance,” but as to “form.” The 



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SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

^nguage of the normal promise and prophecy of the rise of the 
Prophet of all prophets (Deut. xviii. i8) puts this beyond question : 

I will rai^se them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto 
thee, and I will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto 
them all that I shall command him.” Christ was '' that Prophet,” 
^d in the execution of his prophetic functions he recognized these 
Deuteronomic limitations. _ Thus (John viii. 26-40) he says to the 
Jews : ‘ He that sent me is true ; and I speak to the world those 
things which I have heard of him. ... I do nothing of myself; but 
as my Father hath taught me, I speak those things. . . Ye seek to 
kill me, a man that hath told you the truth which I have heard of 
God.” On another occasion (John xii. 49, 50) he places his recog- 
nition of the Deuteronomic limitations beyond doubt : “ I have not 
spoken of myselfj but the Father which sent me, he gave me a com- 
mandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I 
know that his commandment is life everlasting : whatsoever I speak, 
therefore, even as the Father said unto me, .so I speak.” To the 
same purport are his words (John xvii. 8) : ‘‘I have given unto them 
the words (-ra pi^ixata) which thou gavest me.” 

Confirmatory of these testimonies are the representations of the 
Apocalypse. The revelation which Jesus Christ gave to John was a 
revelation, ‘‘which God gave unto him.” That this was a definite 
revelation, determined as to its “form,” is shown by the symbol of 
the seven-sealed book which he received from the Father, and which 
he was commissioned to read and administer. 

To this it may possibly be replied, that this limitation only con- 
cerned the revelation as given of the Father to Christ, but that he was 
at liberty to choose what “form” he might see fit in revealing to 
others the mysteries so definitely committed to him. This is all that 
can be said ; but it is directly opposed to the normal Deuteronomic 
prophecy, which testifies that God was to put his word in the prophet’s 
mouth, as it is opposed to the express language of our Saviour him- 
self, who tells the Jews, in the passages referred to, that the words he 
spake were not his but his Father’s ; words which the Father had given 
him commandment to speak, and which he spake as the Father had taught 
him. What can such language mean but that our Lord acted through- 
out upon the principle of giving to men the revelation he had received 
from the Father in the “ form ” in which he himself had received it ? 

Besides all this and confirmatory of it, we have the testimony of 
the Scriptures regarding the relation of the Holy Ghost to the person 
and office of Christ. They teach that the Spirit’s agency was neces- 
sary to the preparation of his body, and to his qualification for the 
execution of the functions of his mediatorial office. He applies to 
himself the language of Isaiah, chapter Ixi. i, “The Spirit of the 
Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach 
good tidings,” etc. This anointing took place when, at his baptism, 
the Holy Ghost descended and abode upon him. Then it was, and 
not till then, he entered upon his marvellous ministry. What can 


122 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


this formal anointing of the Most Holy mean, if it do not teach that 
the agency of the Holy Ghost was indispensable to the qualification 
of the God-man for his work? Apart from that anointing even the 
Son of Man, from whom the apostles received commission, was not 
himself qualified to preach the gospel. 

In the visions of Patmos, the same dependence of the Lord Jesus 
upon the agency of the Spirit is recognized and beautifully symbolized. 
John beheld a lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven 
eyes, which are the seven spirits of God (the Holy Ghost ip all his 
unlimited plenitude) sent forth into all the earth. The Spirit is to 
him as eyes, and it is because he possesses the Spirit (as one of his 
qualifications) that he can take the book out of the right hand of him 
that sits upon the throne, and loose the seven seals thereof. 

In harmony with all this is his own testimony to the agency of the 
Spirit in the composition of the letters he dictated to his«ervant John. 
At the close of each, though he is himself the speaker, he calls upon the 
churches to hear what the Spirit saith. It is unnecessary to point out 
the significance of this clearly revealed dependence of the eternal 
Logos upon the agency of the Holy Ghost in communicating to men 
the revelation entrusted to him as the Prophet of the Church. _ If 
there ever were such an argument as the d fortiori, we are certainly 
now in a position to lay claim to it, and urge it, in defence of the 
immemorial doctrine of an inspiration that extends to the language 
of the sacred record as it came from the hands of the inspired writers. 
If the incarnate Word of God needed the unction of the Holy Ghost 
in giving forth to men the revelation he received from the Father, in 
whose bosom he dwells, and if the agency of the Spirit, even in his 
case, extended to the words he spake in preaching the gospel to the 
meek, or in dictating an epistle, it must follow, beyond question, that 
we have the right to say in regard to all prophets and apostles and 
evangelists, whether of the Old Testament or the New, '‘much more,” 
yea, infinitely more. If "the Son of Man,” as a prophet, needed to 
have "the Spirit of the Lord God upon him,” much more must any 
of the sons of men need him when they are called upon to reveal to 
others what God has revealed to them. 

In view of this inevitable conclusion, it is the less to be regretted 
that there is not room to enter upon the argument in proof of the 
plenary or verbal inspiration of the New Testament writers. If Jesus 
of Nazareth needed, to the extent already shown, the gift and opera- 
tion of the Holy Spirit, with what show of reason can any one con- 
tend that Peter, or James, or John, or Matthew, or Paul, or any other 
New Testament writer stood, so far as the "form ” they were to em- 
ploy was concerned, in no need of any such agency ? The so-called 
higher criticism may say so, but Christ himself had no such estimate 
of their ability, as his treatment of them after his resurrection shows, 
and as the provision made by him for their endowment, when he as- 
cended on high leading captivity captive, demonstrates. He made it 
manifest that he regarded them as unqualified even to rehearse what 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


123 


he had said unto them, and therefore promised and gave unto them 
the Holy Ghost, not only to reveal to them what they were at that 
time unable to bear, but also to bring all things to their remembrance, 
whatsoever he had said unto them. 

The limits necessarily imposed by our esteemed committee forbid 
the presentation of the evidence furnished by the New Testament 
writers of their claiming for themselves an inspiration equal to that 
already established in behalf of the writers of the Old. Enough, 
however, has been advanced to indicate to any attentive reader of the 
Bible the line of proof, and to satisfy any one who will accept as ulti- 
mate the testimony of the Scriptures themselves upon the subject, 
that the Church of God has not been cherishing a delusion in hold- 
ing that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and that its 
words and clauses are absolutely infallible.” Let the opponents of a 
verbal inspiration, acting in accordance with the laws of scientific in- 
vestigation and fair discussion, dispose of the evidence now presented, 
and, having done this, let them point out the texts of Scripture in 
which the doctrine they would substitute for it is taught. This they 
have never done, and this they cannot do. They have framed theories 
on the assumption that the Bible may be a divine revelation and yet 
contain errors. They have been dealing with it as our missionaries 
have dealt with the sacred books of the Hindus. They have tried to 
prove that the men who profess to have written under the inspiration 
of the Holy Ghost were, nevertheless, liable to err, and have actually 
erred in matters of history and science, and things “which do not 
touch faith or life,” or “pertain to salvation.” There is no need to 
dwell upon the unscientific character of this procedure, or to point 
out the tendency of such teaching. Let the theory be adopted, and 
Christianity must share the fate of Hinduism. If it can be shown 
that its inspired writers, who claim to speak, not in the words which 
man’s wisdom teacheth,. but in the words which the Holy Ghost 
teacheth, err when they tell us of earthly things — things subject to 
•our observation, and of which we are able to judge — it is manifest that 
none, save the grossly ignorant and superstitious, will believe them 
when they tell us of heavenly things. 

OBJECTIONS. 

The chief objections against the doctrine of verbal inspiration arise, 
either from a misapprehension of the doctrine itself, or of the sources 
of proof. I. It is objected that according to this doctrine the sacred 
writers are reduced to the rank of mere unconscious, unintelligent 
machines. The answer is, that the objection assumes that the writers 
were moved ab extra^ by a bower acting so as to coerce them to act, 
or, rather, so as to educe from their agency or instrumentality, results 
in the production of which the appropriate faculties were not con- 
sciously engaged. This assumption is utterly destitute of foundation. 
In harmony with the analogy of the faith, especially in the doctrine 
of efficacious grace put forth in conversion, it is hel,d that the Holy 


124 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Spirit acts upon the powers of the soul ab intra, and in accordance 
with the constitution of its powers. If the Holy Spirit, without do- 
ing violence to the freedom of a sinner, can act within him so as to 
determine his views, volitions, and acts, in regard to sin and holiness, 
it is not unreasonable to assume that he is able to determine the voli- 
tions and acts and utterances of men in communicating his will in' 
others, without infringing upon the prerogative of free agency. 

2. It is objected that verbal inspiration is inconsistent with t4ie 
changes through which the original manuscripts have passed during 
the transmission of their contents from age to age of the Church’s 
history. The doctrine, it is alleged, will not bear the test of facts, 
and the facts relied on by its opponents are the various readings and 
certain alleged errors and discrepancies in the existing manuscripts 
and versions. Such is the objection and such are the grounds on 
which it is urged, and those who urge it claim to be distinguished for 
their candor and scientific accuracy. To this objection suffice it to 
say that the question is not about the inspiration of transcribers, but 
about the inspiration of the original writers. It is one thing for a 
copyist to make mistakes in transcription, and a very different thing 
for a prophet or an apostle or an evangelist to make mistakes in 
committing to writing what the Holy Ghost inspired him to write. 
The facts relied on, therefore, as the testing facts are not the testing 
facts of the 'doctrine. The doctrine does not assume the absolutely 
accurate transmission in every instance, from generation to generation, 
of the contents of the original manuscripts ; and hence the various 
readings or the discrepancies alleged to be found in existing manu- 
scripts cannot be adduced as tests of its truth. The testing facts are the 
testimonies of the book itself, and these, as we have already seen, are 
such as to leave us no alternative but to accept the doctrine of a verbally 
inspired revelation, or reject in toto the writings in which the claim is 
put forth. However the manuscripts and versions may differ in other 
respects, they are absolutely at one on this subject. They unite in 
claiming for the sacred writers an inspiration which extended to the 
words. When the higher criticism has done its worst the remnant 
records still advance this claim ; and this unchallengeable conse7isus 
of the extant records is explicable only on the assumption that such 
was the nature and extent of the inspiration claimed by the sacred 
writers themselves. 

3. But it is objected : ‘‘ If a Bible containing some errors and im- 
perfections would not have been God’s infallible word when it came 
from the pen of inspiration, then the Bible which, as we read it, does- 
contain errors, cannot be God’s word to us now.” Or, as another 
writer puts it: “It matters little to me whether a gem in my pos- 
session, having some little flaw, originally exhibited that imperfec- 
tion or owes it to an accident that occurred yesterday.” In other 
words, it is asked : “ What is gained by contending that at one time 
the Scriptures were absolutely free from imperfections, seeing that 
imperfections and errors exist in the Bible as we now find it ? ” This 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


125 


-IS very much like asking: ‘^What is gained by contending that at one 
time man was absolutely perfect, seeing that man as we now find him 
exhibits many imperfections? ” The questions are so far akin that they 
reveal an unwillingness to be guided in our views of what the Scrip- 
tures teach by the testimony of the Scriptures themselves. It may 
seem a matter of little moment what views one may entertain on these 
points, but it nevertheless does matter a great deal whether we accept 
or reject the testimony of God himself about the character of his own 
work as it came from his own hands. It is a matter of some theo- 
logical importance whether we hold that God created man upright, 
or hold that he created him in a state of moral equilibrium or with 
positive immoral propensities ; and it is a matter of no less impor- 
tance whether we regard God as giving men, through apostles and 
prophets, by the agency of his Spirit, a revelation of his will which 
cannot be broken, even in its briefest clause, or hold that in its origi- 
nal production he permitted his servants to mar the record with errors 
fitted to discredit its claims. Whatever may be the present state of 
the record, owing to the fault of uninspired copyists, we are not to be 
led thereby to reject the concurrent testimony of Christ himself and 
his holy apostles and prophets respecting the absolute perfection and 
infallibility of the revelation as given by ’the Holy Ghost. The sole 
question is. What do the Scriptures say on the point in debate ? Do 
they say that inspiration had to do simply with the substance ” of 
revelation and did not extend to the “ form,’’ or do they teach that 
it determined the very words employed by the sacred writers ? That 
the latter is their teaching the passages already adduced place beyond 
dispute. The testimony of the Bible about itself is that it is given 
in all its parts by an inspiration which extended to the words, and 
■determined the ‘‘form” as well as the “substance” of the revela- 
tion it “ conveys. ” 

4. An objection is founded on the diversity of style by which the 
different books or sections of the record are characterized. This, it is 
alleged, is inconsistent with the unity of authorship implied in the 
verbal theory of inspiration, which ascribes the language of the record 
to the Holy Ghost. This objection proceeds upon an obviously false 
assumption, as unity of authorship is not inconsistent with diversity 
of style. ^ Even when the authorship is simply and absolutely human, 
the principle does not hold. The dramatis personcB of Shakespeare speak 
and feel and act with all the diversity characteristic of distinct personal- 
ities, although the language and feeling and action proceed from the 
one personal inspiring agent. The objection, moreover, overlooks the 
fact that the different agents employed by the Spirit of God were not 
ex post facto selections, but were before individually ordained to 
their respective departments of this service, and were personally 
framed and fashioned and cultured for the very purpose of giving the 
recorded revelation that characteristic diversity in unity which im- 
parts to the word of God a charm altogether inimitable and unique, 
and proves it to have come from the one Spirit through the previously 


126 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


appointed and ordered agencies. Having thus ordained and equipped 
his servants as fit instruments for the attainment of the end aimed 
at, it is surely not too much to assume that, when he inspired the 
agents thus prepared, he recognized his own workmanship and pur- 
pose, and made use of all the qualities and personal peculiarities pre- 
viously imparted. If all this be true — and it is true beyond all gain- 
saying — then It must follow that the more thorough the inspiration, 
the more thoroughly will the resultant record be characterized by the 
personal peculiarities of the agents employed. Only by suppressing 
and holding in check and abeyance characteristics imparted by him- 
self with a specific design could the inspiring Spirit have produced 
that monotony of style which anti-verbalists contend must result from 
a thorough all-determining inspiration. In other words, if the Holy 
Spirit would prosecute, in the case of each selected agent, his own 
ante-natal purpose, he would do what verbal inspirationists contend 
he has done — viz., take absolute possession of his own prepared in- 
struments, actuating them ab intra so as to determine them, in har- 
mony with the laws of their preordained constitutions, even to the 
selection of the language they should employ. 

5. With regard to objections founded upon hitherto unresolved 
errors or inaccuracies or discrepancies, we must simply confess our 
ignorance and await more light. Difficulties once regarded as un- 
solvable have given way before increasing knowledge, and it is not 
unreasonable to assume that others which we cannot at present solve 
may yet yield up the key to a better informed biblical scholarship. 
In view of the array of evidence by which the doctrine of a verbal 
inspiration is sustained, it is certainly more becoming, more rational 
and more reverent to assume such an attitude than to reject a doctrine 
sustained by testimony which we must accept, or abandon our faith in 
the Scriptures as the Word of God. It is possible that there may 
still remain difficulties sufficient to tax and tire and, perhaps, defeat all 
the efforts of the profoundest biblical scholarship, but there is no 
difficulty conceivable which can be compared with that arising from 
the denial of a verbal inspiration. Those who deny this doctrine 
must face the unsolvable problem of reconciling their theory with the 
positive counter-claim of the Scriptures themselves. Other difficulties 
may perplex and puzzle, but this, as it is absolutely insurmountable, 
must, if not abandoned, involve the unhappy theorist in absolute de- 
spair of all solution, and imperil, if it do not subvert, his faith in the 
te.stimony of the divine record. 

DISCUSSION ON DR. HITCHCOCK’S PAPER. 

The President. — Next in order comes the discussion on the 
papers that have been read ; beginning with the first paper of 
last evening — Professor Hitchcock’s paper entitled, “ The Cere- 
monial, the Moral, and the Emotional, in Christian Life and 
Worship.” ’ 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


127 


Rev. Prof. Henry Calderwood, LL. D. (of Edinburgh). — 
I come to the platform at this time, not because I specially 
desire for myself to have the opportunity of making remarks, 
but because, being a member of the Business Committee, I 
thought it necessary to move the resolution which has been car- 
ried this morning, and which has now been read to you, as a 
necessary preliminary for our having such a consultation together 
in this Council, as seems to be exceedingly desirable, if there 
are to be practical beneficial results from our deliberations ; and, 
in accordance with this proposal, you will notice that the order 
of remark is to be the order in which the speeches were read. 
As I held myself responsible to introduce the matter, if the 
motion were carried, I desire to make a remark or two about 
that exceedingly valuable and important paper which was read 
last night by Prof. Hitchcock, and in listening to which I think 
we all felt it a matter for gratification and thankfulness that the 
arrangements of the several seminaries of this land made it pos- 
sible for some of the professors of those seminaries to be with 
us and thus read their own papers. 

Whether Dr. Hitchcock be in the house or not, I am not sure,, 
but I think we are under great obligations to him for placing 
before us as the first subject of consideration, the Ceremonial, 
the Moral and the Emotional, in Christian Life and Worship. His 
paper was, I think, an exceeding valuable contribution to the 
question — which is for us as Presbyterians a very important one 
— of liberty and latitude in religious life and worship ; because it 
seems to me, in the history of the Presbyterian Church, and 
more especially its -history in Scotland, where we naturally are 
strongly conservative and very slow to move, it becomes impor- 
tant for us to discuss what liberty there may be, or, perhaps more 
appropriately, what variety we may expect to find, in the Chris- 
tian life, while that life conscientiously and individually is 
seeking to conform to a fixed standard in God’s word; and 
passing from the question of individual life, what latitude there 
may really and reasonably be, within a Presbyterian Church, as 
to the forms of its worship. Now in touching upon points such 
as those to which Dr. Hitchcock referred last night, concerning 


128 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE 


liturgy, and concerning various forms of worship, and various 
observances of anniversary occasions, he was touching upon 
points which are regarded by us in Scotland as exceeding liable 
to debate. 

Let me speak upon the question concerning a liturgy. You are 
well aware that in Scotland the antagonism t-o liturgy has been 
very great, and that the reference to Jennie Geddes’ stool still 
has very great power, . But I hope in the Presbyterian Church 
we are prepared to recognize that it is no element distinguishing 
Presbyterians as such to declare a liturgy unwarrantable ; that 
our Episcopalian friends will misunderstand us if they regard it 
as a distinguishing character of Presbyterianism to forbid a 
liturgy. 

But they will also misunderstand us if they think it is charac- 
teristic of Presbyterianism to be deprived of liberty. There may 
be certain deviations and variety within the several branches of 
the Presbyterian Churches in their practice in this matter; but 
it is characteristic of our Church that no minister in it shall be 
bound by any liturgy. If we find a liturgy to be healthful, 
under any circumstances, there is not that under our system 
which will withdraw from us the liberty of its use; but we will 
not be bound down by any liturgy which will require us to go 
a certain round in the service of God’s house ; and above all it 
shall never happen in the experience of any Christian minister 
in our Church that he will find himself debarred from distinct 
and immediate reference to the great wants of a people, simply 
because there is no form laid down. 

Rev. George C. Hutton, D. D., of Paisley, Scotland.— I wish 
to make one or two remarks by way of very slight qualification 
to some expressions that fell from Dr. Hitchcock in that most 
intellectual and able paper which he read to us. I do not know 
indeed that I differ from what he intended. I rather think I 
may not. But it seems to me that he had better have qualified 
one expression which he used with reference to the formula, 
'^‘justification by faith alone.” He seemed to think that there 
was something dangerous in that. He advocated the preaching 
of morality. To that I say. Amen, and I do not know that we 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1 29 

fail in that even in Scotland. But I advocate the preaching of 
doctrine, and I do not think that formula at all worn out or 
even dangerous. Justification by faith alone! By what else 
I ask any sinful brother does he hope to be justified? Is it by 
the greater moralities, or by the lesser moralities ? Is it by his 
good, clean, square life that he hopes to be justified? I may 
bring all that to my Maker and Law-giver and Judge, and would 
he be justified as a holy being, and as a law-giver, in taking that 
off my hand? There is not the holiest man on earth who 
would venture to believe it. He must fall back on the righteous- 
ness of Christ. He must rest on that great, clean, square life of 
our adorable Redeemer. I wish simply to clear myself of being 
supposed, by absolute silence, entirely to approve of the some- 
what unqualified manner in which our venerable and admirable 
friend gave utterance to his views on the subject of justification 
by faith alone. I hold by that formula. I hold that it embodies 
scriptural truth. It is that which expresses the great truth 
that God himself could not be justified in accepting the best 
righteousness of the best saint as a sufficient satisfaction to his 
justice and honor to his law. That is what I understand as the 
foundation of the formula, justification by faith alone, and I hope 
that old formula, which has run down the ages, v/ill continue 
through the ages and generations until it has accomplished its 
great work both in this and in other lands. *’ 

Rev. Prof. J. R. W. Sloan, D. D., Allegheny, Pa.— We are* 
not only the Presbyterian Church, but we are a great Protestant 
Church ; and we have our origin and our distinctive character 
by reason of a protest against the corruptions of popery, past 
and present. When the reformation took place, it was not 
more a reformation of doctrine than it was a reformation of 
worship. Indeed, I think if either element is to be specially 
emphasized it is the reformation of worship. In undertaking 
that work the reformers had some difficulty in arriving at 
a principle that would be fundamental and clear; and they 
arrived at last at this principle, that what is not commanded in, 
the Scriptures of truth, as to the worship of God, is forbiddem 
The great question is really, if at all, how shall I come before 
9 


130 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


the Lord and bow myself in the presence of the most high God ? 
I have no power to answer that question, but I must learn it 
from him. How shall I, as an humble and sinful worm of the 
dust, come before him? Where shall I learn that? In the 
inspired Scriptures of truth. They are no more certainly to us 
the rule as to what we shall believe and what we shall practise, 
than they are to us the rule of the manner in which we shall 
worship the most high God ; and whenever we introduce any of 
our own conceptions or our own ideas into it, we have, to all 
intents and purposes, the beginning of the corruptions that 
overlaid the Romish Church at the period of the reformation. 
And do gentlemen believe that they can open these flood-gates 
once more, and when they have let out the tide that any one 
shall say, Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther ? The only 
position we can take as Presbyterians is to withstand every 
form of innovation, whatever it may be, that does not rest on a 
“ Thus saith the Lord.” 

The Rev. Prof. Alex. B. Bruce, D. D., of Glasgow, Scotland. 
— I desire to say a word on the question of liturgy, to which 
Professor Calderwood spoke. I wish to say how thankful I am 
that this whole subject was taken up and so well handled last 
night by Dr. Hitchcock. It could not have been in better 
hands, and I think it would have been well if we had had 
the whole evening for the discussion of the points which were 
brought under our notice by that gentleman. 

There are two questions with reference to the inclusion of the 
liturgical elements in public worship in the Presbyterian Church. 
First, Is it legitimate ? and second. Is it desirable ? 

With regard to the first question. Dr. Hitchcock stated that 
the exclusion of liturgical elements was entirely unnecessary 
and uncalled for by our system ; and referred to the example of 
the reformers. In that I think he is right. The use is legitimate. 
I suppose we should all agree to the sentiment of Richard 
Baxter, who says, substantially : “ I cannot be of their mind who 
think God will not accept a prayer which is read from a book, 
neither can I be . of their mind who say the same thing with 
regard to extempore prayers.” But is it desirable ? I have 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 

thought of this question a great many years, and I have tried to 
get at the reason of the two systems — the non-liturgical system 
and the liturgical system. Both, no doubt, if practised by godly 
men, aim at edification. And how do the partisans of both 
systems justify their practice ? It appears to me that the princi- 
ple on which the liturgical system is based is this : a desire to 
make the congregation as independent as possible of the defects 
of the individual minister, and to give them the benefits of the 
best thoughts of the wisest and holiest men of the Church in all 
ages. That is a, perfectly legitimate object. The principle on 
which our usual practice in the Presbyterian Church is placed 
seems to be this : that every minister shall be called on by the 
system of worship observed to take full opportunity of his 
ministry to stir up the gift of God that is in him, and to cultivate 
the power of conducting the public worship of God in prayer 
and preaching so as to edify the people. That is an admirable 
principle, and the working out of it has led on the whole to very 
satisfactory results ; that is to say, our ministers have reached a 
high average of attainment in the conduct of worship. But 
IS it not possible to combine the advantages of both systems ? 
That is a question on which my Scotch prejudices had long 
leaned to the side of a negative. I had been disposed to main- 
tain that, in order to get the full benefit of our system, we 
would be required to insist upon it exclusively. But latterly I 
have come to be somewhat inclined to another mind, and my 
present impression is (but I should like to have this regarded as 
a pro tempore impression, and to speak subject to correction), 
that Dr. Hitchcock spoke the truth when he said there is a bald- 
ness and unimpressiveness in our worship; that that is a weak 
point in our system; and that possibly our worship could be 
made more impressive and more interesting if, besides the efforts 
of the individual ministry, there were room in our ministry for 
the use of such beautiful forms of prayer as that which was 
quoted last night of St. Chrysostom. 

The Rev. A. M. Milligan, D. D., of Pittsburgh, Pa.— On this 
matter of the worship of God we have two classes or modes. We 
have the old dispensation and the new dispensation. Under 


132 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


the old dispensation the altars reeked with blood, the censers 
smoked with incense, the priestly robes, the forms were all af- 
fecting the senses, striking the imagination, filling the mind 
with the grandeur of the scene in the temple of Solomon. 
The grandeur of the whole struck the imagination and filled 
the aesthetic nature ; but there was one peculiarity about it 
— a peculiarity that ran from first to last, and that was that 
not one particle of that ritual, not one act of that service, 
but must have the divine inspiration and authority. Cain 
offered a sacrifice of peace, intending to honor God, but it 
was not of divine institution, and it was not accepted. And he 
went away not an accepted worshipper, but red with the blood 
of his brother. Saul desired to offer a sacrifice under peculiar 
circumstances. The Philistines were upon him. Samuel did 
not come to time, and he offered a burnt-offering, but he did not 
gain acceptance. When David himself would bring the ark of 
God to Jerusalem, they followed not the divine institution to 
carry it upon the priests' shoulders, but it was borne on a new 
cart drawn by oxen, and Uzzah put forth his hand to save the ark, 
and fell dead beside it. If there is anything in the Old Testa- 
ment ritual and system that is more manifest than everything 
else, it is that with all its grand ceremonial, everything must be 
in accordance with divine manifestation. 

Now, what about the New Testament dispensation ? It has 
laid aside all these sensual, symbolical, typical and manifest parts 
of that system, and we have not come to the mountain that 
might be touched and that burned with fire, and to the black- 
ness and the darkness and the tempest, but we have come to 
Mount Zion, the city of the living God and the heavenly Jeru- 
salem, to an innumerable company of angels, to God the Judge 
of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. 

The Rev. W. P. Breed, D. D. — I wish, in the first place, 
simply to say a double amen to every word that fell from the 
lips of Dr. Hutton. I wish, in the second place, to express 
a thought that passed through my mind while listening 
to those very able papers last evening : that if this Council 
had authority, it would employ that authority in enjoining all 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


133 


our ministers and elders and people to commit Dr. Paxton’s 
sermon to memory. In the third place, I wish to accept the 
principle of Dr. Hitchcock, as to the form of worship with re- 
gard to allowing churches to do as they please with or without 
liturgy, but not to carry that liberty so far as to be everlastingly 
stigmatizing the worship of the Methodists, Baptists and Pres- 
byterians as a bald worship. Some old heathen said of Paul 
the Apostle that he was a bald-headed Galilean ; and some 
Presbyterians of our day are all the time saying that his worship 
was as bald as his head, and therefore we must have necessarily, 
in order to make it at all respectable in our drawing-rooms, some 
wig with liturgical curls. 

Now what is bald about Presbyterian worship ? We read 
the word of God, and I say that when a man comes out of his 
study, after having been before God with one of those chapters, 
and reads it to the people, it is not bald ; and it is none the less 
bald when it is read in connection with a liturgy. Then, as to 
the prayer of an honored man of God with a whole congregation 
on his heart, and the Spirit of God in his soul, when he comes 
before his people and brings their wants and their woes before 
their Maker in the name of Jesus Christ, is that bald ? And 
then when a man has spent the whole week, studying and turn- 
ing over the great verities of God’s holy word, and comes with a 
great burden on his heart, and tells it in the ears of the people, is 
that bald ? Where is the , baldness, then ? There is no such 
thing. It is a word without meaning, and that, I believe, is the 
reason why it is so often used, because it does not mean any- 
thing. 

I have been again and again in an English cathedral, listening 
to sixty-five minutes of prayer, and the reading for fifteen 
minutes of what no Presbyterian would think of calling a ser- 
mon ; was not that bald ? The Presbyterian service is not a bald 
service, and we do not want any liturgy to adorn it, if only 
God’s Holy Spirit comes down upon the hearts of the people 
and enables them to do what they are bound t'> do: go from 
their closets to the house of God ; and the ministers to do as 
they are bound to do : go wath their hearts full of their mes- 


134 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


sages and God’s Holy Spirit on them. I protest against this 
constant allusion to the service of all these churches as a bald 
service. No, no ; it is a blessed service, and if we only get near 
to God we shall have an abundance of the glory of God with- 
out any liturgy. 

The Rev. Principal G. M. Grant, D. D., of Kingston, Canada. 
— If Dr. Hitchcock were here I would not speak; but I am told 
he is not here, and therefore I think it is only justice to him 
that there should be a correction, and, though I do not know 
Dr. Hitchcock, I shall attempt to make it. I think it is a great 
misfortune, when we quote a 'man, not to quote the whole sen- 
tence. Dr. Hitchcock’s sentence was not that the formula of 
Justification by Faith alone was “dangerous,” but that it was 
“dangerous in rash and unskilful hands.” Dr. Hitchcock is just 
as ready to fall back on the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone, 
and not on his own morality, as any man in this house. His 
paper showed that to me for one. 

I am delighted at the tone of the discussion about a liturgy. 
First, Dr. Calderwood most emphatically gives congregational 
liberty — that is what we want, to begin with. Secondly, Dr. 
Breed emphasizes that. Thirdly, Dr. Bruce emphasizes it. 
But Dr. Calderwood says it would be wrong for the Presby- 
terian Church to bind its members down to a liturgy. I in- 
dorse that thoroughly; but at the same time I do not believe 
that common sense is dead, and if in the future any Pres- 
byterian Church should think it proper to adopt even a modi- 
fied liturgy, as some Presbyterian churches have done, I say 
it is within their competence to do so. But all that is wanted 
is true congregational liberty ; and that has been frankly con- 
ceded by every speaker. 

Thirdly, Dr. Sloan laid down the principle that whatsoever is 
not commanded in the word of God is forbidden. Where did 
the Reformers lay down that principle ? Dr. Sloan lays it down. 
In what symbolical books is it ? Quote them. It is not in any 
symbolical book of the Reformed Churches that I know of : 
certainly it is not in the practice of the Reformed Churches. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


135 


The Reformed Church of Holland has always used organs, and 
there is a partial liturgy in the Lutheran Churches, and so, cer- 
tainly, that principle has not been accepted by the Reformed 
Churches, Dr. Sloan speaks about the inspiration of the Bible, 
Who has thrown a doubt on the inspiration of the Bible ? I 
did not gather that from Dr. Hitchcock’s paper, and no man by 
implication should assert that or imply that he did. 

The Rev. Prof. Alexander F. Mitchell, D. D., of St. 
Andrews, Scotland. — To a certain extent I hold that Dr. Sloan 
is right in what he said. Whatever changes, in the course 
of time, are made in the worship of the Presbyterian Church, 
I hope the liberty which has prevented our churches from 
adopting anything of which they cannot say that it is com- 
manded in the word of God, will be distinctly preserved. I 
think there is a more important duty before us than even 
that of considering whether we shall change our present sys- 
tem. It is that we shall endeavor to make the best of that 
system. I hold that we have not done justice to our system. 
The elder Dr. McCrie told us long ago that the system enjoined 
by the Westminster Confession of Faith does not intend that 
any man should lead the devotions of his people without medi- 
tation and prayer in private ; and if there were more of this, 
there would be fewer complaints that the great majority of our 
ministers cannot at all times pray as some men can at some 
times. 

Rev. a. T. Pierson, D. D., of Detroit. — I beg the indulgence 
of this assembly for intruding any suggestions, but my object is 
to propound a question. I listened with the profoundest inter- 
est to that most able and masterly paper by Dr. Hitchcock last 
evening, but it impressed my mind that one of the fundamental 
things was left out of it. According to the etymology of the 
word worship, it means ivorth ship, describing the worth of 
Almighty God. Anything which, in the house of God, as a 
part of God’s worship, has no tendency to exalt and magnify 
him, is foreign to the fundamental notion of worship; for in 
God’s house God alone should be exalted. Now. it appears 
to me, that one of the great difficulties in the introduction of 


136 


• THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


a new ceremonial lies in this : that the tendency is, in the first 
place, to divert attention from Almighty God; and, in the second 
place, to exalt the human medium, instrumentality, or agent. 
If, for example, it be pleaded, in behalf of quartette choirs with 
solo performances that soar into the stars and descend among 
the rocks, that they minister to the aesthetic taste, let it also be 
remembered that they tend to individual exaltation, to call atten- 
tion to one’s self, to a musical, to an aesthetic, to an intellectual, 
to an artistic performance, and, in so far as the attention is di- 
rected to the man himself, it is diverted from God. Let it be 
also remembered that in the introduction of liturgical forms, 
which are of purely human and uninspired origin, precisely the 
same danger is incurred, the tendency to direct the attention to 
human forms that have no authority of inspiration, and away 
from the great and glorious forms which, even in the matter of 
the speech or dialect of prayer, the word of God so amply fur- 
nishes. If a man will go into his closet and study the service 
of prayer in the house of God as he studies the service of 
preaching in the house of God, we shall not hear the cry 
of baldness in our worship. The simple fact is, while many of 
us study our sermons from the beginning to the end of the 
week, our prayers are in the worst sense extempore prayers — 
not born of the inspiring dialect of Holy Scripture; and when I 
speak of the dialect of Holy Scripture in prayer, I do not refer 
to the simple stringing along through the prayer of a number 
of texts disjointed, disconnected, and having no internal and in- 
herent relationship; but rather to such lingering before the 
mercy seat, that when he comes to conduct the service of 
prayer, he involuntarily breathes the words which the Holy 
Ghost has taught as vehicles of divine supplication. And let 
me add, that I am satisfied that the same principle obtains in 
preaching. Allow me modestly to utter my frank and honest 
testimony, that the Holy Ghost is frequently turned, as it were, 
from his course by the effort on the part of a carnal ambition to 
present before the people intellectual thoughts, and pathetic im- 
ageries, and philosophic discussions, which call attention to one’s 
self, and not to the word of God and to the glorified Christ. 





JULIANA OF STOLBERG 



NEW NETHERLANDS 

MICHAELIUS. A. 0.1688 
CLASSIS OF AM STERDAM."! 
PUR»TAW>FATHERS DELFTHAVEN A.D.I620 








SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


137 


The Rev. John Jenkins, D. D., LL. D. — Admirable as the 
remarks of our brethren have been, 1 think we ought to remem- 
ber, in courtesy to the churches represented here so largely as 
the English-speaking Presbyterian churches are, that the ma- 
jority of the churches represented in this Council are more or 
less liturgical churches ; and I think it is due to our brethren 
who use, either largely or less largely, liturgical services that 
they shall go away not feeling that this Council historically 
connects liturgical services with the corruptions of the Church 
of Rome. 

The Rev. Prof. Nicholas Hofmeyr. — I wish to say a word 
on the subject of liturgies. The National Presbyterian Church 
in Holland has a liturgy for celebrating baptism, communion, 
and marriage. These liturgies have been received by her daugh- 
ter in South Africa, the Dutch Reformed Church, which my co- 
delegate and myself represent in this Council. These liturgies 
are prized by us as precious jewels transmitted to us by our 
fathers. Not many years ago we had a hard struggle against 
rationalism, and then, to the joy of our faithful congregations, a 
sermon more or less tainted with rationalism would often be fol- 
lowed by an orthodox liturgy for celebrating baptism or the 
communion of the Lord’s Supper. These liturgies are chiefly 
expositions of sound doctrine. 

Dr. Prime. — I move that the discussion be discontinued on 
the first paper. 

The motion was agreed to. 

There being no discussion on the paper read by Principal 
Rainy, or upon the paper read by Principal Grant, next in order 
was the discussion upon the papers read this morning by Prof. 
E. P. Humphrey, and by Dr. Watts. 

THE SCRIPTURES. 

The Rev. Principal John Cairns, D. D., Edinburgh. — I 
highly value the opportunity given to make remarks, and think 
this is a great improvement upon the proceedings of the Council 
which was held in the city where I have the pleasure to live. 
Admirable as our procedure there was, I look upon our discus- 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


138 

sion here as raising this Council so much higher in its ultimate 
usefulness than the simple reading of papers without any com- 
ment or discussion, that I expose myself to the not very wel- 
come prominence which followed the example of my friend Dr. 
Calderwood and others. I have listened with the greatest in- 
terest to the papers of Dr. Humphrey, and of Dr. Watts. No 
subject is of more interest and gravity than this question of 
inspiration. I think that Dr. Humphrey. has done us a great 
service by the general tone and spirit of his admirable paper. 
Those of us who are at all acquainted with thought in our time 
in connection with theology know the great anxieties and the 
not inconsiderable difficulties that attach to this question. Hav- 
ing endeavored for many years to look on as many sides of it 
as possible, I here abide in the old line. 

I stand upon the ground of the infallibility of the Holy Scrip- 
tures, as the word of God, written and given by the inspiration 
of God, given in such a way as while fully doing justice to 
human individuality and human liberty, still strives to do equal 
justice to the divine source whence the contents of Holy Scrip- 
ture so largely come, and by which they have been arranged, not 
merely in regard to the plan, but, as I have been led to believe, 
and do believe, in spite of all difficulties to the contrary, in 
regard to the words in so far as it is possible for us to speak of 
inspiration as verbal. For there is a sense in which that ex- 
pression may be misunderstood and carried too far. But in the 
great line of what I believe to be our Protestant theology on 
this point, I abide. At the same time I would like that we 
should never forget the distinction between the use of this 
great doctrine among ourselves as it were in the dealing 
of churches with churches, and in the teaching of churches 
as a part of their full expression of the mind, of the Spirit, 
and our apologetic handling of the controversy with unbe- 
lievers. We can defend and ought to defend Holy Scripture 
as true and as divine without bringing in, or at least into the 
foreground, this doctrine of inspiration or the infallibility of 
Scripture as a product of inspiration. We can stand on the 
ground of the admitted genuineness and authenticity of Holy 


SECOND GENEEAL COUNCIL. 


139 


Scripture, in respect to history, and in respect of the peculiari- 
ties of Scripture, taken as a system like that which is found in 
Aristotle and Plato. I think it is our wisest course to defend 
Holy Scriptures on this ground. So far as the apologetic contro- 
versy is concerned, I humbly submit, while we can and ought to 
use this great doctrine, and not throw it into the background, 
we ought never to forget that we are not dependent on this 
doctrine of plenary and verbal inspiration, for our defence of 
Holy Scripture against unbelievers. I would also say we ought 
to distinguish between the doctrine of the inspiration of Holy 
Scripture, and the doctrine of the canon. There is a clear dis- 
tinction between the admission of all books of Holy Scripture 
to the place to which the Protestant Church exalts them, and the 
rank and dignity of those books themselves. We believe that 
the books of Holy Scripture are truly the Scripture, and are 
inspired from first to last; but it is a distinct question, one which 
we as Protestant Churches have settled, I think rightly, and which 
1 do not wish to see disturbed, and against the disturbance of 
which I would protest, but still it is a distinct question whether 
the rank and place of the separate books of Holy Scripture is 
made good by the legitimate evidence which appears on that 
subject. That is my second remark. The third is the vast im- 
portance of our striving to accord a legitimate field for criti- 
cism, and striving rather to eliminate and remove the difficulties, 
and by proper handling of Holy Scripture to harmonize them 
with the full doctrine of inspiration. That is my effort as a 
theologian, and I hope it will be our effort not to bring down 
Holy Scripture into the midst of these difficulties, without an 
effort to harmonize them at all times with the full doctrine of 
the infallibility of the Scriptures. 

Dr. Sloan. — I have been challenged to produce an authority. 
I have been to the Presbyterian Board of Publication. I hold 
in my hand an old-fashioned book called the Confession of Faith, 
adopted by the Presbyterian Churches of North America, stan- 
dard in all Presbyterian Churches, at least of the United States; 
and I quote from the Larger Catechism with all deference to my 
good brother from Canada (Prof. Grant). “What are the sins 


140 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


forbidden in the Second Commandment? The sins forbidden 
in the Second Commandment are all devising, counseling, com- 
manding, using, and in any wise approving any religious wor- 
ship not instituted by God himself” 

The Rev. T. H. Skinner, D. D., of Cincinnati. — What was 
not read of the Rev. Dr. Humphrey’s paper is in perfect keeping 
with what was read. It was my honored privilege to hear Dr. 
Humphrey read every word of the paper the other night in 
my room in the hotel, and I can assure the brethren that that 
paper in toto presents the old-fashioned Westminster Confession 
doctrine of the inspiration of the word of God ; inspiration for 
apologetics, inspiration for dogmatics. In the American Pres- 
byterian Church the one question that concerns us is that of 
the supernatural centring in the question of inspiration. The 
old controversies in the different parts of our re-united Church 
have ceased. You hear nothing through the papers, through 
the periodicals of our Church, on the old controversies of the 
Adamic connection, of original sin, of imputation, of ability, 
of the nature and extent of the atonement ; the Presbyterian 
Church of our country we say is a unit on all these long contro- 
verted doctrines, to all intents and purposes ; and the Presby- 
terian Church of our country will strive and struggle to present 
a united and unbroken front on the whole line of the super- 
natural as set forth by our standard-bearer, the Rev. Dr. 
Humphrey, in the minute exposition of this doctrine as 
you will find it in his paper as a whole. And I trust that as 
this question comes from Germany, and comes from Scotland 
over to us, that Germany in its Presbyterianism, and Scotland 
in its Presbyterianism will join hands and hearts with the Amer- 
ican Church in upholding the actual intervention of the infinite 
with the finite, of the Creator with the creature, of God with 
man, and of the Holy Ghost, the third Person of the God-head, 
through the written word of God to man, the will and nothing 
but the will of the great God concerning man, his fall and his 
redemption. The doctrine of the inspiration of the sixty-six 
books of the Holy Bible, which every Christian brother in this 
house, minister or elder, has sworn to, is the doctrine that we 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 141 

live by, and that we are ready, I trust, to die by, and the assur- 
ance that that is the word of God to you and to me, is not an 
apologetic study, an inference ; but it is itself, as we were taught, 
the direct illumination of the Holy Ghost, the author alike of 
the world and of regeneration, v/itnessing to us, and assuring 
us that those sixty-six books are the word of the living God. 
We have sworn to that, and if we cannot abide by it, I think 
those that cannot should leave us to fight our battles for our- 
selves on our own line, and not give us trouble within our own 
ranks. 

The Rev. Robert F. Burns, D. D., of Halifax.— I would like 
to express the intense gratification I have felt in listening to Dr. 
Humphrey’s paper. I think it very providential that such a 
paper, followed by the very logical and luminous address of 
Professor Watts, should have come before us at this particular 
time ; and I am especially glad that so many fathers and brethren 
from the old world have heard this testimony from our Western 
fathers. If there are any in the old land, to which we have 
always looked as the seed and spring of orthodoxy, who are 
beginning to tremble for the ark of God— if there should be 
anybody who is asking where is the good way, we may tell them 
if they are at any loss, to come over here. I feel the paper had 
the right ring about it. We stand on the old ground that all 
the writing is God-breathed. The holy men speak not in the 
words that men’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost- 
teaches ; if we are to let go this verbal inspiration we are entirely 
at sea. Never have I been more impressed than by the thought 
presented by Dr. Watts, of the frequency with which Christ 
referred to Moses and quoted Moses. If it were not so, would 
he not have told us ? If it were not Moses, surely there would 
have been some hint given. So with the holy men following in 
the Master’s wake who quoted from those books; surely in 
some way they would have given us a hint that the writer was 
some other party. After all there is nothing new under the sun ; 
and the modern assaults upon the holy books, in the matters of 
inspiration, are made with just the old weapons, reformed and 
refurbished, that have been shivered in a hundred battles : the 


142 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


ancient cannons, remoulded and remounted, that have been 
taken times without number and have been turned upon the 
retreating forces. No weapon that is formed against this blessed 
word will ever prosper; and it rejoices the hearts of many of us 
to hear such testimony from fathers in Israel who have walked 
about the citadel of our faith and marked well its bulwarks, and 
considered its palaces; and when we hear them come out and 
say distinctly what our own hearts feel, we realize more than 
ever that we have a strong citadel, and that salvation has God 
appointed to us for walls and for bulwarks. 

Rev. J. Murray Mitchell, LL. D., Edinburgh. — I had no 
intention to say a word on this subject, which I have no doubt 
many fathers and brethren have had occasion to study more 
deeply than I have done, were it not for this, that I have had 
occasion to look at the question from a somewhat different point 
of view ; and I shall briefly express the conviction to which I 
have come, looking at it from that point of view. My life has 
been spent mainly in the East, and it has been my duty to 
study, with the best care I could, the religious books of the 
greatest of heathen nations — that is to say, the books of ancient 
Zoroastrianism, and the books of the Mohammedans in particu- 
lar — and I find that there is no argument more convincing, even 
to a native of India, in regard to the truth of Christianity, than 
just to ask him to take the Bible and his own book, and then 
look on this picture and on that; and in every man of the 
slightest impartiality who thus compares the two, I think the 
result has been, that the one must be a book of man, and the 
other the Book of God. I should delight in telling several 
points in which these books are entirely different. I would 
mention this as one of the many points of difference: the glori- 
ous hopefulness that characterizes the book of God from be- 
ginning to end; the seven-fold light and glory of the future 
which all these holy seers of Israel ever thought of ; the latter 
day, when every crooked thing shall be made straight, when 
there shall be glory to God in the highest, when strife shall 
cease, when the meek shall inherit the earth and delight them- 
selves in the abundance of peace. There is nothing of that in 


SECOND GENERAL CO UNCLE 


143 


any heathen book with which I am acquainted. Even in the 
matter of scientific error, I confess it looks to me the most 
remarkable thing that every book of the heathen overflows with 
scientific blunders. The Koran of Mohammed has them in 
every page. Take the New Testament, from beginning to end, 
there is not one solitary scientific blunder, so far as I have ever 
been able to see. What makes it more remarkable still is, that 
the early Christian writers fell into scientific blunders. Clement, 
whom we believe to have been the associate of St. Paul, tells thq 
fable of the Phoenix, tells it as the truth, and tells it to illus- 
trate the immortality of the soul. Paul walks erect; so did the 
other holy apostles. Clement, that holy man, stumbled. There 
are many points of difference most striking between the Bible 
and the books of the heathen ; but in regard even to the matter 
of science, on which some men have said you have no right to 
demand accuracy; I ask them to explain why there is not one 
solitary error from beginning to end in the New Testament even 
on scientific questions. 

The Rev. Narayan Sheshadri, of Bombay. — The paper that 
was read on the inspiration of the Bible contained the very argu- 
ments that took hold of me thirty-seven years ago and brought 
me over to acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ. I don’t think I 
went to “The Evidences of Christianity” or to “Butler’s An- 
alogy,” although I studied those books subsequently; but I 
went to the grand old book, the Bible, and I found, from the 
Book of Genesis to the Book of Malachi, prophecies scattered 
over those thirty-nine books, and if I had time I would go 
over all those prophecies; and those prophecies are so dif- 
ferent from the prophecies that I had known in my own 
books that I could not but come to the conclusion that the 
holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost. I had come to know that Moses was in Egypt; that 
forty years he was learning the sciences and arts of Egypt; I 
had known that Egyptians were as grovelling idolaters as we 
ourselves were in India; and I read the books of the Pentateuch, 
and there you find no trace whatsoever of idolatry advocated, 
but, on the contrary, idolatry condemned. The prophecies that 


144 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


refer to the Lord Jesus Christ are very minute. I will not oc- 
cupy your time referring to them, but onwards to the Book of 
Malachi we have these prophecies spread abroad, so that the 
conviction was wrought in my mind that the holy men of God 
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. I have had the 
honor to sit at the feet of those prophets in Israel which Scot- 
land sent forth. Two of them are now enjoying the rich reward 
before the immediate presence of God; I refer to the late Rev. 
Robert Nesbit, and the Rev. Dr. Wilson, of Bombay. But my 
third teacher is still spared to me, and I hope he will be spared 
to the Church for many long years— the father who just pre- 
ceded me. I was brimful of Hindooism at one time, and I had 
miracles in abundance. I will tell you one. I read of a fearful 
giant that sleeps six long months, and he is wide awake for six 
long months, and when he sleeps he snores like most of us, and 
when he snores that is the reason you have high tide and low 
tide — (The speaker’s five minutes being up, he did not conclude 
his sentence.) 

The Rev. H. L. McKenzie, of China. — I wish in a sentence or 
two to add my tribute from the far East to what Dr. Murray 
Mitchell has just brought before you, and in which he has been 
followed by our friend who has just sat down. I refer to the 
testimony which we can find in the heathen lands to the inspira- 
tion of Scriptures, when we compare the Scriptures with the best 
books that the heathen nations have produced. Dr. Mitchell has 
referred to the books of India. Let me allude in a sentence or 
two to the books of China, the classical works of that ancient 
land, and more especially the writings of Confucius. I may 
mention that at this day about one-third of the whole human 
race worship Confucius and abide by his teachings, and speak 
of him as the equal of heaven and earth, ‘the .teacher often 
thousand ages. It is no small matter to know that we have 
about one-third of the human race worshipping this great 
teacher, receiving his teachings as divine. How is it when you 
come to compare the teachings of Confucius with the word of 
God, the inspired Bible ? I have often thought, when thinking 
of these works and comparing them with the blessed book of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL 


145 

God, that they are to be spoken of as the stars of midnight, 
which cast a feeble light, but a light by which we cannot carry 
on the work of this great world, while the word of God may be 
spoken of as the sun in the heavens, shedding light all over the 
earth, and enabling man to carry on the works of God as com- 
mitted to them. There is much in the writings of Confucius 
which gains not only our respect, but even our admiration. Five 
hundred years before Christ was born, before Christ the light of 
the world came to speak the word of God in person, Confucius 
spoke thus : he said, “ Do not unto others what you would not 
that others should do to you.’’ You will all at once recognize the 
likeness, and yet the want of complete likeness, of that saying of 
Confucius to what our Lord said in his sermon on the mount, “ Do 
unto others as you would that others should do unto you.” Five 
hundred years before the Christian era Confucius thus taught 
what we may call the negative side of the golden rule ; but take 
the writings of Confucius as a whole ; take the writings of Chinese 
sages as a whole, whose writings one-third of the human race 
so admire, and you will at once see the vast, the infinite su- 
periority of the word of God to the very best thing that they 
have in their books. There is a good morality in many respects 
taught in the books of China, but no morality that goes so high 
as the morality of the New Testament, and there is utterly a want 
in those books of anything to lead the heart and mind of man to 
find rest and satisfaction in the hope of a glorious hereafter. 
Their books teach much about the duty of rulers to those over 
whom they rule, the duty of subjects, to their king, but nothing 
of the way of forgiveness, nothing of the way whereby sinful 
man can be at peace with God ; they bring no hope to the 
human heart, no comfort in times of sorrow and distress; they 
speak nothing of the great hereafter. In this and in many other 
respects it is manifest to those who have studied both* books, 
W'ho have studied on the one hand the classical books of China, 
the writings of the great Confucius, and who have studied on 
the other the blessed word of God, that there is an infinite su- 
periority in the word of God. I thought I could not let this 
discussion come to an end without very briefly thus indicating. 

10 


146 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


to you that what Dr. Mitchell has brought from India may be 
brought from China ; that all heathen books and teachings show 
an inferiority to the word of God; and thus bringing it forward 
not as a scientific argument for inspiration, but yet as a blessed 
confirmation to those who accept the word of God as inspired. 

The Rev. Robert Howie, A. M., of Glasgow. — I should not 
have taken part in this discussion, but for the very explicit 
reference made in the course of it to Scotland. I come as one 
of the delegates from the Free Church of Scotland, and since 
arriving in your country I have been somewhat a suspected man. 
I have had to clear myself from the suspicion of heresy in con- 
nection with this question of the word of God. I thoroughlyen- 
dorse the views set forth by the brethren who read these papers, 
and I believe the brethren on this side of the Atlantic would find 
that those are the views that fill the whole heart of Scotland. 
There are certain erratic tendencies manifesting themselves not 
in one church, but several ; but I believe in the end that all mis- 
conception will be removed, and that \ve will substantially en- 
dorse the views that have been set before us so ably in these 
papers. I may say that there are special reasons why I most 
tenaciously hold to such views. I have been engaged in the 
home mission work in the city of Glasgow, and I have felt that 
if you remove this weapon from my hands, if you make it 
doubtful whether any part of it is the very word of God, I have 
lost the instrument that has been useful in the past. My effort 
in dealing with people in my mission has been to get them away 
from themselves — away from their own feeling and their own 
intuition, their prejudices and preconceptions, and to get them 
^o rest on “ thus saith the Lord.” And when I come to your 
;^reat country and see the vast work you have to do in the home 
.mission department, I can easily understand why it is that 
brethren here so tenaciously hold fast by the orthodox view in 
connection with the Scripture. I thoroughly subscribe to what 
was said by Dr. Cairns, who distinguished between apologetics 
and what we have to do with our dealings with Christian 
men. In addressing large numbers of individuals even in 
Glasgow, I found it would not have done to assume the inspira- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 147 

tion of Scripture. I needed to deal with these people on the 
historical ground that there was the person of Christ, and to get 
them to admit the fact of the person of Christ on the ground 
that these books are historically true, without assuming for the 
time being their inspiration, and then by logical conclusion get 
them to admit the rest. 

The Rev. Principal Wm. Caven, D. D., of Toronto, Canada. — 
There are certain great matters that are not under discussion in 
the Church of Christ, and certainly not in the Presbyterian Church. 
There are certain great matters that have been decided by the 
mind of the Church of Christ, bearing upon them in all ages ; 
and I hold that the inspiration and infallibility of God’s word is 
one of those matters. If there is anything in my nature that in- 
duces me even to reopen that question, with a view of essen- 
tially modifying the catholic doctrine, I have very great reason 
to stand in doubt of my nature ; and I cannot conceive anything 
that would be a greater calamity, not simply to the Presbyterian 
Church, but to all the Church of Christ, than that this great 
Council should waver in its enunciation of this doctrine ; and 
whilst I do not need to be assured as to the mind of this 
Council (I knew it from the beginning), at the same time I state 
to-day, with thankfulness, that I am refreshed and strengthened 
by the strong and hearty, and yet most deliberate, utterance of 
this doctrine from North and South and East and West. I be- 
lieve that the Church of Christ in all sections will be profoundly 
thankful to this Council for the tone of this discussion. There 
are just two points I ask permission to notice, that I think 
have not been brought into the discussion. One is this : It is 
frequently said that our doctrine of inspiration can be of no 
practical value, even supposing we established it, on this ac- 
count : there is a good deal of uncertainty about various read- 
ings. They say. Of what practical value is an extremely orthodox 
doctrine upon this point, when there are various readings that 
have been made ? I am not inclined to argue that point. I will 
simply say that my conviction is again the excuse for my 
motive in stating that these manuscripts are God’s. Plenary in- 


f48 THE PRESBYTEJR. 1 AN ALLIANCE. 

spiration is what gives legitimacy, and I venture to say gives 
high dignity, to these most earnest studies that have been di- 
rected to the ascertainment of the facts. An English critic, re- 
cently deceased, who has edited an edition of the New Tes- 
tament, said that had he not believed the doctrine of plenary 
inspiration, or even verbal inspiration, his soul would not have 
sustained his weak body in his protracted labors. We are fre- 
quently reminded, as against this doctrine, of the idiosyncrasy 
of the several inspired writers. We are told, but, of course, 
everybody knows that, that the soul of Paul is not the soul of 
John, and the soul of Peter is not the soul of either. They say 
“ if you have the human element so distinctly upon the surface 
of Scripture, where is your ground for asserting plenary inspira- 
tion? You must modify that doctrine.” To my mind Dr. 
Humphrey has put the matter most admirably. He has said 
that it is all human and it is all divine; and I will not allow any 
man with his critical instincts to run through the Bible and 
analyze it mechanically, and determine that so much is human 
and so much divine. I hold that, just as order interpenetrates 
life, you have a divine Logos penetrating every part of Scripture, 
so that from the beginning to the end of it, it is an intensely 
human book, and it is absolutely a divine book. These are the 
two points I beg permission to state in the Council ; and I can- 
not but express not simply my intellectual satisfaction, but my 
deep gratitude before God, at the profound and earnest views 
which have here been offered from all quarters upon this great 
subject. 

The Council then adjourned until 2 o’clock in the afternoon. 

September 2\th, 1880, 2.30 p. m. 

The Council, was called to order and prayer offered by the 
Rev. Thomas S. Porter, D.D., LL.D., of Easton, Pa., President. 

The Committee on ” Credentials ” reported. (See p. 24.) 

The Rev. Prof. Samuel J. Wilson, D. D., LL. D., of Alle- 
gheny City, read the following on 

THE DIS;riNCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF PRESBYTERIANISM. 

From eternity God chose a people for himself. The idea of the 
Church rests upon and springs out of the eternal purpose of Jehovah 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


149 


In the working out of this eternal purpose the divine thought assumes 
form and visibility in time. The true people of God as they are 
known to him throughout all the ages, those who have been, and 
those who will be redeemed, constitute the Invisible Church. But 
since man can only judge as to who are the people of God by a credi- 
ble profession, “all those who profess the true religion, together with 
their children, constitute the visible Church. The Church, there- 
fore, in its idea and necessity, rests upon no tradition or expediency, 
not upon apostolical authority alone, not upon an happy after-thought 
of G-od, but upon his blessed, eternal purpose according to the counsel 
of his own will. As to churchism — if we must have it of all dimen- 
sions, high, low and broad — here is churchism which in its “breadth 
and length and depth and height” is commensurate with the “love 
of Christ, which passeth knowledge.” 

In the government of a God “ whose bosom is the home of law,” 
which law is voiced- in the harmony of the world ; this visible Church 
must have a form, an organization. It is a body. The earth which 
is preserved from fire for the sake of the Church, swings through the 
ranks of marching suns to the music of the spheres. This God of 
order would not leave his highest creation — the Church — to go on at 
random, or in anarchy. Here naturally and presumably we should 
expect the highest type of law and order and government ; of power 
regulated ; rights guarded ; order maintained with all due liberty of 
thought and action. 

I. Presbyterianism maintains therefore, that there is a Church, that 
there has been a Church from the beginning of human history ; that 
the plan of the Church lay in the mind of God before the foundations 
of the world were laid. This is high churchism of the right kind. 

II. This Church, then, has a founder, a lawgiver, a governor, a 
king, a head ; and this king, lawgiver and head is Christ. Presby- 
terianism maintains, always has maintained, and always will maintain 
so long as true to herself, the supreme headship of Christ. To his 
Church Jesus Christ has given laws and a form of government. To 
him alone is the Church responsible for what she does in her legiti- 
mate and appropriate sphere. These laws given by Christ to his 
Church are contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ments, which Scriptures 

III. Presbyterianism holds to be the only and sufficient rule of 
faith and practice ; the Bible, the Bible alone, and the whole Bible. 
To this principle Presbyterianism has always been loyal ; always 

following God’s word,” as the immprtal Rutherford has it. 

Richard Hooker — nomen clarum et venerabile — in his ecclesiastical 
polity begins the discussion at very long range, concerning law in 
general, law of nature, of angels, of reason, etc., then Scripture. On 
the other hand, Presbyterianism begins, continues and ends with 
Scripture — with all Scripture. After we have learned what the Scrip- 
ture saith it is time enough to consult antiquity, history, canons, 
nature or logic. The Old Testament and the New Testament are not 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


150 

antagonistic nor contradictory, nor inconsistent the one with the 
other ; the one is not a supplement to the other, nor is the New Tes- 
ament a feeble apology for the Old, but both alike are the word of 
God. The Church is one throughout the ages. Thus going to the 
word of God, to the whole word of God, reverently to learn what 
form of government Christ has given to the Church, and pressing out 
the very essence of all dispensations, and lifting the name right from 
the sacred page, with the breath of Jehovah upon it, we exclaim, 
Presbyterian ! 

What then is Presbyterianism? 

1. First and most obviously it is a Church government in the hands 
of Presbyters (elders) ; and of these there are two classes, viz., teach- 
ing elders and ruling elders. Every ordained teaching Presbyter has 
authority to discharge all ministerial functions, viz., to preach the 
Word, to administer the sacraments, to dispense discipline. There 
are no orders in the ministry such as characterize Prelacy — Bishops, 
Presbyters, Deacons. Each Presbyter in the New Testament was, 
and by right is, a Bishop — a Bishop in the sense of an overseer of the 
flock, not an overseer of his brethren. Associated with the Presby- 
ters, who, besides ruling, “labor in word and doctrine,” are others 
whose peculiar function it is to rule ; hence called Ruling Elders. 

These ruling elders are not laymen, but are chosen from among 
laymen, and are ordained to a spiritual office, and in ecclesiastical 
courts represent the people ; and in these ecclesiastical courts have 
equal powers with the teaching elders. It is conceded on all hands 
that the office of ruling elder is perpetual, and in logical Presbyterian- 
ism the exercise of this spiritual office should no more expire by limita- 
tion of time, than the exercise of the spiritual office of a preaching 
elder should expire by limitation of time ; or than the exercise of a 
man’s spiritual gifts and graces should expire by limitation of time. 

Each congregation is governed by a bench of elders. From the 
lowest court to the highest the power of the keys is in the hand of 
Presbyters, and this Presbyterian authority is Episcopal. We have no 
controversy with Episcopacy. We hold it, believe it, teach it, prac- 
tice it, defend it. Each Presbyterian minister is a bishop — is indeed 
the only scriptural kind of bishop ; an episcoposy overseer of the flock, 
but not a lord over his brethren. We are Episcopalians y truer ones than 
those who arrogate the name to themselves, for they have but few 
bishops, whereas we have many. Prelatists are they, but scriptural 
Episcopalians they are not. We are Episcopalians but not Prelatists. 
Prelacy has no foundation in the word of God. It is a human 
device; a human invention, a human after-thought. 

The government of the church is. by elders; and, 

2. This government by elders binds the church together organically. 
Each court is subordinate to a higher court — the Church Session to the 
Presbytery, the Presbytery to the Synod, the Synod to the General 
Assembly. The power of the church is not in the whole body of believers 
but representatively in these church courts, but it is in these courts. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


151 

There is no scriptural example of ordination by one presbyter, but by 
Presbytery ; so there is no scriptural example of authority exercised by 
one bishop but by an assembly of bishops, Presbyters. Thus order, 
decency, discipline in the house of God are secured and at the same 
time the rights of every member are carefully guarded. The proceed- 
ings, conclusions, findings and judgments of all lower courts are sub- 
ject to review by the higher courts, and this review carries with it 
control. No congregation is or can be independent, but is an integral 
l)art of the Presbytery, and the Presbytery is an integral part of the 
Synod, and the Synod of the General Assembly. An independent 
Presbyterian Church is an anomaly — a monstrosity. Thus we have : 

3. Unity: Many members forming one body, and the body in sub- 
jection to the head ; a living organism, not a unity secured by arbitrary 
power, not the unity of iron bands which make the chariot wheel one. 
but the plastic power of an informing inner life which makes the 
cedar of Lebanon one, or the oak of Bashan one, with many members. 
There is a strong government, but this government is only ministerial. 
1 he church can make no laws to bind the conscience. She can only 
administer the law as laid down in the word of God. It is consti- 
tutional government, government according to the divine constitution. 

And, 4, this unity is Catholic. 

If Presbyterianism be jure divino, it is and must be Catholic. “We 
believe in the Holy Catholic Church ; ” and besides this, Presbyterian- 
ism is the only form of government which can really give scriptural 
expression to this catholicity. Papacy or Prelacy can no more do 
this than Napoleonic imperialism could give expression to the catho- 
licity of human freedom. Catholicity, moreover, is an instinct of 
Presbyterianism. In the Book of Discipline of the Kirk of Scotland, 
as early as 1581, it is declared : “ Beside these assemblies, there is an- 
other more general kind of assembly, an universal assembly of the 
Church of Christ in the world, which was commonly called an oecu- 
menic council, representing the universal Church, which is the body 
of Christ.” 

Rutherford in “ Divine Right” declares that “oecumenic and general 
councils should ht,jure divino, to the second coming of Christ.” (58.) 

Gillespie says : “ Besides provincial and national synods, an oecu- 
menical or more truly a general, or, if you please, an universal 
synod.” Prop. 36. 

{a) This scheme of government -therefore is logical and symmetrical. 
Each part fits to its fellow without jar or friction ; the body develops 
naturally and harmoniously into full, rounded proportions, without 
excrescences or monstrosities; “ the building fitly framed together, 
groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.” 

{b) It is logical and symmetrical because it is scriptural. It claims 
to be jure divino. Normal, healthy Presbyterianism — Presbyterianisni 
which has the breath of life in its nostril, the pulse-beat of life in its 
wrist — has never abated a jot or a tittle of that claim. If the system 
be not jure divino, if it be not scriptural, let us know it and let ug 


152 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


have done with it. Let ii.s understand ourselves, brethren, and then 
the world will understand us Our right to be here as a General 
Presbyterian Council rests on the fact that our system in government 
as well as in doctrine is Jure divino. Our catholicity is not to be 
maintained by a dilution of our Presbyterianism ; we are not to reach 
comprehension by beating out the gold of the sanctuary until it 
becomes so thin that it can be put to the base purposes of tinfoil. 
If our system be not jure divino, we as Presbyterians, especially as a 
Presbyterian General Council, have no right to exist. Let us not be 
ashamed of our birthright : above all let us not sell at Esau’s price. 

Boast they of apostolical succession ! We claim patriarchal suc- 
cession. Presbyterianism is older by millennia than the apostles. 
The apostles only take their place in the unbroken line of Presbyte- 
rianism, which had been in successful operation for thousands of years 
before Peter cast his first net or caught his first fish. At Horeb, in 
the light of the burning bush, nec tamen consicmebatur, Moses received 
his great commission, which ran thus: “Go gather the elders of 
Israel together.” Jehovah sent Moses down to Egypt to convene the 
Presbytery. Through the elders, the representatives of the people, he 
was to act, and through them he did act. From the burning bush at 
Horeb Moses went to Presbytery. There were Presbyterians ages 
before Peter was born, or Rome was builded, or Prelacy or Papacy 
was ever heard or dreamed of. We date far beyond apostolic times. 
One purpose runs through the ages. The Church is one in all dispen- 
sations. There is but one plan of salvation. Abel was saved through 
the blood of the Lamb. At Sinai, and during the sojourn in the 
desert, the elders represented the people. The establishment of the 
monarchy left the Presbyterial government of the Israel itish Church 
intact. Let it be borne in mind that the Israelitish Church and State 
were not identical. Gillespie and Rutherford set that at rest forever. 

The government of the synagogues was Presbyterian. The death 
of Christ abolished the Temple service, which was sacrificial and 
ritual. There was no more need for altar, or priest, or sacrifice. 
Christ fulfilled the law by taking the place of the types. When the 
Temple service was thus abolished, there remained the form and ser- 
vice of the synagogue ; and the first converts being Jews the syna- 
gogue model was ready to hand. There was no revolution ; when 
ritualism was abolished by the sacrifice of Christ the Presbyterianism 
of Moses remained. There is not a scintilla of evidence for any 
other form of government in the New Testament. Diocesan Bishops 
are unknown to the New Testament. Neither is there any trace of 
independency or Congregationalism in Judaism. 

The lines of the covenant run from one dispensation to another 
unbroken, only expanding so as to embrace all who shall believe, of all 
nations, together with their children. 

The system is scriptural, and because scriptural it is logical and 
symmetrical. It is not first made logical, and Scripture made to 
square with it, but it is drawn directly from the word of God, not 





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SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


153 


cunningly framed to meet some exigency or expediency, not accord- 
ing to any prepossessions. The eternal thought of Jehovah takes 
form and visibility in just and due proportion. Presbyters are iden- 
tical with bishops in New Testament usage. On this point there is an 
unbroken chain of authorities from Augustine to the present Bishop 
Lightfoot. 

Paul called presbyters of the Church of Ephesus bishops (Acts xx. 
17-28). 

The apostles ordained them elders in every church (Acts xiv. 23). 

Peter, himself an elder, charges elders as bisho])s, overseers and 
pastors of the flock, but not ‘‘ lords over God’s heritage.” 

Presbyters were ordained by the laying on of hands of the Presby- 
tery (i Tim. iv. 14). 

An accusation against a presbyter could not be entertained except 
in and by Presbytery before two or three witnesses. (i Tim. v. 
19.) A presbyter is entitled to a fair trial by his peers. That was 
Paul’s presbyter, according to the glorious Sam’l Rutherford. Through- 
out the Bible from end to end the Church is Presbyterian, from the 
times of Moses to and through the times of the apostles ; from the 
Shechinah of the burning bush to the Apocalypse of John. Jehovah 
sent Moses to the elders of Israel, and in the Apocalypse the elders, 
together with angels and cherubim, worship and preach and sing the 
new song in company with the countless multitude before the throne. 
In the visions of John there are no prelates, but the elders are, and 
are there representatively. From the household of the ante-diluvian 
patriarch to the worship of the Apocalyptic Church in heaven, the 
thought and scheme and spirit of the Bible is Presbyterian. 

(c) And being scriptural it is historical. 

That apostolical Presbyterianism was in the third centurysuperseded 
by Prelacy is only too obviously true, but this Prelacy came not by the 
door of scripture authority, but, like a thief and a robber, climbed up 
some other way. From Judaism and Paganism it crept in, bringing 
with it altars, priests, sacrifices, and the elaborate ritual appropriate to 
these ideas. 

During the Middle Ages, whenever and wherever a witness for the 
truth arose, who by the’ study of the word of God had been in- 
structed and quickened, and who, thus instructed and quickened, 
desired to lead the Church back to apostolical simplicity and purity, 
there we find a Presbyterian. This is true of all the fore-runners of 
the Reformers, and of all the Reformers ; and in every country the 
Reformation was conducted on Presbyterian principles except in Eng- 
land. Prelatists say Presbyterianism is not historical ; but it is historical 
in apostolical times and in the best ages in the world’s life. If it ever 
is submerged it is in the days of the deepest corruption, when it is 
confessed that Prelacy held the field. 

Nor is Presbyterianism simply a form of ecclesiology, but going 
is it always does to the word of God, it there finds a system of 
loctrine which is much more important and precious than any form 
of polity. Excellent as our form of government is, it is withal only 


154 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


the casket which contains and conserves the treasure of sound 
doctrine. We put doctrine first, form of government secondary; 
the form only to give proper expression and efficiency to the doctrine. 
So that with all its strength and clearness of conviction Presbyte- 
rianism is catholic and charitable in spirit and in sympathy. 

Presbyterianism, then, is not a mere form, or badge, but a system 
of doctrines and principles, the form being appropriate to the 
doctrines, the history of which can be traced back along a line of 
fire to the Apostle Paul, and thence to the burning bush at Horeb. 
Phe true line of succession does not consist in the unbroken con- 
tinuity of empty, extra-scriptural forms and ceremonies, but in the 
continuous holding forth and passing forward of the vital doctrines of 
the gospel, accompanied by the spirit and power of true godliness. 
The line passes on from Abel, the first martyr, to Enoch, the seventh 
from Adam ; from Enoch to Noah, the preacher of righteousness; from 
Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Paul, 
from Paul to Augustine, from Augustine to Claudius of Turin, from 
Claudius to the Waldenses in their Alpine fastnesses, to Succat, com- 
monly known as St. Patrick, a good sound Presbyterian ; from Succat 
through the Culdees, thence through every witness of the truth during 
the Middle Ages, thence through the Reformers. Along the whole 
line stakes and fagots have blazed, and along the whole line 
Presbyterian blood has sprinkled, and ashes of martyred Presbyterians 
have been scattered. 

“ Kings, Prophets, Patriarchs, all have part 
Along the sacred line.” 

This system is scriptural, logical and symmetrical. The form is not 
a mere shell, but is a body for vital forces which live, and move and 
work; which work, moreover, within prescribed limits according to 
established laws. We are not dealing with dead forms, but with 
living principles. For example; 

I. I he headship of Christ as held by Presbyterians renders Papacy 
impossible. Christ is King alone, and has on earth no vicar. He 
has no deputy and needs none, and he who usurps such an office 
presumptuously puts himself in the place of God. Christ has no 
vicar, but he as King sends out his ambassadors, his ministers, and 
they declare his will, they preach the word. They are not to 
minister at an altar, not to parody the one infinite sacrifice of the Son 
of God ; nor are they sent to amuse or astonish the people with the 
fancies and crudities of their own imaginations, but to declare the 
will and counsel of the ever-living, all-ruling King. Tliis will of the 
King has been written, put on record for us in his word, and this is 
our rule, our only rule, our sufficient rule. 

This sound, simple principle sweeps utterly away all theories of 
tradition, all theories of “ quod se7nper, quod ubique et quod ab 
omnibus,^' and all theories of development. 

All intelligent and honest Papists and Prelatists know that their 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


155 


systems are not found in the Bible, and on that account they scout 
the idea of the sufficiency of Scripture; hence they base these sys- 
tems on expediency, decency ; then they have fallen back on tradi- 
tion, antiquity, church history, the consensus of the ante-Nicene 
fathers ; but being ignominiously routed from these positions by 
advancing scholarship, Maehler suggested, and Cardinal Newman 
elaborated a theory of development which can account for the Papacy 
apart from apostolic authority. Is it not suggestive, is it not decisive 
against them that all these extreme Prelatic theories, and just in pro- 
portion to their intensity, discredit the sufficiency of Scripture ? In 
the magical hands of Newman this development performs the most 
wonderful feats. He makes the incarnation to be the antecedent of 
the doctrine of mediation, this develops into the doctrine of the 
atonement, and that into the doctrine of the mass and the worship of 
saints. In other words the divinity and incarnation of our Lord 
develop into the worship of saints and relics. From the same source 
he draws the sacramental principle, and this develops into the seven 
sacraments, the unity of the Church, the Holy See, authority of 
Councils, sanctity of rites, veneration of holy places, shrines, images, 
furniture, vessels and vestments. “The doctrine of the sacraments 
leads to the doctrine of justification ; justification to that of original 
sin; original sin to the merit of celibacy.” With such a theory he 
only needs the last law of development which he lays down, viz. ; 
“ Chronic Continuance,” to be able to achieve anything by develop^ 
ment without either Scripture or history, and for that matter without 
reason or common sense. 

The headship of Christ is potent against Popery, so also against 
Erastianism. To the Church is given no sword, but the power of the 
keys. The State bears the sword, the Church the keys, and Christ 
alone the sceptre. 

Ministerial parity as a principle is sharp, keen, distinctive, and far- 
reaching in its sweep and power. It is a two-edged plowshare which 
cuts up by the roots Prelacy, and the very beginnings of hierarchical 
order, distinction, supremacy. As a principle this is the touch-stone 
of Presl^yterianism. Departure from this simple principle, early in 
the history of the Church, laid the foundation for the astounding 
claims and achievements of the Papacy, of Hildebrand ; and departure 
from it, however slight, is always fraught with danger. 

Ministerial parity implies a ministry. Presbyterianism holds no 
uncertain views on this subject, but sound, scriptural views, which 
the world greatly needs to hear. There is a Christian ministry, jure 
divino, and the sacred functions of this office— preaching the word 
and administering the sacraments— are not to be assumed or usurped 
by any one’s taking this honor to himself; but men are to enter this 
office according to the order laid down in the word of God. 

If a man be called to preach, he is called of God, and called 
according to the divine ordinance. Here again we find in Presbyter- 
ianism a plowshare, which cuts up by the roots the pestiferous weeds 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


156 

of Plymouthism, and all forms of ecclesiastical insubordination and 
anarchy : and may God speed the plowshare ! 

The office of Ruling Elder gives the people a representation in all 
ecclesiastical courts, and the people having a right to choose their own 
officers, the heart of the Church is thus brought near to the people, 
and the heart of the people is kept near the Church. 

Presbyterianism is an impregnable bulwark against spiritual oli- 
garchy, and spiritual monarchy ; and also against sacerdotalism, sac- 
ramentarianism, and ritualism. A church truly Presbyterian can 
never become ritualistic, because ritualism is extra-scriptural. Even 
on the theory that the Christian Church is modelled after the Temple 
service, it by no means follows that the Church must be prelatic, but, 
on the contrary, it is quite true that the Levitical priests were not 
prelates, nor was the system in any of its features prelatic. But the 
Temple service was abrogated by the one infinite sacrifice, offered 
once for all by our Great High Priest. Priesthood, altar, sacrifice, 
types, all vanished in the presence of the Anti-Type. He is a priest 
forever after the order of Melchisedek, not after the order of Aaron. 
He has no successor in office. Who now dares obtrude himself into 
the sanctuary as priest ? who dares to build again Jewish altars, and to 
usurp the prerogatives of the one High Priest, who, in the heavenly 
sanctuary, ever lives to intercede ? 

What a pitiable spectacle it is to see a poor mortal, tricked out in 
. his vestments, manipulate a wafer, and call it a sacrifice ! With this 
sacerdotal idea comes ritualism in all its modes, degrees, and extremes. 
Presbyterianism knows but one King and Head of the Church, and 
but one High Priest and Mediator, who “hath made us kings and 
.priests unto God.” The dowry through his blood is the universal 
priesthood of believers. This is Presbyterian sacerdotalism. 

Presbyterianism gives strength and security just where these are 
needed, and gives this strength and security on scriptural founda- 
tions. It has liberty with strength as against the Papacy, and 
strength with liberty as against Independency. “ Strength and beauty 
are in his sanctuary.” We are not ashamed of our polity and form 
of government. We are not ashamed of its origin, of its history, of 
its past, of its present, of its hopes for the future. 

Presbyterianism is liberal, charitable, unchurching no one, attaching 
more importance to purity of doctrine and of life than to any form 
of government, and is ready always with a good conscience to fellow- 
ship with all who “ hold the Head ; ”' and so in controversy she has 
always been on the defensive; but when attacked she has always 
shown that she is able to take care of herself and the precious interests 
committed to her. We are willing and anxious to live in peace 
and in charity and good-will toward all men, but if prelatists persist 
in unchurching us, and in spurning Presbyterian ordination, we re- 
tort by saying, ^Nour prelacy is unwarranted hy Scripture, and if you 
have nothing better than this figment of apostolical succession, then 
your bishops are no bishops, and your Church is not a true Church.” 
We are Episcopalians, true Presbyterian Episcopalians. 


157 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

The Rev. John DeWitt, D. D., of Philadelphia, then read 
the following paper : 

THE WORSHIP OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES. 

In submitting to the Council some thoughts touching the worship 
of the Reformed Churches, I must, because limited in time, confine 
myself to a consideration of the ideas which have determined it? 
characteristic forms, repressing what I should have been glad 
say as to its historical development. 

Religious feelings and the acts by which they are both awakened and 
expressed, may be arranged under the objects on which they termi- 
nate. Those which terminate on the actors, the subject of the feel- 
ings, fall under the head ot the ?neafis of grace ; such as terminate on 
other men are included in the term benevolence ; while those which 
terminate in God fall under the head oi worship. 

While this classification exhausts the whole of religious feeling and 
action, its divisions are by no means mutually exclusive. The same 
religious act may properly be placed in all the classes. Prayer, be- 
cause it terminates in God, is distinctly an act of worship. But 
prayer is also one of the means of grace, as such terminating in the 
petitioner himself: and including, as it does, intercession, and in this 
view of it, intended to affect other men, it is benevolent. 

But all religious acts terminate ultimately in God. Means of 
grace and benevolence, as well as worship, have as their final reason 
and object the living God, “ the chief end of man,” the accepted chief 
end of the Christian. Hence worship, in a large sense, properly in- 
cludes all religious feeling and action. And it is in this larger sense 
that it is used, when made to designate the whole round of the public 
services of the house of God ; as in the phrase, “ the worship of the 
Reformed Churches.” 

Strictly speaking, worship is the act of the single spirit. Indeed, 
all human action is at last referrible to the forth-putting of the single 
responsible will. But free spirits may act in unison. And since the 
religious wpts of the spirit are the wants of our common human na- 
ture, and since other wants are personal and the result of circum- 
stance, free spirits can in nothing unite either so profoundly or so 
often as in the worship of God. For this reason it is peculiarly 
proper to affirm worship of an assembly or a communion. Hence our 
title declares not only a great historical fact, but also a profound 
psychological truth. There is “a worship of the Reformed Churches.'" 

But our title suggests division as well as union. The word “ Re- 
formed ” brings into view the fact that the worship, as well as the 
theology and the polity of Mediaeval Christianity, was revolutionized 
in the reformation of the sixteenth century. Of the changes effected 
in worship by this revolution, the Reformed Churches, here repre- 
sented, are the heirs. 

The acts of public worship, common to every branch of the Christian 
Church, are praise, prayer, the administration of the sacraments, and 
the declaration and exposition of the word. An exhaustive treatment 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


158 

of the subject would oblige us to notice the influence exerted by the 
Reformation on each of these acts, and the relative place assigned to 
each of them : and also to notice the change effected in the form of 
the place of worship, the material house of God ; and the new kind 
and degree of sanctity with which by the Reformation it was invested. 
But without specifying these changes in detail, it is to be said that 
they were effected under the domination of great formative ideas, for 
which the word Reformation stands. 

I suppose that the Reformation is accurately described in a single 
sentence as an endeavor, at least, to revive a spiritual and scriptural 
Christianity. Spiritual truth appealing to the spirit of man ; the 
spiritual God in immediate communion with the human spirit, and 
the written word of God, the infallible rule of the latter in his rela- 
tions with the former, — as opposed to a dominant organization, through 
which alone man could approach God, and by which alone spiritual 
truth could be interpreted, and whose official declarations were above, 
if they did not supersede the written word as the rule of faith — these 
ideas of spirituality and scripturalness formed the theology and polity, 
and determined the worship of the Reformed Churches. 

Out of the reign of these ideas, sprang the traits by which our wor- 
ship is distinguished. These I shall endeavor briefly to describe and 
defend. 

I. Of these, the first is what we call simplicity, and what others call 
bareness or nakedness. We and these others may agree perhaps in 
describing it by the statement, that the Reformation, broadly speaking, 
divorced worship and fine art, which had been married in the Mediae- 
val Church. 

Whether we like it or not, this is the statement of an historical fact. 
The majestic cathedral, the gorgeous vestments of the ecclesiastics, 
the complicated and imposing ceremonies, the balanced and decorous 
liturgies, and the enchanting altar-pieces which even now so power- 
fully impress us, and which sometimes we are tempted to describe as 
aids to devotion, are not products of the Reformation. In respect 
to these, the Reformation was destructive. It stripped off decorative 
ornaments. It regarded them, at least, as useless impedimenta ; as 
weights, which could serve only to make difficult and tardy the flight 
of the spirit of man to its communion with the spiritual God. 

Contemplating the simplicity or baldness of the worship we have 
thus inherited, all of us, it may be, are at times disposed to believe 
that any changes in the Reformed practice hereafter to be made, may 
well be made on the line of a return to mediaeval worsliip : and the 
question is often asked, whether the interests bf spiritual and scrip- 
tural religion may not be promoted by church services among us, in 
which fine art will lend its treasures to excite devotion. 

I do not hesitate to say, that the divorce of fine art and worship by 
the Reformation was an inestimable blessing to man. Nor until sin 
shall have been destroyed may we safely reunite them.* Then only 


* A half-hour is too brief adequately to unfold a subject as large as the worship 
of the Reformed Churches. I take advantage of the permission to add notes, in 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


159 


will the union be without peril to the human spirit. The new Jeru- 
salem, whose form is perfect, Avhose streets are gold, whose gates are 
pearls, and whose adornment is the glory of all earthly kings, may 
not descend from heaven until -man himself is perfected. This, to 
call it a theory, is the theory on which the worship of the Reformed 
Churches is based. I hold it to be justified, alike by the nature of 
fine art and that of religious worship, and by the teachings of the word 
of God. 

For what is fine art, considered as a pursuit ? It is the endeavor 
of man, laboring in the realm of matter, to produce or exhibit material 
beauty. The two terms to be emphasized are the substantive, beauty, 
and the qualifying adjective, material. However art may idealize, 
it idealizes within the realm of the material. It cannot be conceived 
of as existing, apart from matter. The products of art are material 
products. The enchanting melody of music, the moving cadence and 
rhythm of poetry, the splendid periods of oratory, the glowing can- 
vas and the speaking marble are indebted for being to the material 
body and the material world : and however we may talk of the spiritual 
influence of art, it is severely true, that whoever gives himself to the 
pursuit or the enjoyment of fine art, so far gives himself to the seen, 
the material, the temporal. Matter, therefore, and the sensibilities 
that are most closely related to the physical life of man describe the 
domain of art. If it appeals to something more than the body 
it does not appeal to the free, willing, rational, and worshipping spirit 
{nv^vuo). The feelings it awakens are those distinctly of the soul 
{ipvxv). Artistic life and enjoyment cannot, as such, be higher than 
psychical, (i Thess. v. 23.) , • , 

Bat we are conscious of a life not thus connected with matter. 
There is an element of human nature and of each human person that 
will survive “ the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds.” This is 
the spirit of man. It is the spirit that discerns the spiritual God, that 
is alive to final causes, that perceives and feels the moral relations 
between man and man. There are qualities and expressions and emo- 
tions characteristic of the life of the spirit ; just as there are qualities, 
expressions, and emotions characteristic of the lower psychical life 
which produces and enjoys fine art. The quality of holiness expresses 
itself in religion, and produces spiritual peace ; just as the quality of 
material beauty expresses itself in fine art, and produces sensiwus 
pleasure. This spiritual life has to do with qualities and relations not 
dependent on matter. When I think of beauty as related to fine art, 
I call up before me the image of something material. But when I 
think of holiness or God, I rise above the material; I am in the 
spiritual world. • 

order to emphasize the fact briefly stated above, viz!: that throughout this paper, 
man is of course regarded, as in some degree at least, under the power of sin. Un- 
fortunately, we do not yet need to discuss, as a practical quesUon, whether an artis- 
tic worship will suit the perfect and ultimate society. Chnstianity begins with the 
reco-^nition of sin in mac. This recogmtion, as it determines our theology and our 
polity, ought also to fnrm our “ worship.” 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


i6o 

Observe, then, the terms thus set over against each other. Here is 
material beauty revealing itself in the forms of fine art, and yielding 
])leasure ; and there is the spiritual quality, holiness, expressing itseli 
in religion, with its characteristic product of spiritual peace. Holi- 
ness and beauty ! Christianity and fine art ! Spiritual harmony and 
sensuous pleasure ! Spiritual relations and material forms ! Religion 
and aesthetics ! How wide apart they are ! Wide apart, indeed, as 
heaven and earth, as spirit and matter. 

Moreover, it is important at this point to observe, that fine art and 
the feelings it excites are, within their own sphere, as ultimate as re 
ligion and the spiritual emotions. A work of fine art is its own pur- 
pose. That it is “ a thing of beauty,” is its right to be. This is 
both the justification and the glory of art as a pursuit. Its products 
are not symbolical. They do not point the beholder to higher things 
which they prophesy. To quote the words of another, “if there is 
'anything settled in the theory of art, it is that fine art is its own end. 
It is self-sufficing, self-included and irreferent.”* He, therefore, 
violently removes beauty from her proper throne, and forbids to her 
tlie mission appointed by her Creator, who refuses to contemplate her 
as ultimate in her own realm, and reduces her to a symbol and hand- 
maiden. Nor will he fail at last to find, that beauty, just because it 
is an ultimate quality, having no mission save to be and by being to 
bless, is ill-adapted to serve as a symbol or a mere shadow of good 
tilings to come, though they are the good things of the spiritual world. 
These must be ill-represented by artistic forms. For artistic forms, 
by reason of their beauty, must compel attention to themselves as 
supreme. Spiritual realities can be best expressed and revealed, not 
by ultimate and self-sufficing art, but by prophetic and serviceable 
symbol. 

It is clear, therefore, from the very nature of tlie two, that fine art 
must be ill-suited either to express or to excite spiritual worship. It 
is clear, also, that this statement does not deny to fine art an exalted 
mission. It but points out the boundaries of the realm in which it is 
acknowledged as supreme. It but asserts, that fine art exists to repre- 
sent in human products the quality of material beauty with which the 
Creator has adorned the work of liis hands ; and that existing legiti- 
mately to represent natural and material beauty, it must, for that rea- 
son, be ill-adapted to express or to awaken the supernatural and spirit- 
ual beauty of holiness. 

Did time permit, it could be made plain that the history of religions 
justifies this statement. It could be shown that because “ the very 
calling of art, as a department of effort, is to render sensuous the 
spiritual,” and because man, as a sinner, dislikes and is afraid to con- 
template pure spiritual truth, whenever it has been attempted to make 
religious worship artistic, religion has at last become sensuous, and 


* Dr. Shedd. 


SECOyD GENERAL COUNCIL. 


i6i 


spiritual realities have been obscured by the means adopted to reveal 
tnem.* 

But the history of one people I may not omit to notice ; for it is. 
the history of a people, trained by the spiritual God himself, 'hhe 
teachings of their history are the rule of our faith. I know that 
eloquence and poetry wedded to music were employed by the Hebrew 
people in religious worship ; and so far the Reformed Churches main- 
tain the union of art and religion. But so subordinate to other ele- 
ments is the artistic element in poetry and oratory, that we do not 
call poets or orators, artists. And it is this very subordination of the 
artistic element to the higher intellectual and moral elements that 
entitles poetry and oratory to places in the services of the house of 
God.f With these exceptions, as to whose employment there is no 
dispute, it is indisputable that God, at least, discouraged fine art, as 
a pursuit, among the Jews. And though he appointed a detailed 
ritual, it is a ritual that makes no artistic appeal to man., It did not 
impress the Hebrew aesthetically ; and care was taken that it should 
not. The Hebrew life was an elaborate life, and Hebrew civilization 
was lofty and complex. But how deficient were the Hebrews in artistic 
perception ! And how utterly barren are their records of mention of 

* If material beauty is fitted to excite spiritual worship, one would suppose that 
beauty in nature, the work of God, ought more profoundly to impress man in a re- 
ligious manner than beauty in art, the work of his fellow. Even more profound 
than that of the material beautiful should be the religious impression of the material 
sublime. For beauty is “ multitude in unity,” which ^nity the beholder sees and 
grasps and feels. But the material sublime is too vast to be apprehended by the 
beholder as a unity. There is a remainder that he cannot grasp. He is therefore 
awe-stricken in its presence. It is this unknown, unseen remainder, which may 
easily, it should seem, suggest* the infinite and the spiritual, and so excite worship. 
Now, of the material sublime, the eminent example is the firmament at night, as 
Kant declares in his often quoted remark. But it is instructive to notice, that when 
one of the greatest of modern Reformed Churchmen, Thomas Chalmers, brought to 
view, in a series of sermons, the relations of astronomy to Chiistianity, he was so 
fearful that the material sublimity of the heavens might, by making an (esthetic, pi e-^ 
vent a religious impression, that he added to his six astronomical discourses a seventh 
—which sdll more modern Reformed Churchmen would do well to ponder — on “the 
slender influence of taste and sensibility in matters of religion.” 

f The arts of poetry and of eloquence are widely separated from the arts of paint-, 
ing and sculpture, and architecture the union of the two, by the fact that the foi- 
iner employ articulate speech. Speech does not present anything to the senses, in 
order immediately to excite the sensibilities, as painting and sculpture do. Speech 
symbolizes thought to the understanding and reason, and thus through the intellect^ 
excites the feelings and arouses the will. Sculpture and painting hnage the seen. 
I/anguage symbolizes the unseen. For this reason, poetry and eloquence propeily 
find place in services intended to make man feel the leality of, that spiritual woild, 
whose elements may be symbolized \\\ ritual (Hebrew) or language (Christian), but 
can never be imaged. Music is properly employed still more subordinately as the 
handmaid of poetry; since by melody they are allied, and since it addresses the 
hearing ear, through which poetry reaches the intellect and the feelings. There, are 
deeper^’and more cogent reasons for their employment in “ worship;” and these are- 
brought out indirectly in the “ Literary Essays ” of my revered teacher, Professor 
Shedd; than whom no modern writer has thought more profoundly, or writtemmore 
clearly and eloquently on the relations of aesthetics and leligion, 

II 


i 62 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


artistic products ! The prohibition of images of Deity was announced 
at Sinai. The Cherubim in the most holy place were not artistic 
representations. No skill of delineation could make the Cherubim 
other than unsightly objects to the eye.” And if you should select a 
scene, which by no possibility could be made pleasing, outside of 
Greece, you would select the characteristic act of the Hebrew ritual ; 
the blood-stained priest at the altar plunging his knife into the victim. 
Or turn to those great visions in. the word of God, in which alone 
see anything like an image of the Deity. Take the latest and sublime.'': 
of them all. All of us recall the description of the Son of God and 
Man which opens the Revelation of St. John. Who, in reading it, 
has not felt, in some degree, what the apostle felt, “ And when 1 saw 
him, 1 fell at his feet as dead?” Have we not been temj)ted to think 
of it as an artistic achievement greater than the Apollo Belvidere or 
the Venus Victrix? But the truth is, that it is not- artistic at all. 
As Archbishop Trench has well said, “ This description of the glori- 
fied Lord, sublime as a purely mental cojiception, becomes intolerable 
if give it outward form and expression^ and picture him with this 
sword proceeding out of his mouth, these feet as burning brass, and 
this hair white like wool.” 

So it is witli all of the visions of Scripture, that bring man into the 
presence of God. The impression they leave upon us is ethical and 
spiritual just because it is not artistic. It is largely to this lack of 
artistic life and culture among the Hebrews and in the Apostolic 
Church, that we ovve our spiritual religion, our Christianity, with its 
amazing power to lift man above his material surroundings, and to 
reveal to him the unseen, the unimaged, but ever-present God. With 
reverence be it said, we cannot easily tell with what wise pains, the 
God of Abraham secluded his chosen people, and held them back 
from communion with those who worshipped nature, and whose 
religion was blent with and expressed by art, and, if he did not 
forbid by precept, at least prevented by providence, a life of artistic 
culture or artistic enjoyment. I cannot doubt that the same all-wise 
and all-merciful God also guided that movement of the Reformation, 
by which the services of the house of God again became unartistic; 
and the simple, the severe, the naked, if you please, but spiritual 
worship of the Reformed Churches was established.* 


I said, that “the Cherubim in the most holy place were not artistic 

irepresenlalions.” The Cherubim were “ composite creature forms.” So indeed 
according to Winckelmann were the statues of Greek gods and heroes. “ The 
study of artists in producing ideal beauties was directed to the nature of noble 
beasts, so that they even undertook to adopt from animats the means of imparting 
greater majesty and elevation to their statues. 7 his remark^ which might at first 
sight seem absurd, will strike profound observers as indisputably correct, especially 
in the heads of Jupiter and Hercules." (Greek Art, Part I., chap, ii., sec. 40.) 
But the difference l)etween them is that the Plebrew did not attempt, and llie 
Greek always attempted, to reduce the composition to unity, the essential, trait of 
beauty. Hence, to employ Archlushop Trench’s expression, the Cherubim were 
“unsightly to the eye;” while the Greek statues of Jupiter and Hercules have 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


163 


II. Without dwelling longer on this trait of our worship as 
Reformed Churches, it is but just to say that it is simply negative. 
'Fhe change, thus far noticed, was destructive. And therefore, if the 
Reformation was more than a destructive revolution, if it was a Re-forma- 
ticn, we may expect to find a positive tr^ait^ which, a :sociated with 
this negative feature, distinguishes our forms of public worship. 

I mention this positive trait in saying, that when, by the Reforma- 
tion, art was displaced, truth was exalted to the place which art had 
filled in worship. The exaltation of revealed truth, of the written 
and inspired word of God, is positively, as the displacement of fine art is 
negatively, the idea, by which the worship of the Reformed Churches 
has been shaped. 

I assume that this statement needs no elaborate proof here. It at 
once explains, and is confirmed by great and well-known facts of 
history. All of us know that the Reformation, springing into public 
view by the theses of Luther, upheld by him as truth, never failed to 
emphasize this note of the Church ; that above all, it is the pillar and 
ground of the truth. It was the truth, as truth to be believed, an- 
nounced, explained and defended, that most of all inspired the labors 
of the Reformers. Thus the Reformed Churches became the heirs, 
not of elaborate services, but of detailed confessions; in which the 
word of God was announced as the supreme rule of faith, and the 
truth declared and interpreted. These are the cathedrals which 
our fathers built: the Gallican, the Belgic, the Scotch, the West- 
minster Confessions ; the Heidelburg Catechism and the Canons of 
Dort. To the great spiritual and scriptural revival that produced 
these confessions we owe it, that our worship is broadly distinguished 
from that of the Mediaeval Church by the fact, that we have adopted 
truth instead of fine art, as the means by which, chiefly, worship is 
awakened and expressed. 

The question whether this has been a gain or loss to spiritual 
religion, I do not stop to discuss. I do not regard it as a question. 
That truth expressed in language and addressed directly to the 
conscience, the reason and the will, is by its character infinitely 
better fitted to impress spiritual realities on man, to bring him face 
to face with the spiritual God, and so to promote acceptable worship; 
than is fine art, whose mission is to represent material beauty, seems 
too clear for argument. And even were it not so clear, the question 
is answered by the ultimate fact, that the spiritual God has chosen 
finally and fully to reveal the spiritual universe to his Church in the 
world, not by artistic representation, but by his written word. 

Thus, then, would I distinguish the Reformed worship from the 


been the admiration and despair of twenty centuries. The explanation of this 
difference is tliat the Greek nature, “saturated with beauty,'’ tried to represent it, 
in forms of fine art ; while the Hebrew, dominated by spiritual ideas, tried to 
symbolize them. Wide apart as are the Hebrew Cherub, and the Greek Jupiter and 
Hercules, are the forms of a spiritual, and the forms of an artistic worship. 


.164 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


.Mediaeval worship which preceded it, and which in the Churches here 
represented it displaced. Truth, which had been subordinated to fine 
arty was employed anew, as the means to excite and the food to nourish 
devotion; and art was so far displaced, as thereafter to be used in sacred 
son^ and sacred eloquence alone. 

Let no one suppose that, because I do not touch on prayer and 
praise as acts of worship, I imply that the Reformed Churches do not 
assign to them the very highest place in the public worship of God.* 
This question was never in debate between them and the Mediaeval 
Church. The former, like the latter, of course, regard them as the 
loftiest acts in which the human spirit can engage. For, in them, man 
directly addresses and communes with God. But what shall excite 
.the spirit of man to praise? and what shall move the spirit of man to 
prayer ? These are the questions. And the Mediaeval Church answers : 
“A service that will satisfy the taste and excite the sensibilities of 
man.” The Reformed Churches answer: “The revealed truth of God 
addressed to the conscience, the reason and the will.” 

Of the great formative ideas which I have thus tried to announce 
and uphold, we, as the Reformed Churches, are the representatives. 
By these ideas, whatever is distinctive in our worship was shaped. 
But in a paper on the “Worship of the Reformed Churches,” I can 
go no further than to give these ideas expression. For the Reforma- 
tion went no further. It was not a movement that either imposed or 
suggested details. These it left to the peoples whom it led out of 
darkness. And thus, when fully formed, some of the National 
Churches framed brief and simple liturgies, and others discarded 
liturgies. But whether they framed liturgies, as ‘well calculated to 
promote and express union in worship, or whether they rejected 
pre-written prayer, as “having,” to employ Milton’s phrase, “less 
intercourse and sympathy with the heart wherein it was not con- 
ceived,” all of them were united in loyalty to the ideas which I have 
now set forth. And it was by the greater vigor with which they 
applied, and by the greater length to which they carried them, that 
the Reformed Cliurches were distinguished, in the forms of their 
worship, from the Lutheran and Anglican communions. 

We may expect that changes will be proposed and adopted in the 
several Churches represented in this Council. Well will it be for 
them if these changes shall be made under the influence of the ideas 
that determined our worship at the Reformation. In the Church, of 
which I have the honor to be a pastor, we are without a liturgy, and 
are under a directory that is content to declare principles and to make 
general suggestions. Signs are not wanting, however — one of which 
shone brilliant in our firmament last nightf — that a call for pre- 


■ ^ I cannot refer to the sacraments as acts of worship, further than to say that a 
moment’s reflection will serve to convince the reader that neither of them is artistic. 
lioth are symbolical. To administer them in an artistic manner, with a view to 
making an aesthetic impression, is to obscure their symbolical meaning. 

f The paper, of Prof. R. D. Hitchcock, D. D., LL. D., of New York, on “The 
Ceremonial, the Moral and the Emotional in Christian Life and Worship.” 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


scribed forms may become quite general. Such a call, should it seek 
by simple means to express and promote union in worship, might well 
be heard with attention, and answered by compliance. But should 
the proposed liturgy be so elaborate, as at all to diminish the relative 
importance now given to the announcement and exposition of the 
truth, from the central pulpit, in the studied discourse, by the ordained 
preacher, I trust that it will never become either the law or the cus- 
tom of the Church. Above all, should the call spring out of, or seek 
to satisfy, a prevalent aesthetic impulse, I pray that it may be success- 
fully resisted. For artistic worship is poisonous honey” to Chris- 
tians still weak and sick with sin. Only when, at the consummation 
of all things, the living Church shall itself be without “spot or 
wrinkle,” may the outward temple safely be adorned with consum- 
mate beauty ; as only then the voices of the people of God can unite 
in the consummate and immortal liturgy. 


It was announced that the Hon. S. M. Breckinridge, of Sf. 
Louis, who was on the programme to read a paper on “ Ruling 
Elders,” was unable to be present. 

The Rev. C. H. Read, D. D., of Richmond, Va., then read 
the following paper : 

RULING ELDERS. 

The office of Ruling Elders in the churches of Jesus Christ is the 
topic announced for consideration at this stage in the proceedings of 

this Council. , ^ ^ i . ■ 

Condensation and brevity — as much as is consistent with the topic 

in hand—'^\\\ need no apology. 

A class of persons, known as “ Ruling Elders,’ invested with some 
kind of authority, and exercising some kind of power, is constantly 
recognized in the Holy Scriptures, through all the ages, since the 
organization of the Church of God in the family of Abraham. 

The precise mode of their appointment, and the precise nature and 
exercise of their official power , the beginning, is not distinctly set 
forth ; but the office itself \s often and very clearly recognized. 

An Eldership comes, at first, faintly into view in the divine records; 
then more and more distinctly it takes on dignity and power as these 
records advance, until we find Elders associated with almost every 
important act of government, a council, a sanhedrim, composed ot 
Elders chosen from the different tribes of Israel ; and then, a body of 
men ordained to office in all the regularly organized churches of. 
Jesus Christ. Scriptural and patristic proofs to these points can 
hardly be necessary in this immediate presence; but such proof may 
be of use when the utterances of this Council may come to be re- 
ported throughout the land and world. 


i66 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


First, then, and always first in all matters of Christian faith, and 
order, we have to do with the testimony of the word of God. 

Passing by earlier references in the Scriptures to Elders (the pur- 
pose being to give specimen textSy rather than to exhaust the testi- 
mony), we find in Leviticus iv. 13, and onward, as follows: “If the 
whole congregation of Israel sin through ignorance, and the thing be 
lud from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done somewhat 
against any of the commandments of the Lord, concerning things 
which should not be done, and are guilty ; when the sin, which they 
have sinned against it, is known, then the congregation shall offer a 
young bullock for the sin, and shall bring him before the tabernacle 
of the congregation. 

“And the Elders of the congregation shall lay their hands upon the 
head of the bullock before the Lord ; and the bullock shall be killed 
before the Lord,- and the priest that is anointed shall bring of the 
bullock’s blood to the tabernacle of the congregation,” etc., etc. 

The office of the Elders of the congregation, as here brought into 
view, while it was in some respects subordinate to that of “ ihe priesty^ 
ordained as suchy was a prominent and important one : they repre- 
sented the people, officially : they placed iheir hands upon the head 
of the bullock about to be slain, as if by way of representation and 
confession of the public sin ; and then the priest proper offered the 
blood of the slain animal before the Lord. . Of course none but duly 
selected and authorized persons could or would have performed this 
most solemn office ; and it is reasonable to assume that these Elders 
of the congregation of Israel had been duly chosen and invested with 
this solemuy publicy and representative office. The function of this 
office before God, and in behalf of the people, implies a dignity and 
solemnity of investiture. 

In Numbers xi. 16, and onward, we meet with the specified num- 
ber of seventy Elders, recognized by God himself as men in official 
station in Israel, thus: “And the Lord said unto Moses, Gather unto 
me seventy men of the Elders of Israel, whom thou kiwwest to be the 
Elders of the people and officers over them y and bring them unto the 
tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee. 
And I will come down and talk with thee there; and I will take of 
the spirit which is upon thee and will put it upon them ; and they shall 
bear the burden of the people with thecy that thou bear it not thyself 
alo7ie.^^ 

In the 24th and 25th verses the record proceeds thus: “And Moses 
went out” (that is, from the immediate presence of the Lord), “and 
told the people the words of the Lord, and gathered the seventy men 
of the Elders of the people, and set them round about the tabernacle.’* 
“And the Lord came down in a cloud and spake unto him, and took 
of the spirit that was upon him and gave it to the seventy Elders; 
and it came to pass that, when the spirit rested upon them, they 
prophesied and did not cease.” It is observable that here the Lord 
himself speaks of the official character of the Elders of the people of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


107 


Israel as men whom Moses knew to be ihe Elders of the people and 
officei's over them.'' Thus, while we may not discover any original 
positive command or formula of ordination for Elders in the Old 
Testament, yet, here, we have the office and the men particularly men- 
tioned. In Dent. XXV. 7-9, we find the accredited Elders of Israel 
sitting in the gate of the city and adjudicating an important case of 
' morals which was referred to them, and uniting in a decision in the 
prem’s^s. 

in Deut. xxix. 10, we find the people of Israel gathered before the 
Lord, to enter into a solemn covenant, and the Elders are there in 
prominent place ; thus, in the words of Moses, “ Ye stand this day all 
of you before the Lord, your God ; your captains of your tribes, your 
Elders and your officers, . . . that thou shouldest enter into covenant 
with the Lord thy God, and into his oath which the Lord thy God 
maketh with thee this day. ’ ’ Again, in Deut. xxxi. 28, Moses, conscious 
that his end on earth was near at hand, and inspired of God to utter sol- 
emn counsels to the people of Israel, issued the call, “ Gather unto me 
all the Elders of your tribes and your officers, that I may speak these 
words in their ears, and call heaven and 6arth to record against 
them.” 

When Samuel, the prophet, was sent of God to Bethlehem to 
anoint a king in place of Saul, the Elders of the town trembled at 
his approach, and went forth to meet him, and to inquire his errand 
(i Sam. xvi. 4). King David, after a successful battle .with the 
Amalekites, sent the spoils of- victory to the Elders of Judah, (i 
Sam. XXX. 6.) 

In I Kings xxv. 7, 8, we find the king of Israel consulting with the 
Elders upon a question of State policy, and following their advice in 
the premises. In 2 Kings vi. 32, we find the prophet Elisha seated 
with the Elders in consultation with them. In Ezra x. 8, we find the 
holders consulting with the princes of Judah, in matters of highest 
importance. In the book of Ezekiel viii. i, we find the prophet 
Ezekiel seated in his own house, and the Elders of Judah gathered 
to him. In Joel i. 14, in the arrangements for a solemn public fast, 
the Elders are mentioned as gathered, and taking charge of the pro- 
ceedings. 

Not to extend citations of this sort from the Old Testament Scrip- 
tures, it is manifest that an order of men known as Elders of the con- 
gregation of Israel,. had existed from the organization of the Church 
of God in its Mosaic economy and administration. The form of 
their appointment is not distinctly set forth; but that they did not 
iLssume to themselves this distinction, and arrogate this office, its 
honors and responsibilities, is obvious. 

The number of “ seventy elders,” as expressly mentioned, shows that 
it must have been by some rule inclusive and exclusive that they 
were separated and appointed to the office, and that they were so in- 
vested with public authority as to command respect. Their advi- 
sory counsel was sought and respected by prophets, princes and kings, 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


1 68 

and had weight in matters of highest importance to the Church and 
State in the then mixed form of Church and State government. 

Dr. Witherspoon, in a valuable tract entitled “ An Appeal to 
the Baptized Children of the Church (issued by the Presbyterian 
Committee of Publication, Richmond), has the following paragraphs 
in the line of this argument, which are worthy of insertion: “We 
hear but little of these Elders during the lifetime of Abraham, 
as we hear but little of the constitution of the Church ; but afterward 
they appear as distinctly recognized officers of the house of God. 
Thus when Moses was sent as the deliverer of God’s people from the 
bondage of Egypt, he was directed (Ex. iii. i6) to go and gather the 
Elders of Israel together, and deliver his message to them as the divinely 
appointed rulers of the congregation. When he was sent to demand 
of Pharaoh the release of the children of Israel, he was instructed to 
take with him (Ex. iii. i8) the Elders of Israel, as the representatives 
of the chosen people. When in the wilderness, Moses received the 
law from the hands of Jehovah on Mount Sinai, he delivered it to 
the priests, the sons of Levi, and to the Elders (Dent. iii. 9), as the 
spiritual rulers of God’s people. And so in every instance in which 
any authority is exercised, or any discipline administered, we find 
these Elders referred to as the rulers in the Church. They are some- 
times called ‘ the Elders,’ sometimes ‘ the Elders of Israel,’ sometimes 
‘ the Elders of the people ; ’ but they appear on every page of the his- 
tory of the Jewish Church, as its divinely appointed and recognized 
rulers. ... It is sometimes asserted that these Elders were only civil 
rulers, and not ecclesiastical ; that they were officers of the State, and 
not of the Church ; that in the Jewish commonwealth the priests had 
the exclusive authority in spiritual matters, and the Elders in secular 
matters. But so far is this from being the case, that, as we shall soon 
see, the priests themselves ruled not as priests, but as Elders ; and in 
every act of government were associated with ‘ the Elders of the 
people,’ while the Council of the Seventy, or the Sanhedrivi, as it 
was afterwards called, was composed entirely of Elders chosen from 
the different tribes of Israel. 

It is true,” continues Dr. Witherspoon, “that these Elders 
had many civil duties to perform, because at that time the, Church 
and State were temporarily united. But their functions as civil 
officers, resulting from this temporary connection, were only inci- 
dental and temporary. Their highest functions were spiritual. They 
were eminently ecclesiastical rulers.” 

The Synagogue System . — From the differences of opinion among the 
early writers and learned men, there may be reasonable doubts as to 
the exact time when the synagogue system of order and worship was 
established among the Jews ; but that it existed at the time of our 
Lord’s advent, and had then been in existence for a considerable 
time, admits of no reasonable doubt. 

Dr. Miller — of venerable memory, aforetime Professor of Church 
History at Princeton — in his comprehensive “ Essay on the Warrant, 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


i6o 


Nature, and Duties of the Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church, 
has ihe following paragraph: “Whatever might have been its origin 
(that is, of the synagogue), “nothing can be more certain than that, 
from the earliest notices we have of the institution, and through its 
whole history, its leading officers consisted of a bench of Elders, who 
were appointed to bear rule in the congregation * who formed a kind 
of consistory or ecclesiastical judicatory, to receive applicants for ad- 
mission into the Church; to watch over the people, as well in refer- 
ence to their morals, as their obedience to ceremonial and ecclesias- 
tical order; to administer discipline when necessary; and, in short, 
as the representatives of the Church or congregation, to act in their 
name and behalf ; to ^ bind ’ and ‘ loose; ’ and to see that everything 
was ‘ done decently and in order.’ ” 

Dr. Millej adds: “ The number of the Elders in each synagogue 
was not governed by any absolute rule. In large cities, according to 
certain Jewish authorities, the number was frequently very large. But 
even in the smallest synagogues, we are assured that there were never 
less than three, that the judicatory might never be equally oivided^ 

• Such were the arrangements for maintaining purity and order in the 
synagogues, or parish churches, of the old economy, anterior to the 
advent of the Messiah. 

“It would seem to be impossible for any one to contemplate this 
statement, so amply supported by all sound authority, without recog- 
nizing a striking likeness to the arrangements afterwards adopted in 
the New Testament Church.” • . 

To the proof and elucidation of this likeness, the testimony ot 
Bishop Burnet has been cited (see “ Observations on the Ernst and 
Second Canons,” Glasgow edition, 1673, pp. 82-85), as follows: 
“Among the Jews,” says Bishop Burnet, “ he who was the^chief of 
the svna-ogue was called Chazan Hakeneseth, that is, the Bishop of 
the congregation, and Sheliach Tsibbor, the angel of the Church. 
\nd the Christian Church being modelled as near the form of the 
synagogue as could be, as they retained many of the rites, so the form 
of their government was continued,, and the names remained bie 
same." And, again, “In the synagogues there was, first, one that 
was called the Bishop of the congregation ; next, the three orderers 
and judges of everything about the synagogue, who were callet 
Tsekenim, and by the Greeks, Fresbuteroi, or Gerontes. 1 hese 
ordered and determined everything that concerned the synagogue or 
the persons in it. Next to them were the three Parnassim, or deacons, 
whose charge was to gather the collections of the rich and distribute 

them to the poor. . n 

“The term Elder was generally given to all their but 

chiefly to those of the great Sanhedrim: so we have it in Matt. xvi. 

• Mark viii. 'll ‘ xiv. 43; and xv. i ; and m Acts xxvni. 14 16. 

Bishop Burnet sums up the matter thus : “ From all 
well grounded and rational to assume that the first constitution of the 
Christian Church was taken from the model of the synagogue. 


170 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


which these Elders were separated, for the discharge of their employ- 
ments, by the imposition of hands, as all Jewish writers do clearly 
testify.” 

To the same point, substantially. Dr. Lightfoot — an Episcopal 
divine, eminent for his oriental and rabbinical learning — bears testi- 
mony as follows (s^ Lightfoot’s works, vol. i, p. 308; vol. 2, pp. 
138 and 755): “The service and worship of the temple being abol- 
ished, as being ceremonial, God transplanted the worship and public 
adoration of God used in the synagogues, which were moral, into the 
Christian Church ; namely, the public ministry, public prayers, read- 
ing God’s word, and preaching, etc. Hence, the names of the min- 
isters of the gospel were the very same — the angel of the Church, and 
the Bishop, which belonged to the ministers in the synagogues. There 
was in every Synagogue a bench of three. This bench consisted of 
three Elders, rightly and by imposition of hands preferred to the 
eldership. There were also three deacons, or almoners, on which was 
the care of the poor.” 

The New Testament Church, as to its principal features, was not 
after the pattern of the Temple, but after the model of the Jewish 
Synagogue. This type and formation of the New Testament or apos- 
tolic Church, would seem to be patent to every attentive reader of the 
gospel writings and the Epistles. 

It would seem to be a fact hardly open to doubt, that the office of 
Ruling Elder is a prominent feature in the New Testament Christian 
Church; and (as Dr. Miller has it) “that it occupied, in substance, 
the same place in the days of the apostles, it now occupies in our 
truly primitive and scriptural Church.” Augustus Neander, for thirty- 
eight years Profe.ssor in the University of Berlin, a profound scholar, 
whose works are widely and highly esteemed by students of ecclesi-* 
astical history ; of Jewish lineage— a Lutheran minister, thoroughly 
acquainted with Christian history, and with no sectarian bias in favor 
of distinctive Presbyterianism — having shown that “the government 
of the primitive Church was not monarchical or prelatical, but dictated 
throughout by a spirit of mutual love, counsel, and'prayer,” expresses 
himself thus: “ We may suppose that when anything could be found 
m the way of Church forms, which was consistent with this spirit, it 
would be willingly appropriated by the Christian community. Now 
there happened to be in the Jewish synagogue a system of govern- 
ment of this nature; not monarchical but rather aristocratical, or 

a govermnent of the most venerable and excellent. 

“A council of Elders, Presbuto'oi, conducted all the affairs of that 
body. It seemed most natural that Christianity, developing itself 
from the Jewish religion, should take this form of government? This 
form must also ha.ve appeared natural and appropriate to the Roman 
citizens, since their nation had, from the earliest times, been to some 
extent under the control of a Senate, composed oi Senators ox Elders 
Where the Church was placed under a council of Elders, they did not 
always happen to be the oldest in reference to years ; but the term expres- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


171 

sive of age here was, as in the Latin, Senaius, and in the Greek Gerotisia, 
expressive of worth or merit. Besides the common name of these 
overseers of the Church, to wit, Presbuteroi^ there were many other 
names given, according to the peculiar situation occupied by the indi- 
vidual, or rather his particular field of labor, as poimenes, shepherds ; 
egoume/ioi, leaders ; proestotes ton adelphdn, rulers of the brethren ; 
and Episcopoij overseers.” (See Kirchengeschite, vol. i, p. 283-285.) 

Continuing to use freely the published thoughts and language of 
others, when they are deemed pertinent and better than my own, — 
the following extracts from the writings of Archbishop Whately, of 
Dublin, eminent for learning, integrity, and piety, are in point, and 
worthy of reproduction. (See his work, “The Kingdom of Christ 
Delineated ; ” edition of Carter & Brothers, New York, 1864, p. 29.) 
“ It appears highly probable — I might say morally certain — that 
w'herever a Jewish synagogue existed, that was brought, the whole or the 
chief part of it, to embrace the gospel, the apostles did not there so much 
form a Christian Church (or congregation, ecc/esia), as make an ex- 
isting congregation Christian, by introducing the Christian sacraments 
and worship, and establishing whatever regulations were necessary for 
the newly adopted faith, leaving the machinery, if I may so speak, of 
government unchanged; the rulers of synagogues, elders, and other 
officers, whether spiritual, or ecclesiastical, or both, being already 
provided in the existing constitutions. ... It is likely that sev- 
eral of the earliest Christian Churches did originate in this way; that 
is, that they were converted synagogues, which became Christian 
Churches as soon as the members, or the main part of the members, 
acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah. . . . And when they founded 
a Church in any of those cities iit which (and such were probably a 
very large majority) there was no Jewish synagogue that received the 
gospel, it is likely that they would conform, in a great measure, to 
the same model.” 

The development of the Jewish synagogue principles, and the for- 
mation of the primitive Christian Churches having been thus sum- 
marily sketched, it is now in point to consider — 

The Direct Testimony of the New Testament Writings Respecting 
the Office and Duties of Ruling Elders in the Christian Church . — 
Consulting the New Testament, we first find ample corroboration of 
the points submitted, to wit : the existence of an order of men, 
acknowledged repeatedly as Elders among the Jews in their various 
cities and synagogues, ordering and judging in civil and ecclesiastical 
affairs. The testimony bearing upon these points is so abundant and 
clear, that it is quite unnecessary to cite proof-texts. 

Dr. Witherspoon has fairly and clearly stated the case thus: 
“When our Saviour appeared, he found in every city of the Jews a 
synagogue with its bench of Elders, its ordinances of worship, and its 
provisions for the poor, as we have them in our congregations at the 
present day. When he went from city to city, he entered into their 
synagogues on the Sabbath day, and taught the people. He instructed 


172 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

his disciples to submit questions of discipline to the Church — that is, 
to those officers who were its representatives. It is true that these 
Church sessions, if 1 may so call them, did not recognize, in most 
instances, the authority of our Saviour — ‘He came to his own, and 
his own received him not.’ The Elders joined with the Scribes and 
the Priests in putting him to death. But, after tlie outpouring of the 
Ploly Spirit on the day of Pentecost, there were many of these Jewish 
congregations in which great numbers were converted to Christianity, 
so that the congregation was, in faith, no longer Jewish but Christian. 
The Elders of the Synagogue became the Elders of the Christian 
Church.” 

In the missionary journeyings and labors of the Apostles for the 
extension of the Church of Christ in its New Testament form — as 
they went everywhere preaching the gospel of the kingdom and 
founding churches — they “ ordained them Elders in every church” 
(Acts xiv. 23). 

When a contribution was made by the disciples for the relief of 
their brethren in Judea, in view of a severe drought (as in Acts xi. 
30), this charity was “sent to the Elders by the hands of Barnabas 
and Saul.” 

When Paul and Barnabas found hindrance in their missionary 
work from Judaizing teachers troubling the minds of Gentile converts 
about external rites, such as circumcision and the like, it was “deter- 
mined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain others of them, should go 
up to Jerusalem unto the Apostles and Elders about this question.” 
“When they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the 
Church, and of the Apostles, and Elders,” etc. 

^ And when these questions came’ to be entertained in solemn coun- 
cil, the record is, that “ the Apostles and Elders came together for to 
consider of this matter.” And in answer to this formal reference 
and appeal for a decision in so important a case, the record runs 
thus: “Then pleased it the Apostles and Elders with the whole 
Church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch, with 
Paul and Barnabas. . . . And they wrote letters by them after this 
manner : The Apostles, and Elders, and brethren send greeting unto 
the brethren which are of the Gentiles, in Antioch, and Syria, and 
Cilicia,” etc. (Acts xv. 4-26). 

_ When Paul pd Timotheus “went through the Churches” in mis- 
sionary visitation, “they delivered them the decrees that were 
ordained of the Apostles and Elders which were at Jerusalem ; and so 
were the Churches established in the faith” (Acts xvi. 4, 5). 

Again, we find Paul (accompanied on a missionary visitation by 
Sopater, Aristarchus, Gaius, Timotheus, Tychicus, and Trophimus) 
sending^ from Miletus to Ephesus, and calling “the Elders of the 
Church” to meet him and his companions, when he committed to 
these Elders, with solemnity, the care of the flock, thus: “Take 
heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock over the which 
the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


173 

which he hath purchased with his own blood.” This charo-e, be it 
observed, is committed to “the Elders of the Church,” solemnly 
convened for the purpose (Acts xx. 17 and onward). 

In I Timothy v. 7— in giving rules to promote the order, purity, 
and peace of the Churches — the apostle wrote thus: “Let the Elders 
that rule well be counted worthy of double honor,, especially they 
who labor in word and doctrine.” The term “ Elders ” is here used, 
first, in a general sense and application, denoting those “ that rule 
well;” and, second, in a special sense, as applied to those who not 
only “rule well,” but who also “labor in word and doctrine.” 

Dr. Miller (before referred to) furnishes the following lucid state- 
ment and exposition: “The advocates of the office of Ruling Elder 
do not contend or believe that the function of ruling is confined to 
this class of officers. On the contrary, they suppose and teach that 
one class of Elders both rule and teach ; while the other class rule 
only. Both, according to the doctrine of the Presbyterian Church, are 
proestotes; but one only ‘labor in word and doctrine.’ When, 
therefore, cases are found in the early records of the Church in which 
the presiding elder, or pastor, is styled proestda, the fact is in perfect 
harmony with the usual argument from i Tim. v. 17; the import of 
which we maintain to be this: Let all the Elders that rule well, be 
counted worthy of double honor, especially those of their number 
who, besides ruling — besides acting as proestotes — in common with the 
others, also labor in word and doctrine.” 

In his letter to Titus (i. 5 and onward,) Paul wrote thus: “For 
this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the 
things that are wanting, and ordain Elders in every city, as I had ap- 
pointed thee;” and then follow the specifications of the proper qual- 
ifications of these Elders thus to be ordained: “ For a Bishop must 
be blameless, as the steward of God ; not self-willed, not soon angry, 
not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre ; but a lover of 
hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate, hold- 
ing fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able 
by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.” 

In his first epistle, Peter (addressing the Churches in Pontus, Gala- 
tia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia) wrote as follows: “The Elders 
which are among you I exhort, who am also an Elder, and a witness 
of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall 
be revealed : Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the 
oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly ; not for filthy lucre, 
but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but 
being ensamples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd shall 
appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.” 

In Romans xii. 6-8, we find as follows: “ Having then gifts, differ- 
ing according to the grace given to us ; whether prophecy, let us 
prophesy according to the proportion of faith ; or ministry, let us 
wait on our ministering; or he that teacheth, on teaching; or he that 
exhorteth, on exhortation ; he that giveth, let him do it with simplic- 


174 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

• 

ity ; he that ruleth, with diligence ; he that showeth mercy, with cheer- 
fulness.” Again, in i Cor. xii. 28, thus: “God hath set some in 
the Church, first Apostles, secondarily Prophets, thirdly Teachers, 
after that miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, governments,” etc. 
Obviously (as has been said), “in both of these passages there is a 
reference to the; different offices and gifts bestowed on the Church by 
her divine King and Plead,” and, “in both of them, there is a plain 
designation of an office for ruling or government, distinct from that' 
of teaching ; and in both, also, this office evidently has a place as- 
signed to it below that of pastors and teachers. 

“ Now this office, by whatever name it may be called, is substantially 
the same with that which Presbyterians distinguish by the title Ruling 
p:ider.” 

Peter Martyr — an Italian Reformer of acknowledged ability — in 
his notes on i Cor. xii. 28, uses the following language: “Govern- 
ment : those who are honored with this function are such as were fitted 
for the work of government, and who knew how to conduct every- 
thing relating to discipline, righteously and prudently. 

“ For the Church of Christ had its government. And because a 
single pastor was not able to accomplish everything himself, there was 
joined with him, in the ancient Church, certain Elders, chosen from 
among the people, well informed and skilled in spiritual things, who 
formed a kind of parochial senate. These, with the pastor, deliberated 
on every great matter relating to the care and edification of the Church.’* 

To the same effect, substantially, is the testimony of Clemens Ro- 
manus, and of Ignatius, both of whom lived towards the close of the 
first century of the Christian era. 

Passing by numerous patristic authorities, bearing with cumulative 
force in support of these views concerning Ruling Elders in the 
primitive Christian Church — citations of whose words may be regarded 
as unnecessary, and might be tedious — it seems to be in place to 
speak of the eminent suitableness and value of such an office and 
order of men in the Christian Church. 

The maintenance of proper order and discipline is all-important to 
the peace and purity of the Churches, and the honor of religion. 
Such order and discipline must evidently be conducted with wisdom, 
gentleness, skill and firmness. Haste, severity and partiality, in 
enforcing the very best principles, would defeat the ends of spiritual 
discipline. To. 7 io one 7 na 7 i can the work of public instruction and 
exhortation, the work of visitation, inspection, counsel, warning and 
discipline be committed, in a church of average size, in town or 
country. It .is simply an impossibility. And, if it were possible, it 
would not be desirable for any one person, unless infallibly inspired 
of God, and with divine credentials to this effect, to occupy such a 
position. Every pastor needs a bench of intelligent, devout, ex- 
emplary Elders. 

The case has been well and fairly stated, thus: “Even if it were 
reasonable or possible that a pastor should, alone, perform all these 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


175 


duties, ought he to be willing to undertake them ; or ought the 
Church to be willing to commit them to him, alone? We know thar 
ministers are subject to the same frailties and imperfections with other 
men. We know, too, that a love of pre-eminence and of power is 
not only natural to them in common with others, but that this princi- 
ple, very early in the days of the apostles, began to manifest itself as 
the reigning sin of ecclesiastics, and produced, first, prelacy, arid 
af.erwards peppery, which has so long and so ignobly enslaved the 
Church of Christ. . . . Such a mode of conducting the government 
of the Church, to say nothing of its unscriptural character, is, in the 
highest degree, unreasonable and dangerous. 

“ It can hardly fail to exert an influence of the most injurious 
character, both on the clergy and laity. It tends to nurture, in the 
former, a spirit of selfishness, pride and ambition; and, instead of 
ministers of holiness, love and mercy, to transform them into 
ecclesiastical tyrants. While its tendency with regard to the latter 
(the laity) is, gradually, to beget in them a blind, implicit submission 
to ecclesiastical dominion.” 

Thus much for the scriptural and historical warrant for the office of 
Ruling Elders in the Churches of Christ. And now, in conclusion, 
a few words upon the specific duties of this office. 

The teaching of the supremely authoritative word of God is not 
vague and uncertain upon this important point. 

The Preaching Elder is a Ruler in the Church of Christ ; and, in 
addition thereto, 'he preaches the gospel and administers the sacra- 
ments; whilst the more special duty of the Ruling Elder, as such, is 
to share with the pastor (who labors in word and doctrine) in spiritual 
inspection and government. He is one who is called to “ rule well,” 
while he is not called, especially, to “ labor in word and doctrine.” 

The pastors of churches, with the other elders, form a Church 
Session, a judicial body, “ by which all the spiritual interests of the 
congregation are- to be watched over, regulated and authoritatively 
determined.” 

- Thus, as in the Form of Government ” recognized and adoptecl 
by many of u's, the church session is charged with maintaining the 
spiritual government of the congregation; for which , purpose they 
have power to inquire into the knowledge and Christian conduct of 
the members of tlie church ; to call before them offenders and wit- 
nesses, being members of their own congregation; and to introduce 
other witnesses wh^n it may be necessary to bring the process to issue, 
and when they can be procured to attend ; to receive members into 
the church, to admonish, to rebuke, to suspend, or exclude from the 
sacraments those who are found to deserve censure ; to concert the 
best measures for promoting the spiritual interests of the congregation ; 
and to appoint delegates to the higher judicatories of the Church. 

If the Scriptures were silent upon this point, it would be obvious 
thgt persons called to Ihis office of the Eldership should be spiritually 
minded, devout, exemplary men ; governing their households faithfully 


176 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


in the fear of God ; livdng without reproach ; and commending the 
gospel to a witnessing world, in their conduct and conversation. 

The teaching of the Scriptures is very explicit on this point ; it was 
to '•Ahe Elders of ihe churches whom Paul called to meet him at 
Miletus, that he said, “Take heed, therefore, to yourselves, and to 
all the flock over the which, the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, 
to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own 
blood.” 

And in his first letter to Timothy, giving counsel to bishops and 
deacons in the churches, the apostle wrote thus : “A bishop then 
must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant ; . one that 

ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all 
gravity. For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how 
shall he take care of the Church of God ? . . . . Moreover he must 
have a good report of them that are without, lest he fall into reproach 
and the condemnation of the devil.” 

A Ruling Elder and a body of Ruling Elders, chosen and ordained 
solemnly to this office-work, sympathizing with the pastor in his work 
and with the people in their spiritual interests, cares and besetments, 
and, above all, with the honor of Christ’s name and cause in the 
world, “such a body of men may, and ought to be, a power in the 
world.” Indeed they may, and ought! And when the Ruling 
Elders, in the great Presbyterian family, shall everywhere awake to 
their high trust, and shall be suitably recognized and supported by the 
members of the churches in their duties, then may we expect to see 
our beloved Church arise and shine in the light and power of God. 

After devotional services the Council adjourned until the 
evening at 7.30 o’clock. 

Friday, September 2^th, 1880. 

The Council was called to order at 7^ o’clock p. m., by the 
Hon. William Strong, LL. D., an Associate Justice of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, President for the session. 
Prayer was* offered by the Rev. Dr. Prime. 

The President. — There has been a change in the programme, 
and the Rev. Dr. McLeod’s place at this stage will be taken by 
the Rev. Dr. Graham, of London. 

The Rev. Prof. William Graham, D. D., therefore, delivered 
the following address on 

THE DIVINE IN MEN’S LIVES. 

No one regrets more than I do that Dr. Ormiston or Dr. McLeod, 
according to your arrangements, does not now fill this place. I 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


177 


rashly consented to hold it, and fell back on some old thoughts on 
religion in common life, as in some measure fitting into the subject 
of the papers that are to follow this evening. But an advanced picket 
frequently fares ill in the battle, and so it has befallen me; for Princi- 
pal Grant, in his stirring cavalry charge of last night, has carried off 
nearly all the thoughts I had to give. Washington Irving, some of you 
may remember, has a paper about an author falling asleep in his library 
when, lo ! every book quickened into its writer. The living host fell 
on the poor author and stripped him of all his goods and garments. 
What happened to him in a dream befell me in the sober certainty of 
waking misery. I shall, nevertheless, throw out a few thoughts on a 
topic that concerns ail workers — alike heart- and brain- as well as 
hand-workers. 

The Divine in the Bible — its inspiration and authority — was the 
important theme of our deliberations this morning. The Divine in 
our lives — in our common lives — not so. much in the higher spheres 
of thought, science and art, may well deserve some little reflection 
here. It will widen the aims of this great Council and put it in living 
relation to the views of all. It has been truly observed that the Bible 
of the world, the Bible which it reads and studies, is the Christian 
Church ; and the more the living breath of inspired truth fills each 
soul in its daily life, the more powerful and persuasive does that 
Divine Bible become. 

There are, then, the two elements constantly present, waiting for 
adjustment — the Divine element working through the Spirit in our 
hearts and lifting us up by that work into Christ, and the human ele- 
ment which it touches and consecrates. And looking all along the 
centuries of Church history and into the sources of strength in renewed 
souls, nothing so recommends and confirms our great doctrine of 
Divine grace being first and dominant as to find that wherever that has 
held the supreme place in a system of truth there has been the 
loftiest, purest, most vigorous life in all departments, alike in thought, 
and science, and art, as in holy hearts and happy homes. The theol- 
ogy that, with whatever exaggerations, puts the Divine first, makes 
the Church a renovating power all within and around ; and this theol- 
ogy, no matter what name it bears, be it that of Calvin, of Aquinas, 
or Anselm, or Bernard, or Augustine, or Paul, or, above all, of the 
Divine Teacher and Saviour himself — this theology has ever been 
the centre and soul of our common Presbyterianism. This has been 
the breath of life touching each of the threefold departments of the 
religious life, so nobly sketched and illustrated by Dr. Hitchcock. 

But the three phases of the religious life of which he spoke — the 
Mystical or Emotional, the Ethical, the Ceremonial — do not only rise 
above each other in the order of spiritual growth, beauty, and dignity, 
but they are never really separate in the one life of the soul, kin- 
dled by the Divine Spirit. The impassioned soul touched with the fer- 
vor and yearnings of the Divine communion, felt in its absolute free- 
ness through a complete justification by faith, and in the new throb 
12 


178 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


of a new and overpowering emotion through the inflowing of the 
new life — that impassioned soul quickens, elevates, transfigures the 
moral law which holds august authority within ; kindles it with its 
own glow, into a serene, majestic impulse; and passing on to the life 
of action turns all into divine worship and service. The philosophy 
which the intellect shapes; the art moulded by the imagination; 
the hands busy with merchandise and manufacture; all fill up the 
great ritual that embodies before men, and offers to God, the 
devotion of the whole man. De Quincey has pointed out in one 
of his essays one marked distinction between Christianity and all 
Paganism — the latter separates its ceremonial, its cultus, altogether 
from the heart and the conscience, while the former, divinely original, 
makes the ceremonial, the culius, a living part of the religion itself. 
'Phis is only the definition which the apostle James makes when he 
says. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is to 
visit tlie fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep our- 
selves unspotted from the world. Here our word Religion” is in 
the Greek Qpr^axna, and that means the outward ceremonial of the 
living spirit. 'Fhe ritual of the gospel then lies in the two supreme 
and combined moral qualities, the overflowing pity that goes out to 
the weakest, the rock-like resistance that is conqueror over the \vorld. 
'Phe tenderness is Christlike, that it yields to all misery ; the courage 
is Christlike, also, that it yields to no sin. These are the glorious 
garments of the new priesthood, these the new symbols of the wor- 
ship of the Lord. 

That John, of v/hom Dr. Hitchcock spoke so vividly, as still beck- 
oned to by all the Church, as he was of old by Peter, to ask the Mas- 
ter for the message needed in ever-recurring crises of the souPs or the 
Church’s need, seeing he lay on the bosom of the Master, and was 
closest to the beatings and breathings of the Divine heart— that John 
did not always lie there in the Divine absorption, in the passive surren- 
der ot his whole being. The noble prince of Christian mystics stands 
not long afterwards in stern, heroic will at the cross of the Master, and 
leaves the cross only to give a Christ-like love to the mother, put, by 
last command, into his care. That was the grand ceremonial of John’s 
pure and imdefiled soul ; and that is the ceremonial of all who are 
in any measure like him. 

The Church that walks forth in such visible service of a holy char- 
acter, alike brave and gentle, may put on whatever other garb it 
chooses, and turn into a help of such worship whatever lies nearest to 
its hands. We have often thought how marvellously the centripetal 
and the centrifugal forces in rhe spiritual life balance, strengthen, 
lift up each other ; how the farther in we reach to the centre, the 
love of God in the cross of Christ, the farther out v/e can pass to the 
most lonely soul, and the most remote place. 

Such then are the relations of the Divine and the human in common 
daily life. They are not antagonistic. That would be death. They 
do not lie beside each, uninfluencing and indifferent. They are not 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


179 


like fire and water, or like oil and water, but rather they are like 
wine and water ; and the richer and nobler element takes, colors and 
lifts up, the weaker and the meaner into its own nobler quality and 
virtue. They are, to take another illustration, like body and soul — 
the outward and the inward parts of our one being — and, mated like 
cymbals fine, ring out a full, rich music which separately they cannot 
awaken. Or, again, there are three things which make our lives: the 
body with its outer world ; the soul with its inner thoughts, de- 
sires, and choices ; and God. When the body is set over, above, and 
against the soul, then the soul is set over, above, and against God. 
This false order the Spirit of God turns upside down, and God, in 
his mighty love in Christ, enters into the soul, and subdues it with its 
full consent ; and the soul thus indwelt by God is endowed with 
power to turn the whole body and the whole world into an instrument 
of righteousness — an expression of highest service and worship. 

The benefits that come from this new and blessed state we shall 
only mark. 

First. It makes all life one. The problem of philosophy is the 
harmony of the finite and the infinite. The task of art is to make 
the eternal and perfect beauty shine through, sound out, in some poor 
dust, in some feeble tone. Religion comes to a soul when it is 
made one with God through Jesus Christ ; and life puts on a rich, 
noble peace and harmony when the heart, one with God, is one 
with every daily duty and difficulty. 

Second. By such a union of the divine and the human, alike the 
noblest and most gentle, the sublimest and most touching motives are 
let into and mould the character. This is the secret of the Christian 
as a priest unto God. There has come upon him the consecration of 
the sublimity and tenderness of the cross, and now redeemed through 
the sacrifice of the Divine Priest, he becomes himself a priest with his 
unceasing sacrifice of thanks, his burnt-offering of grateful service. 

Third. Such a life copies most closely the greatest life ever led be- 
fore men— the life of Jesus Christ himself; the Christ crucified on 
the cross ; one with the carpenter toiling in Nazareth ; the degradation 
of the one, the meanness of the other, are changed and transfigured by 
the transcendent pity and holiness of both. And the Christian life 
receives the divine peace of the one, the divine likeness of the other. 

And lastly, such a life is the mightiest and surest of all influences 
on the Church and the world. In the railway station in tlie city of 
Carlisle, in England, there is a large fire-place, and over it is this in- 
scription in German text and in Latin phrase, “ Let your light so shine 
before men.” Men, shivering after a long drive in the depths of 
winter, rush in to catch the glow of the generous, mddy fire blazing 
from it. But suppose some day nothing met the chilled travellers 
but large lumps of coal of the very best quality, and arranged in ex- 
quisite symmetry, but with not one red inch of glow pouring out from 
their dull blackness; or suppose there lay the sodden ashes that re- 
mained after the blessed warmth of yesterday. I think the poor trav- 


i8o THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

eller, chagrined and disappointed, ^nd chiller than before, would be dis* 
posed to write to the directors, asking them either to take down theii 
Scripture text or kindle up the fire. So it is a good thing for a soul 
and a Church to have plenty of orthodox truth — coals dug out of the 
depth of God’s heart and word, and those arranged in perfect order; but 
I would, in my darkness and depression, rather have one bit of living 
truth, a live coal set on fire by God’s Spirit, than a whole mine of 
unkindled coal. We have noble divine truths ; let them be divinely 
kindled, that the Church may grow warmer, and the world’s deadly 
chill depart. It will not do to have our memories filled with the sod- 
den ashes of spent fires and far past visions of God. We talk of the 
apostolic times, with their Pentecostal fires; Gt us have the Pente- 
costal fires, and we shall ourselves be apostles. We look bac?k to 
the mighty inner heat of Reformation time, upheaving the Church 
and the nations into new elevations of truth and power, that still afar 
off, like a mountain range, mark the noble horizon. Such spent 
fires will not warm us ; we must have our hearts burning with new 
kindled glow. Even America, young though she be in her history, is 
already apt to live on its old heroisms, New England on its Plymouth 
Pilgrims, and Philadelphia on its William Penn. Ashes of historic 
memories, however glorious, do not brighten and Avarm, unless we 
ourselves follow the noble light and feel the divine ardor of men 
whom they made prophets and heroes. 

Our Presbyterianism, our outward forms, whether of doctrine or 
worship, are all good ; our old memories may well wake up new 
passion and daring ; but only when the Divine fire burns, and burns 
brightly, will the Church waken, shine and glow; and the world 
without come and look beyond her threshold, and pass to our door, 
and over it also, that it may sit down with us in the Divine Home, 

We close with a beautiful story out of the life, of the great theolo- 
gian and saint of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas. Our Lord it is 
said once appeared and said to him : ‘‘ Thomas, thou hast written much 
and well about me : what reward shall I give thee? ” Nihil nisi Te 
Domine^^ (Nothing but thyself, O Lord), was the reply. He could 
have asked no sweeter, richer, diviner reward, and the very asking 
was the receiving. When such is our prayer the reward will be more 
love, courage, fidelity, joy ; and these are Christ himself, still going 
about doing good, and rewarding good with more good. 

The Rev. William G. Blaikie, D. D., LL. D., of Edinburgh, 
read the following paper upon 

THE INFLUENCE OF THE GOSPEL ON EMPLOYERS AND 
EMPLOYED. 

I lay the foundation of this paper on the principle that the gospel 
of Jesus Christ is not only salvation for the individual, but regenera- 
tion for society. It was not souls only but society likewise that was 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


i8i 


shattered by the fall ; and any remedy, equal to the disorder, needed 
to make provision for the restoration of both. In the prophetic an- 
nouncements of the Redeemer and his work, the restoration of society 
is perhaps even more prominent than the salvation of the individual. 
This agrees with the spirit of the Old Testament ; for men there are 
regarded less in their individual than in their corporate capacity. The 
kingly office of the Messiah is very conspicuous, in Old Testament 
prophecy; and a favorite vision of him in that office presents him 
remedying all manner of political and social disorders. “ He shall 
deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also and him that hath no 
helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls 
of the needy. He shall redeem their souls from deceit and violence, 
and precious shall their blood be in his sight.” But when our Lord 
actually appeared, he did not meddle on a great scale with political or 
social evils. The world was in great disorder ; but he did not make any 
direct attempt to right all its wrongs. In this as in some other respects, 
the actual life of Christ appeared different from what had been fore- 
told. But the difference was in appearance only. The seeds of social 
renovation were silently sown. When Cadmus introduced letters into 
Greece; when Faust and his brethren practised the art of printing; 
when through the string of a boy’s kite Franklin drew electricity from 
the clouds ; when the boy James Watt was deep in study over his 
aunt’s tea-kettle, nothing very remarkable appeared to be done ; but 
in reality the foundations were laid of great revolutions, silent in their 
operation but world-wide in their effects. So when our blessed Lord 
taught men the law of Christian love ; when he gave his memorable 
answer to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” when he taught 
his disciples that in his kingdom the greatest of all is the servant of 
all ; when he gave them as their model the life of one who came not 
to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for 
many, he began a blessed social revolution — a revolution often in- 
terrupted, and apparently arrested and even reversed, but possessing 
divine and everlasting vitality, that bursts out anew from time to time, 
and that is destined ultimately, when it reaches its maturity, to 
“make all things new.” 

The family furnishes the most simple and direct sphere for the 
social influence of the gospel of Christ. The true principles of 
family life are laid down in the New Testament with great simplicity 
and force. The parental authority is fully recognized; the obedience 
of the children is peremptorily required ; but the whole relations of 
husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant are steeped 
in love. Authority wedded to love is the basis of the Christian family. 
In proportion as this basis has been realized, the Christian family has 
proved a blessing; not only as a nursery of all that is best and 
brightest in human life, but also as a basis and a model for other social 
organizations, such as the school, the factory, the farm, and, highest 
of all, the State. Not that in all of these the elements of love and 
authority are to be in the same proportion. In chemistry we often find 


i 82 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


that the same elements are combined in various proportions and give 
rise to corresponding products. One atom of nitrogen will combine 
with one, two, three, four or five atoms of oxygen, and give birth to 
different compounds. So, in Christian social lite, the element of love 
will combine with the element of authority in various degrees, accord- 
ing to the nature of the organization ; there will be more of it, e. g., 
in the family than in the factory; but you cannot altogether dispense 
with the element of love in any; if you do, you will not have a 
Christian product, you will not have a Christian civilization. 

We are to discuss the question ; How does the gospel affect the 
relation of employers and employed ? In our time this relation has 
become marked by two special features — the largeness of its sphere, 
and the harshness of its tone. The sphere has suddenly become 
extensive beyond all example ; under the operation of the steam- 
engine, small industries have been swallowed up, and gigantic estab- 
lishments have come in their room. The tendency of our time is for- 
small establishments to become smaller, and big ones bigger. With 
this change, extending so greatly the number of employers and 
employed, the relation itself has become very uncomfortable. Ranged 
like opposing armies on opposite sides, they have for years past been 
struggling with each other in mortal conflict. Each has fought for 
its interest with marvellous energy and perseverance. Nor, though 
a lull has come for the present, do we appear to be much nearer a 
satisfactory solution of the matters at issue. Let it be observed that 
in this strife each party contends for what it believes to be its interests 
and its rights. Now, on this footing, there are but two possible ways 
of bringing the strife to a satisfactory issue. One would be to 
demonstrate clearly what are the rights of the respective sides — to 
draw a hard and fast line between them. Political economy has 
long been struggling to find this line, and not altogether in vain; but 
It has not been very successful, and it is not likely that a satisfactory 
solution will be found by this method. The other method is to 
destroy antagonism by destroying the relation itself. It is to obliterate 
the distinction of employer and employed — to make the same persons 
sustain both characters. This is the principle of co-operation, and 
co-operation has undoubtedly had a measure of success; but there is 
no prospect of its becoming universal or even very extensively preva- 
lent. So far, then, as arrangements on the footing of bare interest go, 
there is little prospect of permanent peace. There may be occasional 
lulls when the combatants become weary of the strife; but, whenever 
their energies are recruited, and either party believes that its interests 
are suffering unduly, there is a prospect of the renewal of hostilities, 
and of an indefinite period of contention, turning into enemies the 
very parties who have most need to live as friends, and embittering 
the daily life of both as much as if a swarm of mosquitoes were for- 
ever buzzing around them. 

This is a very melancholy prospect; but let it be observed that 
it IS only the prospect that arises when the relation of employer to 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1S3 

employed is governed by no higher influence than a regard to their 
respective interests. 

What I desire to establish in this paper is, that, if a new element be 
introduced into the relation, namely, the element of Christian love, 
the problem assumes quite a different aspect. If this position be a 
sound one, it must be apparent how deeply the duty of the Christian 
Church is affected by it. If Christianity alone can supply the ele- 
ment necessary to bring peace and good-will to classes of such extent 
and importance, it is of no little consequence for ministers and elders 
of the Presbyterian Church to realize their responsibility, and address 
themselves very earnestly to their duty. What an immense blessing 
the Church would bring, or, rather, he whom the Church exalts as 
the fountain of all blessing, if in addition to her service in the salva- 
tion of individual souls, she should succeed in removing one of the 
most ominous and deplorable evils of society in our day — sweetening 
the bitter waters of this vast modern Marah, and for the “sooty hell," 
as Carlyle calls it, “of hatred and savagery," substituting a paradise 
of love, peace and joy ! 

That the gospel of Jesus Christ should contain a provision for 
remedying this, as well as the other social evils of the day, is only 
what we might well look for a priori. If the gospel really be a remedy 
for all the evils of the fall, it must somehow provide for the removal 
of this as of all other social disorders which liad their origin in that 
sad event. Let us consider, then, in the first place, the light in which 
the gospel teaches the employer to regard those whose services he 
makes use of ; and, in the second place, the light in which it teaches 
the employed to regard their employers. 

I. In a heart truly penetrated by the grace and love of the gospel, 
there springs up a tender, brotherly feeling towards men generally, 
and especially towards those who stand to it in any close relatioii, 
whether of kindred, neighborhood, or community of pursuit. Along 
with this there springs up likewise a. new sense of responsibility — a 
new view of the purpose of God in giving to some men more talents 
than to others, whether the talents be in the form of education, men- 
tal culture, leisure, money, influence, or social position. God has 
not constituted society a commune, has not given to every human 
being an equal share of everything ; but he has distributed his gifts 
unequally, in order that those to whom much is given may be wisely 
helpful to those who have got little, and, without subverting their 
independence, may enable them to bear their burdens more easily 
and perform their part in life more satisfactorily. An employer of 
labor coming under the vital influence of the gospel, especially in 
these days of ours, cannot but share these views. He becomes con- 
cerned about the people who work for him. He is convinced that in 
some way or other he ought to help them. The fact that they are in 
a lower sphere of life, very coarse and vulgar perhaps, which makes 
many employers keep so entirely aloof from their men, is the very 
fact that interests him in them. The odi profdmun vulgiis ci arcco 


i84 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


feeling — the dread of anything vulgar and ill-smelling coming between 
the wind and his nobility — is felt to be an un-Christ-like feeling, 
unworthy the followers of Him who came to seek and to save the lost. 
In what precise form it is most his duty to help his work-people; it 
may not be easy for him to determine. In what form his people will 
accept of his help, may be also a question that admits of doubt. But 
that in some form and in some way he ought to help them, is his clear 
conviction; and the more intense his Christian spirit is, the stronger 
is this conviction. It makes him restless and uncomfortable till 
something is done. 

Till something is done ! We know very well what the something 
will probably be. Reading-rooms, libraries, evening classes, excur- 
sions, popular lectures, benefit societies, sick societies, savings banks ; 
perhaps a Bible class, a mission, a daily Christian service, and other 
operations of an evangelistic kind ; a mother’s meeting conducted by 
his wife, a young women’s class taught by his daughters, a cricket 
club under the auspices of his sons— this, or such as this, more or less. 
But will all this really help to solve the problem of employers and em- 
ployed? Will it adjust questions of strikes and lock-outs ? Will it settle 
the rate of wages? In many cases, these questions would be answered 

a contemptuous sneer. We are far from thinking that any or all of 
these things will be in themselves effectual. It is important to observe 
under what conditions they are likely to prove beneficial— in what 
manner and to what effect. 



In the first place, such things will prove of little avail if the 


i, but the spirit in which it is 
many grand wmrks of philan- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


185 

thropy to move the hearts of the people. The charm lies in sym- 
pathy ; and even an employer or an overseer who does little of a 
formal kind, but has a kind and considerate word for any one who 
stands in need of it, is often more popular than many busy philan- 
thropists. Sympathy is the secret of much success ; its absence, of 
failure. Where great masses of people are employed it is almost in- 
evitable that much of the philanthropy shall be done by delegate. The 
employer can hardly know his people one by one or act to them ac- 
cordingly ; but if he be content with being philanthropic by delegate, 
he will place himself at a great disadvantage. Let him come into 
personal contact with some at least of his people ; let him act as a 
brother at least to some of the oldest or most noteworthy. Quiet 
acts of brotherly kindness of this sort will not be done in vain. They 
will not only serve as proofs of personal sympathy, but they will give 
value to what must be done by deputy. They will show that it is no 
want of will that obliges the employer in his wider philanthropic 
efforts to make use of the services of others. 

Thirdly, it is to be observed that the spirit of sympathy can 
operate only in an indirect way in adjusting the relations of employer 
and employed after they have become disturbed. It will not of itself 
heal the breach ; it will not supersede consideration and adjustment 
of the merits of the case. If the question be one of wages, for ex- 
ample, it will not supersede a fair inquiry as to whether the state and 
conditions of business w'arrant an addition or demand a decrease. 
The men will not say, Our employer is a good man ; let us take 
whatever he may be pleased to offer us.” But if the work-people are 
convinced that their employer has a sincere regard for their welfare 
and a conscientious desire to give them a fair share of remuneration, 
this will- dispose them to a more reasonable aiid considerate view of 
the case from his point of view as well as their own. This is the real 
benefit which the influence of the gospel will bring, if both sides are 
under its influence. It will dispose both to a fair and reasonable 
spirit in looking at the merits of the case. The great difficulty in or- 
dinary quarrels, and especially in controversies between employer and 
employed, arises from the excited and unreasonable spirit of parties. 
They are prone to approach the question with the feeling that the 
other side has no consideration for them — is only eager to snatch at 
any and every advantage, to secure it by hook or by crook, be it 
right or be it wrong. It is commonly found that differences in regard 
to matters of detail are not difficult to settle if the parties come together 
in a fair, reasonable, considerate spirit. Differences between work- 
men and their employers would not be more difficult to settle than 
other difficulties, if the parties were animated by the spirit which 
springs from mutual confidence and mutual consideration ; but in the 
absence of such a spirit a settlement is well-nigh impossible. If the 
influence of the gospel shall promote the spirit of confidence and con- 
sideration, it will contribute that element without which the relation of 
employers and employed can only be one protracted, interminable strife. 


i86 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


11. But all this implies that the employed as well as the employer 
shall be under the influence of the gospel. It is sometimes represented 
that employers alone are to blame for the uncomfortable relations be- 
tween them and their people ; but undoubtedly Christianity has a 
lesson for the one as well as the other, and the neglect of that lesson 
by the employed,, if it has not as often gendered strife, has certainly 
embittered it to a very painful degree. No lessons of the gospel are 
more clear or explicit than those which bind servants to consult 
the interests of their employers, to be faithful and conscientious in 
their service — not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as unto the 
Lord, doing their work in the sight of the great Task-master. And 
the spirit o-f the gospel as. obviously requires that those who work 
under the superintendence of others should be considerate and neigh- 
borly in their conduct toward them. The fact that the head of the con- 
cern wields the power^ and, if the concern prospers, enjoys the chief 
share of the profit, is no justification of recklessness or indifference on 
the part of his workers. An intelligent Christian workman will rec- 
ognize here the temptation under which he lies to the bad spirit of 
envy and jealousy. Old Adam says, Master is far better off than I; 
the wind fills his sails as it never fills mine ; let him look after him- 
self; why should I be concerned about his interests? Nay, I will 
rather put on the drag a little. In a quiet way I will relieve him of 
some of his advantages, and thus bring him down nearer the level of 
myself.’" This is the low policy of the tempter. The Christian is 
ready with his answer— “ Get thee behind me, Satan.” The line of 
duty for him is plain — to study the interests of the master as well as 
his own. Nay, more — to be considerate and thoughtful for the mas- 
ter ; for to involve the head of the concern in needless embarrassment 
and pain, especially if he be honestly trying to act fairly by all parties, 
is most unworthy of the Christian laborer. 

The law of Christ binds us to do good to all men as we have o})- 
portunity. It requires us to look not every man on his own things, 
but every man also on the things of others. It is only a superficial 
view that would regard this obligation as less binding on the poor, 
with reference to the rich, than the rich, with reference to the poor. 
It is impossible for us to determine accurately how far this rule would 
require a Christian workman to carry forbearance before he would 
be justified in joining a strike. It cannot be said that a Chris- 
tian workman, acting conscientiously and as a Christian, would 
never take part in a strike ; but it is certain that his Christianity 
would lead him to carry his forbearance to the utmost limit, before he 
^yould favor so desperate a remedy. The case of a revolution in the 
State IS similar to the case of a strike in industry. Some of the best 
Christians have promoted revolution. And that which was best and 
noblest m them was what led them to do so. But they have never 
felt justified in adopting so desperate a remedy till forbearance had 
been carried to its utmost limits, and until they felt that the alterna- 
tive was revolution or the loss of liberty, and of all else that was dearest 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


187 

to them. It is certain, likewise, that the Christian workman, if he 
should see it his duty to take part in a strike, would protest against 
many things that have been done at such times. He would not select 
the very time which would be most inconvenient and embarrassing 
for his employer, in view of engagements under which he had come. 
He would be most careful to discourage violence in every shape, and 
especially unjust and oppressive treatment toward other workmen who 
should not be disposed to join in the movement. In short, the in- 
fluence of the gospel on workmen might be summed up thus : it makes 
them conscientious and considerate in the doing of their work ; for- 
bearing and patient when they believe they are not receiving justice; 
and, when forbearance and patience are exhausted, careful to avoid 
and discourage all rough and unrighteous acts, such as other men are 
tempted to resort to, while struggling and starving as they believe for 
their rights. 

III. It may now be useful in bringing this brief paper to a close, 
to notice some of the objections that are most commonly offered to the 
views that have been presented. 

I. First, it is often said, business must be conducted on business 
principles. You must not mix sentiment with business, or you will 
spoil business. One great rule for business is to buy in the cheapest 
market and sell in the dearest. By this rule the only principle on 
which the employer should act in reference to his men is to secure the 
best labor he can on the cheapest terms. Anything that interferes 
with this simple rule may be very beautiful in theory, but in practice 
it is only pernicious. 

In reply to this view, it is obvious to remark that it is just what has 
brought the relation of capital and labor to the dead-lock in which it 
is now. To argue in this way is simply to give up the battle. It is 
to say things are as they must be, and indeed as they ought to be. 
There is nothing for it but endless warfare — fighting on, but never 
fighting oiit — 

“ Bubble, dubble, toil and trouble, 

Fire burn and caldron bubble;” 

In short you would have Carlyle’s sooty hell of hate and savagery ” 
perpetuated in scecula sceculoruin. 

But apart from this, let us ask is this supposed antithesis or antag- 
onism between business principles and sentiment (as it is called) a 
real fact? What if true business principles demand a union with 
Christian sentiment? What if for want of the Christian element the 
article which you buy in the cheapest market turns out the dearest 
in the end ? What if cheap labor is found, like other cheap things, 
of inferior quality, and not worth the price? Labor is not an article 
of uniform quality; its value depends on many varying conditions. 
It varies with the health or sickness of the laborer, with his honesty 
or dishonesty, with his good-will or ill-will. On business principles 
would it not be well to secure the conditions that will make the labor 
of the highest quality? to secure in the laborer, health, honesty and 
good-will, as well as strong sinews and skilful hands ? Is the policy 


t88 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


to be ridiculed as sentiment, and inconsistent with ^‘business prin- 
ciples ” that thus aims at obtaining the best kind of labor — at allying 
it with qualities which no money can buy ? 

2. Again, it is often said that any attempt by the employer to graft 
philanthropy on his business is an insult to the independence of the 
workman. It is a relic of ^‘paternal government” — a legacy from 
the feudal system — an endeavor to keep up a relation of servility that 
is now discarded, root and branch, by all workmen who understand 
their position. The workman, we are told, is just as independent as 
his employer. They come together on equal terms. The employer 
wishes to buy an article — labor — an article which the laborer wishes 
to sell. When they come to an arrangement it is simply this, that 
the one buys and the other sells. Now, buyers and sellers are on free 
and equal terms. But if the buyer takes to patronizing the seller, and 
• the seller accepts of his patronage, the equality is destroyed. The 
seller owns himself the inferior of the buyer. 

It is this feeling, I apprehend, lurking in the mind of many a work- 
man, that leads him to look unfavorably on any philanthropic schemes 
of his employer. I feel constrained to maintain that the view is essen- 
tially unsound. I deny the analogy to be correct that the act of a 
man agreeing to work (say) in a large factory, is similar in principle 
to that of a man merely selling an article to another. Observe, the 
factory is a great social organization. A man agreeing to work there 
becomes a member of a social body. Of that social body the head is 
the employer. _ The work, the machinery, the business and the respon- 
sibility are his. However some may dislike the term, he is the mas- 
ter. In that capacity he has duties and responsibilities to the whole 
body of his people. When he tries to discharge these responsibilities 
It is wrong for his work-people to discourage and thwart him. God 
gives him an influence and a power for good which he gives to no 
one else. If this be true even in reference to his adult laborers, it is 
more manifestly true of the young persons he employs. It is obvi- 
ously absurd to say that when he employs children he treats with them 
for their labor on equal terms. 

3. A third objection often heard is that such philanthropic efforts 
by employers are of no use. How often have the reading-room and 
hbrary, the public lecture and the public service, proved a failure? 
How often have they attracted only a few of the weaker or more well- 
meaning of the people, and been utterly rejected by those who had 
rnost need of their help? Still more, how often have employers, of 
the best intentions and truest sympathy, who have devoted themselves 
with great Christian earnestness to the welfare of their work-people, 
found, that, when the critical moment came, when the strike was pro- 
claimed, they were left as helpless and embarrassed as the most hard- 
hearted of their neighbors ? It is impossible not to own that there is 
some pound for these complaints. Not so much, perhaps, as is often 
thought; and I may be permitted to refer to a little book of mine, 
published fifteen years ago, entitled, “Heads and Hands in the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 189 

World of Labor,” consisting chiefly of narratives of the efforts of 
employers in various branches of industry, to promote the welfare of 
their work-people. Though now somewhat out of date, it shows, if I 
mistake not, that in not a few instances the best results have flowed 
from the Christian influence and sympathy of employers. 

Besides, is a good cause to be abandoned because it has not been 
altogether successful at first? Is it to be thrown to the winds because 
the first experiment has not been a triumph? What good cause, at 
this rate, would ever have been carried to a successful issue ? Is no 
campaign to be conducted except under Caesar’s motto — veni, vidtj 
vici ? Let Christian employers first be convinced that they are in the 
way of duty, and then let them wait on the Lord for that help and 
guidance which is never sought in vain, and in due time they shall 
reap, if they faint not. Meanwhile let the Christian Church think 
more of such applications of the gospel. Let her try to bring out its 
blessings not only in saving the individual, but in regenerating society. 
The one aim of the gospel is never to be pitted against the other. 
Preachers are not to be taunted with preaching the doctrines of salva- 
tion and urged to iu 7 -n from these and direct their energies to the re- 
generation of society. To attempt to regenerate society except 
through that gospel, whose first and immediate object is to save souls, 
would be, to my idea, a most Utopian enterprise. Jesus Christ and 
him crucified is as much the heart and centre of the regeneration of 
society as of the salvation of the individual. From that wonderful 
source, and that only, the great dynamic force comes that effectually 
moves employers to think sympathetically of their men, and, what is 
perhaps even a harder task, moves men to think sympathetically of 
their employers. What seems to be needed from ministers of the 
Christian Church is that in preaching this great doctrine, its applica- 
tions to such matters as the present should be more clearly, fully and 
frequently enforced. And here let us remember that “prevention is 
better than cure.” It is a mistake to leave such matters alone until 
some great outbreak of disorder makes them flagrant and scandalous. 
It is a perilous thing to preach on the Christian relation of employers 
to employed during the height of a strike. Far better, surely, silently 
to imbue the minds of the people from time to time with sound views 
of the true spirit of the gospel — to familiarize them with the truth that 
the gospel was designed to regenerate society as well as save the indi- 
vidual, and to take advantage of the countless opportunities which are 
supplied, in opening up the Scriptures, of showing the social bearings 
of the truth of God. If the Presbyterian Church should succeed, with 
God’s blessing, in thoroughly rousing and guiding the Christian con- 
science, alike of the employers and employed in her communion, oh 
this great question — no man could estimate the value of her service, 
nor could the fulfilment of any other secondary purpose of the gospel 
do more to realize the angel’s song — “ Glory to God in the highest, 
and on earth peace, good-will toward men.” 


190 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


The Hon. Chief-Justice C. D. Drake, of Washington, D. C, 
read the following paper on 

CHRISTIANITY THE FRIEND OF THE WORKING 
CLASSES. 

It was a wise thought that placed in the programme of discussions 
here the broad topic : Christianity the Friend of the Working 
Classes. It was a brave thought as well, to formulate it as an affir- 
mation, rather than as a subject of inquiry; and so hold up before 
the world a great Bible truth. The choice of the speaker to discuss 
it may prove to have been less wise. If so he can only say, “ He hath 
done what he could.” 

In the working classes the numerical majority, the productive force, 
and therefore the physical life, of any nation, abide. Whatever ele- 
vates the spirit, purpose, and morals of those classes, elevates the 
nation at home and abroad; and, on the other hand, whatever 
depresses them in spirit, or weakens them in rightful purpose, or 
degrades them in morals, hurts the nation in a vital part. Hence 
there is no more pregnant inquiry than for those things which may 
justly be called the Friends of the Working Classes. And, when 
found, they should be embraced and enshrined; for, as working 
classes must always be, whatever benefits them in any period sends a 
venture down the stream of time, which may yield good profit in all 
the future. 

Christianity is the system of doctrines and precepts taught by Jesus 
Christ. It is to be estimated and judged, not by the glosses, the in- 
terpretations, the simulations, or the imputations of men, nor by the 
halting, inconsistent, and often sinful lives of many of its professed 
followers; nor even by the lives of the best of its disciples; but 
by the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, which are 
the word of God. From them let us reverently learn how it is that 
Christianity is the Friend of the Working Classes. 

In Nazareth, where he had been brought up, Jesus stood in the 
synagogue on the Sabbath day, and read from the book of the prophet 
Isaiah, where it was written : ‘‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he 
hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to 
the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them 
that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” And 
he closed the book, and sat down. And as the eyes of all them that 
were in the synagogue were fastened on him, he said unto them: 
“This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.” And then broke 
forth from his astonished and wrathful hearers : “ From whence hath 
this man these things? Is not this the carpenter And those last 
words of derision have come down, as it were, along the telephone of 
the ages, to the ear of every working man and working woman to whom 
the gospel has come, or ever shall come, announcing Jesus to them as 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


191 

one whose heart would ever sympathize with them in their trials and in 
their rightful triumphs. Thanks to the enraged and contemptuous Naz- 
arenes for this evidence that Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, 
was one of the working classes, a mechanic, a carpenter. They could 
have uttered no words which would have better told the working 
classes of every age and clime, that the Christianity which this despised 
and rejected Nazarene came to found, would be a true friend to them. 

This bright promise is sustained by the whole body of the Scrip- 
tures, far more fully than there is time now to show, or than need be 
shown in such an assembly as this. Let it suffice for this occasion, 
first, to point to some of the special needs of the working classes in 
all places and times ; and then prove, in God’s own words, that the 
demands and precepts of Christianity, if met and obeyed by em- 
ployers and employed, would satisfy those needs to the uttermost. 

I. A chief need of all working men and women everywhere is, that 
their wages be paid. They work for reward ; it is their bread. The 
expectation of reward is to them the vital force of muscle, and sinew, 
and nerve, and purpose. Take that away, and the brawny arm falls 
limp, and the deft fingers lose their cunning. For them, and against 
all employers who wrongfully withhold their wages, hear the voice of 
God, crying, “ Woe unto him that useth his neighbor’s services with- 
out wages, and giveth him not for his work!” And, as quick pay- 
ment is the worker’s daily need, God says, “The wages of him that 
is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.” And, 
as if “ all night ” were too long, God speaks again, and says, “At his 
day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the su7i go down upon 
it ; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it.” And yet further, 
listen to the Lord’s warning of vengeance: “Go to, now, ye rich 
men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. 
Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your 
gold and silver is cankered ; and the rust of them shall be a witness 
against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Behold, the hire 
of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you 
kept back by fraud, crieth : and the cries of them which have reaped 
are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.” And when those 
cries are heard on high, the rust of the cankered gold and silver will 
not be the only witness against the rich wrong-doer; but, saith the 
Lord of hosts, “I will be a swift witness against those that oppress 
the hireling in his wages : I will come near you to judgment.” 

II. A second special need of the working classes is security in their 
industry and their gains: not merely the tardy, uncertain, and often 
feeble protection afforded by the municipal law, which too often the 
poor are pecuniarily unable to invoke, but the higher and costless 
safety resting upon men’s obedience in heart and life to the law of 
God. True, this is the need of all ; but it is pre-eminently so of the 
workers, to whom every hour of peaceful labor, undisturbed by appre- 
hension or remembrance of wrong, is of double value, and every 
farthing gained is more than a pound to the rich. Men’s laws never 


192 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


have kept pace with men’s desires and devices to wrong their fellow- 
men ; nor do they reach the thoughts and intents of the heart ; and 
therefore imperfection is in them all : but the law of the Lord is 
])erfect, converting the soul,” taking hold of the consciences of men, 
and implanting within them that fear of God, which is not only the 
beginning and the instruction of wisdom, but teaches men everywhere 
to hate and depart from all evil. In this law is the solid hope and 
defense of .the world’s w^orkers. Though its converting power has 
conquered comparatively few' of the myriads of earth’s people that 
liave been, and though the outlook is not promising for the speedy 
conversion of the human race; yet none the less should the. law of the 
Lord be held up everywhere and always, till the day, surely to come, 
of its final and glorious triumph in the regeneration of a fallen world. 
Standing upon that law, Christianity has ever arrayed itself against 
every form of spoliation of the w'orker by the rich and powerful, from 
the low^est grade of mere injustice up to the highest of lawdess rapacity. 
Let the voice of Christianity’s God be again heard : ‘‘ The Lord will 
enter into judgment wuth the ancients of his people and the princes 
thereof; for the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye 
that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor ? 
Forasmuch as your treading is upon the poor, ye have built houses of 
hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them ; ye have planted pleasant 
vineyards, but ye shall not drink wune of them. For I know your 
manifold transgressions and your mighty sins. Thou hast greedily 
gained of thy neighbor by extortion, and hast forgotten me. Behold, 

I have smitten mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made. 
Can thine heart endure, or can thy hands be strong, in the days that 
I shall deal with thee ? I the Lord have spoken it, and will do it.” 

III. A third special need of the working classes is some solid 
foundation for hope of bettering their worldly condition. With the 
great majority of them the struggle is usually for mere life. The 
days and months and years of toil bring them no more than food and 
raiment ; to vast numbers not even that ; and life wears aw^ay with 
nothing gained. And vice comes and weaves its subtle and fatal net 
about them, evil associations grapple them, and Satan rides trium- 
phant upon the wild and turbid currents that sweep them into the 
abyss of despair and death. f 

The question, of great and lasting moment to them and to every 
portion of society, is, not whether the w'orking classes can be lifted 
bodily into affluence and high social position, for wdiich they would 
be unfit, and where they w'ould cease to be workers ; but how, by 
what course of their own, by what action of others, they can, as 
working classes, be raised to a higher plane and a better condition of 
physical life. Left to fight the sullen and unequal battle of life alone, 
the most of them have only defeat and disaster in view ahead, from 
whose blasting sight there is no refuge but the grave. Shall they 
)e so left ? Every principle of Christianity, every dictate of mere 
humanity says, No. What sliall come to their help? Shall it be 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


193 


Civilization? Shall it be Philosophy? Shall it be human Morals? 
Shall it be Philanthropy? Each and all of them, at one time or 
another, in one country or another, have taken the mighty problem 
in hand, and, so far, each and all have failed to solve it successfully 
and finally. The plain and startling truth is, that the spirit of man, 
in and of itself, is, and must forever be, unequal to its solution. His 
schemes are as sand, when the vital need is a rock. But what the 
spirit of man cannot do, the Spirit of God has done. Behold in the 
Rock of Ages the only stable foundation upon which the world’s 
workers can build a hope of steadily and permanently rising to a 
higher plane and a better condition of earthly life. 

Men might as well, first as last, open their eyes and their hearts to 
these great truths of God — that “ Righteousness is the habitation of 
his throne;” that “He that follovveth after righteousness findeth 
life;” that “The work of righteousness shall be peace; and the 
effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever.” These 
truths are precious stones in the foundations of Christianity ; and 
upon them rests the great proposition, that, except in that righteous- 
ness, there is no real and solid basis for hope of the working classes 
ever being able to gain a condition of higher worldly prosperity, and 
abide there. Some, under favoring circumstances, may achieve suc- 
cess, and obtain riches and honor and power, and so rise above their 
class ; but the rest will be left behind. What is needed is hope for 
the class; and let them awake to the divine trith, that that hope lies 
nowhere but in that righteousness ; for only in that are found all the 
principles, motives, purposes, and means which vrod may be expected 
to bless with substantial and lasting advancement and prosperity. 

But it is not enough that this righteousness be found in the work- 
ing classes alone. Were every working man and working woman in 
the whole world a sincere and blameless follower of God, that fact 
would avail only partially to better their worldly state, unless it were 
met by a like condition in the rest of the race. Divide mankind to- 
day equally between the righteous and the unrighteous, and not an 
hour would pass before it would have to be written on high — “ The 
wicked in' his pride doth persecute the poor: he plotteth against the 
just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth : they have drawn out the 
sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, 
and to slay such as be of upright conversation.” And so, at last,, the 
hope of the working classes for a real and permanent betterment of 
their worldly condition must rest on the double foundation of right- 
eousness in themselves, and righteousness in the rest of mankind. 
This foundation Christianity alone can lay ; for it is laid upon Jesus 
Christ, the Rock of Ages ; and in all the systems known of men there, 
is no builder upon that Rock, but Christianity. 

But through all the long ages, perhaps, that must roll away before 
the millennial dawn shall herald the day of Christ’s universal reign, it 
is the high and holy mission of Christianity, at all times, in all places 
whither it may go, against all odds, with one hand to batter down the 

13 


194 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


unjust barriers which the selfish, the grasping, and the rapacious ever 
seek to rear against the upward progress of the working classes ; and 
with the other to hail those classes to trust in the Lord, and do good, 
and wait patiently for him. 

Let them hear what Jehovah saith to their oppressors. From out 
the thunders of Sinai, '''‘Thou shalt not steaL' forbids oppressio«n, ex- 
tortion, and all other unjust or sinful ways of taking or withholding 
from another what belongs to him. And listen to the repetitions in 
other words, and the enforcements, of that commandment : “ He that 
oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker ; he shall surely come to 
want. He that by unjust gain increaseth his substance shall gather it 
for him that will pity the poor. Because ye despise this word, and 
trust in oppression, and stay thereon, therefore this iniquity shall be to 
you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose break- 
ing cometh suddenly at an instant. Hear this, O ye that swallow up 
the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail ; the Lord hath 
sworn. Surely, I will never forget any of their works. Shall not the 
land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein > 
And It shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will 
turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation ; 
and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins and baldness upon every 
head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the 
end thereof as a bitter day.” 

And hear what the Lord saith to them that are oppressed : The 
Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. 
He deilvereth the poor from him that is too strong for him, yea the 
poor and needy from him that spoileth them. He shall save the 
children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. The 
Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted and the right of the 
poor. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence* and 
precious shall their blood be in his sight.” 

^ fourth special need of the working classes is a fit provision 
for tl^e poor.^ It is no more true that the poor shall never cease out 
of the land, than that in every land they are to be mainly found in 
the working classes. Too true is it also, in all lands, that ‘Hhe rich 
man s weaUh is his strong city, and the poor man’s destruction is his 
poverty ; but, nevertheless, the world over, it is of the ordering of 
Providence, that, while the working classes are dependent, directly or 
indirectly, upon the rich for employment, and so for livelihood, the 
rich are just as dependent on them, not only for the revenues that 
enrich them, but for soldiers and sailors to defend them and their 
country m time of war. Their wealth is absolutely at the mercv of 
foreign invaders, or of lawless and ungovernable mobs, springing, as 
It were, out of the ground, at their very doors, unless the working 
classes rally to their defense. It is, therefore, mere common justice 
public means to co-operate in providing for the poor, 
his duty Christianity inciilcates by manifold precepts and injunctions. 

I hus. speaks the Lord.: '^Blessed is he that considereth the poor : the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


195 


Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. He that hath pity on the 
poor lendeth to the l.ord : and that which he hath given will he pay 

him again. He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack : but he that 

hideth his eyes shall have many a curse. Whoso stoppeth his ears 

at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be 

heard. Thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thy hand from 
thy poor brother ; but thou shalt open thy hand wide to him.” And 
as the sum of all, the Lord said unto Moses, “Speak unto all the con- 
gregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them. Thou shalt 
LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF:” and the Son of man, so poor in 
his human life that he “ had not where to lay his head,” repeated the 
blessed words to his disciples, to be, next to love to God, the very 
foundation precept of Christianity forever. 

V. A fifth special need of the working classes, without which they 
must suffer both bodily and mental deterioration, is a stated and 
regularly recurring day of rest from labor. This is not the time 
for discussing the great subject of the Sabbath and its observance. 
That will be treated here by far abler minds, a few days hence. • At 
present it suffices to consider Sunday simply as a day of rest, with 
reference to the working classes. On that subject time forbids ex- 
tended remark ; and in fact it is not necessary. It is a law of nature 
that all men, whether they work or not, must have rest ; and at night 
they seek and obtain it. But all experience proves that working men 
and women need more rest than night alone affords ; and that there- 
fore it is a necessity to set aside periodically a whole day for cessation 
from labor. Men and communities that do not acknowledge the 
obligation of the Christian Sabbath, have awaked to the vital impor- 
tance of Sunday as a day of rest. Said Lord Macaulay in the English 
House of Commons: “We in England are not poorer, but richer, 
because we have these many ages rested from our labor one day in 
seven. The day is not lost. While industry is suspended, while the 
plough lies in the furrow, while the exchange is silent, while no smoke 
ascends from the factory, a process is going on quite as important to 
the wealth of nations as any process which is performed on more busy 
days. Man, the machine of machines, the machine compared with 
which all contrivances of the Watts and Arkwrights are worthless, is 
repairing and winding up, so that he returns to his labors on the Mon- 
day with clearer intellect, with livelier spirits, with renewed corporeal 
vigor.” This is the judgment and the testimony of a leading English 
mind from the standpoint of mere political economy ; and toward those 
conclusions all nations having knowledge of Christian civilization are 
rapidly tending. But they are mere followers. It was the God of 
Christianity that ordained one day in every seven as a day of rest. 
It was no device or thought of man j but the offspring of infinite fore- 
knowledge and wisdom, for the physical as well as the spiritual good 
of the human race, but pre-eminently of the working classes, through 
all time. And let it be remembered by those classes in every land, 
that in Christianity is the best safeguard of this ineffable gift of the 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


196 

all-wise Fafher. If Christianity had no other claim to the title of 
Friend of the Working Classes, it could triumphantly rest it upon its 
spirit and works as the defender and conservator of the Sabbath. 

VI. Finally : The greatest and most urgent need of the working 
classes, as it is of all men, is religion. Few will dispute this proposi- 
tion ; but, when a choice is to be made between different forms of 
religious faith and observance, world-wide differences arise. In the 
very nature of the case, there can be but one true religion ; but many 
different bodies may each claim, as they do, to be its true representa- 
tive. The most of Christendom is divided between the Roman Church, 
claiming to be the only true one, and asserting that outside of itself 
there is no salvation ; and the Reformed Churches of all names, 
claiming to be of the Church universal ; which they hold to consist of 
all who make profession of the holy religion of Christ, and of sub- 
mission to his laws. In one or the other of these two great bodies 
all who call themselves Christians must be ranged ; and between them 
the working classes must choose. To which should they look for 
spiritual help in their rugged journey of" life, and for guidance to the 
mansions of the blest on high? This is no time or place to hesitate 
in answering that question according to the faith of the Reformed 
Churches throughout the world holding the Presbyterian system,” 
and composing this Alliance. Those Churches hold, that the religion 
best suited to the working classes, and all other classes of men, is not 
that which bows down to a man, deified by men as infallible, and 
holding himself aloft as God’s vicegerent on earth ; but one which 
worships God alone. Nor is it a religion of a dominating hierarchy, 
pronouncing its decrees and conducting its worship in a tongue un- 
known to the common people ; but one whose humble ministers carry 
the word of God to the poor, as did their divine Master, in the lan- 
guage of their every-day life. Nor is it a religion promising salvation 
through the intercession of a woman, or of a priest, or of saints, or 
of angels; but one resting on the intercession of the great “High 
Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus,” alone. Nor is it a religion 
which shuts the Bible to the people, and commands them to look to 
pontiffs, prelates, and priests to learn what God says to man ; but one 
that opens God’i holy word to all human creatures, and would lovingly 
put it into the hand of every man, woman, and child, to read, learn, 
and understand for themselves. Nor is it a religion of pictures and 
images and relics, that hides away from its votaries the second com- 
mandment of the Decalogue ; but one that says to its followers, as 
God said to his people Israel, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any 
graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or 
that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth : 
thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.” Nor is 
U a religion claiming that poor sinful man’s works of merit may bring 
God in debt to him for eternal life ; but one that humbles the lost 
sinner at the foot of the cross, there to find rest and peace to his soul 
through the blood of the once crucified, but now risen and exalted. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


197 


Redeemer of men. This is the religion which meets the soul-needs of 
the poor and lowly. It sees their low estate, and says to them, “ He 
that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly shall dwell on high, 
and his eyes shall behold the King in his beauty.” It knows their 
troubles and their conflicts, and shows them the Prince of Peace. It 
knows their sorrows, and brings to them the man of sorrows, who was 
acquainted with grief heavier than theirs. It knows their darkness, 
and tells them, “ Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of right- 
eousness arise with healing in its wings.” It knows their sins, and 
points them to the Friend of sinners. It knows their tears, and says, 
‘‘God shall wipe away all tears from your eyes.” It knows their 
days and nights of weariness, and bids them hear the Saviour’s loving 
call, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I 
will give you rest.” It knows the thirst of their souls, and says to 
them, “ Thirst no more, for the Lamb which is in the midst of the 
throne shall lead you unto living fountains of waters.” To those 
heavenly fountains, hear the- hail of the Son of man to the sons of toil 
in all time in all the earth: “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come 
ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and 
eat ; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without 
price.” 

This is the voice of that Christianity which is the Friend of the 
Working Classes in all earth’s nations. For it, “let everything that 
hath breath praise the Lord.” 

And now, let the whole world stand forth before God, and say 
whether, if the commands, and precepts, and promises of God, as 
they have thus been passed in review, were henceforth obeyed, lived 
out, and rested upon by all, the certain result would not be the speedy 
and lasting rise of the working classes in physical power, in intel- 
lectual strength, in material prosperity, in moral force, and, conse- 
quently, in influence in all the world’s affairs. 

And again let the whole world stand forth before God, and say 
what else than Christianity, that mortal man has ever known or heard 
of, has, in all the history of humanity, anywhere led, or can ever, in 
all the long hereafter of time, be rationally expected to lead, those 
classes upward to that higher and nobler destiny. 

The Council then adjourned until the following morning at 
9^ o’clock. 


Saturday, September 2^th, 1880. 
THIRD DAY’S SESSION. 

The Council was called to order at 9^ A. m. The Rev. Pro- 
fessor W. H. Green, D. D., LL. D., of Princeton, in the chair 
as President for the session. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


198 

After devotional services, the minutes of the last session were 
read and approved. 

Dr. Calderwood. — ^The Business Committee have thought it 
desirable to submit to the Council a resolution looking to 
arrangements for the farewell meeting. I therefore offer the 
following : 

Resolved, That a committee with the three clerks of the Council be 
appointed to make arrangements for a farewell meeting, or meetings, 
to be held on Sabbath evening, October 3d, and that this committee 
report at an early day to the Council. 

This is in view of the necessity for making some arrangement 
which may harmonize with the plans of the several churches. 

The resolution was agreed to. 

The President announced the following names in accordance 
therewith : the Rev. Drs. Breed, Dickey, Robbins, Dales, 
Henry, and Stevenson, together with the clerks of this body. 

The Rev. Prof. Henry Calderwood, LL. D., of Edinburgh, 
read the following paper on 

THE RELATIONS OF SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 

The relations at present subsisting between science and theology 
are such as to occasion some degree of concern to the Church of 
Christ. They raise into special importance the inquiry as to the 
measures most appropriate to secure that the Church maintain a vital 
harmony with the most advanced knowledge and the highest intellec- 
tual life. It is impossible within the necessary limits to do more than 
touch upon the successive points, but I shall on this account concentrate 
upon the more important matters involved, being content to allow 
secondary subjects to drop out of sight. 

I. In order to consider aright the actual relations of science and 
theology, the first point to be noticed is the distinctness of their 
^keres. Science has clearly defined boundaries, and is at great pains 
in our day to mark these out and proclaim to all concerned Avhat they 
are. These boundaries are described, not by actual limits reached in 
given sciences, but by methods employed by all sciences alike, as 
essential to the nature of science. Science is concerned exclusively 
with observed facts, and it can advance only as observation leads or 
warrants a given form of inference. Science does not, indeed, pro- 
fess to advance only under warrant of a perfect induction, but, treat- 
ing this as unattainable, asks that such precautions be taken to secure 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


199 


rigid accuracy of observation that there can be no misgiving as to the 
facts. Facts must be carefully ascertained, and so also must their 
uniform relations, in order that we may with certainty speak of accu- 
rate classification or competent inference as to the laws of nature. 
External observation is the instrument ; facts coming within the com- 
pass of such observation afford the materials ; and inference from 
these affords the only result which may be described as scientific in- 
duction, or a contribution to the vast body of scientific truth. The 
legitimacy of all this will be universally allowed, but the most impor- 
tant thing to be remarked at present is, that theology does not enter 
upon this sphere, and is in no respect involved in what is attempted or 
achieved within it. The sphere lies quite apart from that of theology, 
which cannot under any pretext be drawn into a position of antag-. 
onism. Theology has nothing to offer by way of contribution, and 
nothing to refuse out of the host of conclusions which may on adequate 
scientific tests be accepted by the human intelligence. There would 
be no need for insisting upon this very obvious truth were it not that 
certain scientific men are accustomed to protest against the inter- 
ference of theology. Their apprehension is groundless and their irri- 
tation misplaced, for the interference is a myth. Science has nothing 
to encounter save the tests which its own methods impose, and these 
are the ordinary conditions of intelligence. Natural theology refuses 
to be restricted to external observation, but it does not suggest doubt 
of such observation, or profess to offer opposition to its exercise ; 
rather, it asks from all the sciences the materials with which it may 
itself work. Christian theology founds upon an authoritative rev- 
elation, but that revelation does not offer any help on scientific 
questions, does not profess to be a substitute for science. It does not 
forestall inquiry as to the facts of nature or the laws by which these 
are governed. It professes to be a revelation, by the searching of which 
the simplest man may learn the highest wisdom ; but it does not pro- 
fess to reveal the elements of geology, biology or physics. On the 
contrary, it is quite in accordance with all its professions, that men 
should have been left waiting till the nineteenth century of the Chi is- 
tian era before they were able to reach a truly scientific investigation 
of the secrets of nature. This being so, there is ample ground for 
urging that theology cannot interfere with science, and protestations 
against theologic interference may well take end, as inconsistent 
with intelligent recognition of the boundaries of the sphere assigned 
to theology. 

On equally valid grounds it needs to be admitted that science can . 
not interfere with theology, because it cannot enter its sphere, and 
thus can neither bear testimony nor offer criticism. Science cannot 
transcend its own boundaries. . Unchallengeable within these, it is 
powerless beyond. It cannot, on any warrant capable of bearing 
scientific test, maintain that there are no facts save those recognized 
by exterm^l observation, or that there is no form of truth save that 
which explains the phenomena presented to the senses. Science has 


200 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


no testimony to bear except as to the fact of observation, and can 
neither affirm nor deny beyond the boundaries which it has marked 
out for itself and proclaimed, and which all intelligent men see must 
be the boundaries of science according to its nature. As it is no dis- 
paragement of theology to say that it cannot do the work of science, 
so neither is it any disparagement of science to say that it cannot con- 
tribute toward a rational test of theology otherwise than by presenting 
its testimony as to the facts of nature. 1 am not in this way seeking 
to deny that intelligence may challenge the reality of the supernatural, 
but merely suggesting that when this is done it is not part of the work 
of science ; or, otherwise expressed, it is not scientifically done. There 
can be no scientific denial of the supernatural, for science is only of 
the observational — that is, of the natural. ' What bearing this consid- 
eration has on the attitude and intellectual worth of scepticism con- 
cerning the supernatural may be matter for after consideration. The 
primary and fundamental fact is that science and theology occupy dis- 
tinct spheres, so that the one cannot enter the province of the other. 

The bearing which this fact should have on the attitude of theology 
toward science is that which chiefly concerns us here. It clearly im- 
plies a sound intellectual sympathy with science and delight in its 
progress. It is the province of one department of inquiry or thought 
to cherish intelligent respect for other departments ; and if this be a 
general maxim, it must be held to have special force in its application 
to theology ; for whereas there may be that in observational science 
which contributes toward the encouragement of doubt as to the super- 
natural, belief in the supernatural must accept with thankfulness the 
widening of the area of knowledge, in whatever direction advance be 
made. It is manifestly a part of the Church’s work to encourage and 
sustain the profoundest interest in the advance of science. Belief that 
the worlds were framed by the power of God must quicken intellectual 
enthusiasm in the systematizing of our knowledge of the universe. 
Whatever scientific men may have to say of theology and theologians* 
they should have no difficulty in recognizing the sincere and delighted 
acknowledgment which the Church of Christ makes of the gain to 
the human race from widened knowledge of nature. 

2 . The next essential consideration is the closeness of the relations 
of theology to science. Theology cannot dwell apart from science, 
though it is quite possible that science may exist apart from theology. 
It is not for us to forget the service which theologians, and also the prac- 
tical benevolence of the Christian Church in its missions to the heathen, 
have rendered to science; but while remembered, it does not need to 
be dwelt upon here. Theology must stand in close and friendly rela- 
tions with science, as a condition of its own existence. Even a pro- 
fession of concern, because of the progress of science, is an admission 
of weakness. There can be no disguising of this from ordinary re- 
flection, and there should be none in the Councils of the Church 
Such apprehension betrays mistrust of scientific methods, which is a 
challenging of human intelligence ; but, in its worst light from a 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


201 


Christian point of view, it is mistrust of the testimony of creation 
from those who proclaim unwavering trust in the Creator, and in 
the truth — the grand certainty — that all his works praise him. It is, 
therefore, one essential part of the task intrusted to the Christian 
Church to banish from its borders mistrust of science. 

3. The point most pressing for consideration is that theology has 
been specially assailed from the regions of scientific inference. Theology 
has not been assailed by science, the impossibility of which assault has 
been indicated; but, by scientific men, distinguished in various depart- 
ments of science, it has been met by a distinct refusal to recognize the 
Supernatural. It may seem only a verbal difference to say that it has 
been assailed by recognized scientific leaders, not by science ; but the 
difference between science itself, and the applications which scientific 
men make of scientific conclusions is immense. Science does not rest 
on authority, and teaches us to set lightly on the dicta of individuals. 
It accepts only what evidence establishes, and constrains all to recog- 
nize. But when scientific men proceed to reason as to the logical 
consequences of scientific results, as warranting inference concerning 
the government of the world, science ceases to be responsible, 
whether these inferences favor theology, or assume an aspect of an* 
tagonism. Such inferences as to the government of the world become 
fit subjects for the general intelligence; and, according to the analo- 
gies of experience, theologians may fairly be regarded as having 
trained aptitude for dealing with them, while scientific observers have 
no special training for this task, and are in fact so much disciplined 
in intellectual exercise of a different kind, that they may in a large 
measure lack the training which fits for this work. Accordingly, it is 
only expressing a very general impression among intelligent men, if I 
say that examples of cosmic speculation from recognized scientific 
authorities have in several cases failed to awaken a favorable judg- 
ment of fitness for the voluntarily selected task. 

The fact to be faced, however, is this: that there has been a formally 
proclaimed antagonism to the recognition of the Supernatural, which 
has received a special degree of notice on account of the scientific 
eminence of those who have avowed it. In these circumstances, it 
belongs to theologians to make their appeal to intelligent men by a 
clear statement of their own position. It has been maintained by 
some, on a.quasi-scientific authority, that the belief in God has been dis- 
integrated by the widening of knowledge ; and that accordingly belief 
in a supernatural order of things has passed away. The proper re- 
joinder for those who discredit the assertion is a request for a state- 
ment of the knowledge appealed to as accomplishing this result. To 
this falls to be added, in the line of theologic defence, the considera- 
tion that no kind or amount of knowledge of that which belongs to 
nature can avail for the negation of the Supernatural. To explain 
natural occurrences by the laws of nature, is only to discover that nature 
contains more than appears ; that by penetrating beneath the surface 
it is possible to ascertain the causes at work. This all men now recog- 


202 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


nize ; that is to say, there are accredited sciences. But to claim that 
science is the annihilation of the Supernatural, is to claim what 
science must itself repudiate as strongly as theology. This is to forget 
the limits of science in intoxication of delight over the discoveries 
made within these limits. Science, which proclaims the indestruc- 
tibility of matter, and the conservation of energy, simply acknowl- 
edges that the conditions of observation make it impossible to answer 
the questions which ordinary intelligence raises. And this acknowl- 
edgment guides a very little way towards demonstration of the posi- 
tion that the widening of knowledge of the natural has distintegrated 
rational belief in the Supernatural. 

The next line of defence for theology, as it is positive in form, is 
the first line of foundation for the structure of a system of knowledge as 
reliable as science, and for human life vastly more important. The 
possibility of science is a postulate of the superiority of intelligence 
over the whole realm of outward existence ; it is the affirmation that 
observation is superior to the things observed — that even changes of 
material occur according to rational methods, admitting of the dis- 
covery of causes. It is an assertion of the competency of intelligence 
to the task of interpreting the occurrences within the field of nature, 
and is thus an acknowledgment that intelligence reigns in the universe, 
and that intelligence can explain the processes recognized as occurring ; 
and to say as much as this is to supply natural theology with its funda- 
mental postulate, and Christian theology with distinct testimony in its 
favor. These are the positions, traced in mere outline, to which the- 
ology invites the attention of scientific men, on account of the strength 
of which it has received the life-long support of scientific men of the 
highest eminence, and is upheld by a large mass of practical sagacity 
among men of wide enterprise, and large experience of the require- 
ments of human life. 

As a proper accompaniment of this claim, and a legitimate offset 
against the avowed scepticism of men of scientific repute, we can ap- 
peal to the deliberate avowal of Christian faith by men who have 
made scientific research the work of their life. Restricting such allu- 
sion to those who have passed away within comparatively recent times, 
we can give the name of Brewster, or Agassiz, or Faraday, any one 
of which may be set against that of Clifford, a name which suggests 
geniality, benevolence, and intellectual acuteness such as all can unite 
in admiring, but which recalls also denunciations of religfous belief 
so full of passion as to lead to the inference of intensely personal ele- 
ments calling for a large deduction before we can estimate the logical 
value of the reasoning. 

4. From this fundamental consideration, it is allowable to pass to 
one or two references directly practical. 

In view of the immense advance in scientific knowledge, and 
the admitted conflict as to the legitimate inferences from this knowl- 
edge, the interests of the Christian Church require among its adhe- 
rents, and specially among its ministers, some devoted to the study 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


203 


of distinct departments of science. It is a legitimate claim on the 
part of scientific men, that the defenders of theology give evidence 
of possessing ample scientific knowledge. To meet this claim there 
must be division of labor and specializing. The interests of the 
Christian Church so obviously call for this, as to present a legitimate 
object of Christian ambition to those who recognize the power of 
such knowledge. It is quite compatible with devotion to theology 
proper, or to the practical work of the pastorate, that there be con- 
tinuous and successful devotion to a distinct yet auxiliary branch of 
study. The laws of mind, indeed, imply that there is restfulness and 
refreshing in periodical transition to a subject distinct from the main 
theme of occupation. When, to this consideration, there is added 
the direct service which may be rendered to- the Christian Church in 
its grand task of evangelizing the world, the fire of holy zeal may 
well kindle the ardor of scientific or philosophic enthusiasm. 

What is here urged upon the ministers of the Church, and on those 
preparing for the ministry of the word, is thus urged only on the 
ground of their distinctly accepted responsibilities. But in a Presby- 
terian Church, where there is parity of ruling power for the elders 
who do not exercise teaching functions, there is place to be found for 
all attainments among the members of the Church such as may con- 
tribute towards the cumulative evidence for the harmony of scientific 
and religious thought. Direct participation in the Church’s work by 
those who have made scientific pursuits the task of their life, is to be 
sought by the Church itself, and may be rendered in the assurance 
that special service is done to the cause of Christ by such aid. 

One thing, however, is specially to be considered by those who are 
the accredited teachers of the Church; that is, the distinct obligation 
to shun general charges against science, and general attacks upon sci- 
entists. There may be sufficient reason for criticising and condemn- 
ing scientists who have gone beyond their own province to promulgate 
views antagonistic to religious faith and life. But it is to be remern- 
bered in all such cases, that scientists as a body do not participate in 
the attacks made on Christian faith ; and very specially that those who 
make these assaults, in doing so, do not act as scientists. That they 
are scientific men is true ; that they are engaged in scientific work at 
such a time, is not true. And if they claim that their criticisms are 
to be sheltered under the name of science, and their theories deferred 
to as scientific, there is the clearest evidence on which to urge that 
this is “science falsely so called.” The definition of science, and 
the conditions of its procedure, demonstrate that such speculations as 
those developed in antagonism to our acknowledgment of the Super- 
natural, do not belong to the department of science. 

Let this, then, be matter of constant acknowledgment among the 
members, and conspicuously among the teachers of the Churches, that 
the true attitude of the Christian Church towards science itself is that 
of friendly alliance. It is the part of the Christian man to maintain 
a living interest in the scientific investigation of all the hidden things 


204 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

of nature, and to make ready acknowledgment of the gain to the 
entire race involved in every fresh discovery concerning the laws 
of existence and action in the universe. It is the part of the Christian 
Church in these latter times to render grateful testimony to the ex- 
ceeding worth of the wide circle of the sciences, because of the 
knowledge they involve, and the immense service they. render in aid- 
ing us in the attainment of a fuller and deeper knowledge of the 
universe, in which moral and spiritual life is the grandest thing dis- 
covered. 

The Rev. President James McCosh, D. D., LL. D., of 
Princeton, N. J., read the following paper : 

HOW TO DEAL WITH YOUNG MEN TRAINED IN SCI- 
ENCE IN THIS AGE OF UNSETTLED OPINION. 

In respect of religious opinion, the rising generation of our day 
may be characterized as icnseitled. The educated young men cannot 
be described as adhering very firmly to any fixed belief, and yet they 
profess to be willing to listen to the claims of religion. They cannot 
be designated sceptics; they resent it as a calumny when they are 
called atheists or materialists — though numbers, knowingly or un- 
knowingly, are maintaining principles which, logically followed out, 
would land them in this issue. They are not satisfied with the past, 
with its opinions or its defences of them. They do not bow very 
profoundly before authority, and they have no preference for old 
creeds and confessions. They are bent on searching into the founda- 
tion of every belief, and for this purpose would dig deep down, and 
do not scruple to stir up all the rubbish and dust that may stand in 
their way. They will not accept, without sifting, even the truths sup- 
posed to be long ago established, such as the existence of God and the 
immortality of the soul, and the essential distinction between good and 
evil ; and they insist on the arguments in their favor being reviewed, 
and, if they cannot stand the examination, they are to be rejected. 
It is therefore an age out of which good or evil, either or both, may 
come according as it is guided. We may cherish hope regarding it, 
for it is an inquiring age. We may entertain fears for it, for it is 
dancing on the edge of a precipice down which it may fall. 

1 h e difficulties, real or supposed, in the way of religious belief in 
our day come chiefly from natural science, in which the great body 
of our educated young men are instructed to a less or greater extent 
Doubts derived from this source have been felt at this point from the 
very rise of science in modern times. The weak believer was stag- 
gered when Copernicus showed that the earth went round the sun, 
whereas the Scriptures speak of the sun rising and setting, as I may 
remark even our astronomers still do when they talk with other men, 
or even with themselves. This does not trouble any one now, as 
everybody sees that it may be quite as religious to believe that the 


SECOND GENEEAL COUNCIL. 


205 


earth moves as that the sun moves, provided vve make it move oy the 
power of God. In my younger days, the conflict turned round the 
then rising science of geology. But we have only to take the word 
“ day ” as it is used in Genesis, chap, ii., v. 7 (“ In the day that the 
Lord made the earth and the heavens”), and in nearly every book 
of Scripture, to find the progression in Genesis corresponding in a 
wonderful way to the progression of geology, and confirmatory of 
Scripture. In our day (mark that unconsciously I use the word 
‘‘day” for an epoch) the conflict relates to the religious, or irrelig- 
ious, bearing of the theory of evolution or development. I may dwell 
for a little on this point, as illustrating the mode in which I think we 
should deal with young men. 

I. The phrases development and evolution have come to be used 
in a very vague and uncertain way. They are often so employed as 
simply to denote that one thing comes out of another. Thus I have 
lately seen the advertisement of a book entitled, “ The Development 
of Literature,” and another, “The Development of Canada.” We 
read constantly of the development of the sciences, of the fine arts, of 
the mechanical arts, and of particular objects, as steam-engines, or 
pottery, or vases, or tea-cups. So it is necessary, when any one 
speaks of development, to insist on his explaining what he means. 
If we are denying evolution, let us specify what kind of evolution w'e 
deny. When we observe this rule ourselves, then we are entitled to 
require those who defend development to tell us what is the process 
they are recommending to us. 

It is certain that there is such a process. He who refuses to allow 
the existence of development, must be prepared to deny that the oak 
comes from the acorn; that the boy can grow into the man ; that he 
himself is descended from his father or mother ; that the Jewish 
religion was evolved from the Patriarchal, and the Christian from the 
Jewish. 

It should be noticed that development is in its very nature a com- 
plicated process. It is not a simple quality of bodies, like attraction 
and chemical affinity. It implies a combination and an interaction 
of bodies, with their varied properties, towards a particular end. In 
the evolution of the plant from the seed and the animal from the 
germ, there is a vast number of agencies — mechanical, chemical, 
electric, magnetic, I believe, also, vital— all conspiring to produce a 
special end: a plant or animal after its kind; and science, even at the 
present day, cannot specify all the elements and powers at work in 
producing the result. Evolution, in fact, is just a particular kind of 
causation — that is, it is a fixed, I believe an ordained, combination 
of causes to produce a special end — say a plant from the seed, or the 
seed from the plant. 

Development in a general sense pervades all divine and all human 
workmanship; that is, one series of things comes out of an antecedent. 
The Presbyterian Council I am addressing was develoi)ed from a 
meeting in Edinburgh ; that from a meeting in London ; that from a 


2o6 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


side-meeting held on the occasion of the meeting of the Evangelical 
Alliance in New York ; and that from the Tercentenary of John Knox 
in Philadelphia. I hope there is nothing irreligious in such an evo- 
lution. 

But in science the phrase is technically applied to the descent of 
plants and animals from a parentage. Everybody acknowledges that 
ordinarily omne vivum ab ovo, and that the individual plant and ani- 
mal come from parents after their kind. But the disputed question in 
the present day is, Does one species of plant or animal come out of 
another? Now of this question I remark that the religious man may 
leave it to the investigations of science. If he is himself a scientific 
man he may take his part in it, but he is not to identify the side he 
takes specially with religion. One principle we are bound' resolutely 
to maintain : that because an object — say a rose or a lily or a dog — is 
gendered by natural causes, it is not therefore less the work of God. 
Naturalists maintain that dogs have descended from some kind of 
wolf. This does not make the dog, with its wonderful instincts — say 
the shepherd dog or the St. Bernard dog — not to be the workman- 
ship of the Creator. Just as little does the hypothesis that our living 
horse is descended from the Pliohippos, and this from the Mio- 
hippos, and this from the Eohippos prove that the animal we ride 
on, so useful and so graceful in its form and movements, is not the 
creature of Him who made the universe and all things on it, and im- 
parted to them their powers of development. In all this, so far as I 
can see, there is nothing inconsistent with religion, nothing incon- 
sistent with Scripture ; and zealots who deny this are not fighting the 
cause of God, though they may imagine that they are so. 

^ Not only is development, when properly understood, not incon- 
sistent with religion ; it will be found that the combination and 
adaptation implied in it clearly argue design. Sooner or later there 
will be a work on natural theology after the manner of Paley, show- 
ing that as there are plan and purpose in the well-fitted bones and 
joints oi the bodily frame of animals— say the horse— so there is de- 
sign quite as evident and wonderful in the way in which, by a process 
running through long ages, the bones and joints and muscles have 
been adjusted to each other to produce the horse we drive or ride on. 
here is a manifest and a wise and beneficent end in the joints of our 
rame, as, for instance, the ball-and-socket joint at the shoulder. But 
there IS quite as palpable a purpose in the way in which these joints 
have been formed in the geological ages. Ordinary physical law, now 
acknowledged by all, connects all parts of nature with each other on 
folHprJ knowable universe ; development, as lately un- 

science, shows how the present is the offspring 
of future, and thus connects all parts 

of the fuTure.^^^^ present a prognostic 

There are some things which development can do : there are others 
which It cannot do. The grand work of a philosophic sdence id our 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


207 

time is to determine what it can and what it cannot do. Let us con- 
sider some of the things which evolution cannot do. 

1. It cannot explain the origin of things. It is acknowledged that 
it cannot create anything. Evolution implies a substance to evolve 
from ; an original matter, which, we may argue, implies a creator. 

2. It cannot account for the order and beneficence by which its 
movement is characterized. I see a plan and a beauty in the oak 
developing the acorn, and the acorn developing the oak — all by an 
arrangement not in the matter of which the oak is formed. Mr. 
Spencer, I think, has been successful in showing that development, as 
it goes on from age to age, tends toward the increase of happiness. 
I see wisdom and I see benevolence in the means provided for making 
a41 this stretch over a long course of ages. 

3. There is need of a combination and a wondrous adaptation of 
agents to produce these ends; as, for instance, to secure that these 
plants produce seed after tlteir kind, and that these wild plants can 
become cultivated plants, and thus provide food for man from age to 
age. Evolution, I have shown, is not a simple power or property ; 
it is a union of properties acting with each other and effecting a pur- 
pose. There is thus evidence of design; I do not say in development 
taken by itself, but in the way in which it marches on and spreads 
happiness in its progress. 

4. It may be laid down that the powers acting in development can- 
not give what they liave not got. If heredity has a gift, it may trans- 
mit it from parent to offspring and from one generation to another, 
but it cannot furnish the original gift. The common theory is that 
the universe is composed of atoms which, by their combination, form 
molecules, which, as they unite, form masses. Another theory is that 
the universe is made up of centres of force. Take either of these 
theories and let us inquire whether they can account for all we see 
existing in the universe. Is there any evidence whatever that these 
atoms or force-centres had sensation, or sense-perception, or memory, 
or intelligence, or emotion, or moral qualities, or will ; that they could 
feel and distinguish between right and wrong ? If not, how then did 
these things come in ? How did things without sensation come to 
have sensation ? things without instinct to have instinct ? creatures 
without memory to have memory? beings without intelligence to have 
intelligence? and mere sentient existence to come to know the differ- 
ence between good and evil ? I am sure that when these powers ap- 
pear there is something not previously in the molecule. All sober 
thinkers of the present day admii that there is no evidence whatever 
in experience or in reason to show that matter can produce mind, 
that mechanical action can gender mental action, that chemical action 
can manufacture consciousness, that electric action can rise to reason, 
or organic action come to entertain the idea of the good and the holy. 
I argue that we must call in a power above the atoms to produce these 
phenomena. I may admit that a body may come out of other bodies 
by the operation of the powers with which they are endowed ; but I 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


2oS 

deny that a sensible, intelligent, moral-discerning soul can proceed 
from the molecules of matter. • New potencies have undoubtedly come 
when consciousness and feeling and understanding and will begin to 
act. They may come in according to laws not yet discovered, but 
they are the laws of the supreme Lawgiver. 

The account of the progressive work of creation in Genesis is in 
accordance with geology. This has been shown satisfactorily by the 
three men on this continent best entitled to speak on the scientific 
question— Prof. Dana, of Yale, Prof. Dawson, of Montreal, and Prof. 
Guyot, of Princeton. It can be shown that it is equally consistent 
with development as revealed by recent science. I believe that in 
the a^xri, in the beginning or origin, God created the heavens and gave 
the original constituents their potencies, which began to act by the 
command of God ; and there was light. But neither religion nor 
reason require me to believe that he gave to these life or sensation, 
or reason or love. I believe that when these were added, whether 
by law or without law, it was according to the will and by the power 
of God. There were days or epochs in the divine procedure, and at 
the opening of each was a special act of God. The earth was without 
form and void. When the evolution began there was first the de- 
velopment of light, then the elevation of the expanse of heaven. 
Thirdly, there was the separation of land and water, and the earth 
is ready for plants. On the fourth day the sun and moon appeared 
as distinct bodies, all in accordance with the theory of Laplace. On 
the fifth day animals appear : the lower creatures, tannim or swarmers, 
then fishes and fowls. On the sixth day the higher animals, and as 
the crown of the whole, man. Man’s creation must have been a 
special act, and is so represented in Scripture. When man appeared 
there was something which was not there before, and this God-like 
after the image of God. In all this. Genesis and geology ^re in 
thorough accordance. 

There are two accounts of the creation of man. One is in chap. i. 
There is council and decision: “Let us make man in our image.” 
This applies to his soul or higher nature. The other account is in 
chap. ii. 7 : “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the 
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man 
became a living soul.” This is man’s organic body. We have a 
supplement to this. Psalm cxxxix. 15, 16 : “ My substance was not hid 
from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the 
lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, being yet 
imperfect ; and in thy book all my members were written, which in 
continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.” 
This passage used to be quoted by Agassiz. This is my creed as to 
man’s bodily organism: I so far understand what is said. Man 
is made of the earth. There is a curious preparatory process hinted 
at, a process and a progression going on I know not how long; 
and all is the work of God and written in God’s book. I understand 
this and yet I do not understand it. Socrates said of the philosophy 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


20 ^ 


of Heraclitus that what he understood was so good that he was sure 
the rest would also be good if he understood it. So I say of this pas- 
sage. I so far understand it, and get glorious glimpses of a divinely 
ordained process. And yet I do not understand it, for it carries me 
into the secret things which belong unto the Lord our God. I affirm 
with confidence that there is not, in geological or biological science, 
any truth even apparently inconsistent with his statement. 

II. It is in some such way as this that we are to remove the difficul- 
ties of our young men. But it is more to my present purpose to 
sketch the spirit in which we are to address intelligent youth. 

1. We are to deal tenderly with thern, as our Lord did with Thomas 
when he doubted. It has often been remarked that he dealt more 
kindly with the unbelieving Sadducees than with the self-righteous 
Pharisees. An honest and not an affected doubt proceeding from a 
truth-loving spirit, in a world where there are so many sphinx-like 
enigmas, is to be respected and not denounced. Every thinking young 
man has to find his way in a country to him unknown till he traverses 
it. Alleged scientific discoveries are being made every year, and our 
youth have on their own responsibility to decide what to accept, what 
to doubt, and what to reject. Their independence, not to speak of 
their pride, will not tolerate dogmatism, and their teachers and pas- 
tors had better not assume airs which youths will not be much disposed 
to revere. We must hold the truth before them boldly, but we have 
also to enter sympathizingly into their difficulties. 

2. Let us guard ourselves against the temptation to deny any 
scientific truth' established by the sure methods of inductive science. 
The God who has made these wonderful works and given us these 
high faculties means that we should search into them as for treasure ; 
and when gold is dug for us so laboriously by scientific men it may 
be as well to enrich ourselves with it. Let teachers beware of speak- 
ing to their pupils authoritatively on difficult subjects which they have 
not studied ; if they do so their pupils will be sure to find them out, 
and some of them may find a malicious pleasure in exposing them to 
ridicule and contempt. Some years ago an excellent professor in a 
theological seminary wrote me saying that he had to prepare a paper 
on development, of which he acknowledged that he knew nothing, 
and invoking me to explain the whole subject in a few pages. I ad- 
vised him to read Darwin and Spencer, and Huxley and Dana, and St. 
George Mivart and Dr. Dawson, and certain articles in the Princeton 
Review, and then write his paper, which I believe has not yet appeared. 
Let religious men realize that there may be sin involved, not just in 
being ignorant of, but in denying, what has been proven. An 
Egyptian king once rebuked a Hebrew patriarch, because he equivo- 
cated concerning his wife. There may be divines liable to a like 
reproof from savans when they do not own what should be to them a 
valued partner to be loved and cherished. L have sometimes feared 
that if infidels are produced in any of our colleges,, it may be in those 
in which Spencer and Huxley are denounced by teachers who have 

14 


210 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


never studied the questions discussed. Our first inquiry, when an as- 
serted discovery in science is announced, should be, not is it con- 
sistent with Scripture, but is it true? If it be true, all who have an 
implicit faith in the Bible are sure that it cannot be unfavorable to 
religion. Some of the scientific truths, which were at first viewed with 
suspicion by religious people, have turned out to be favorable to religion, 
not only by widening our view of the works of God, but by positively 
confirming the Bible : as the theory of Laplace did by showing us 
that the earth was older than the sun, and that the earth existed for 
several epochs before the sun and moon were condensed into their 
separate form ; as geology did when it showed us that there had been 
a progression in God’s workmanship. 

3. Pains should be taken to secure in every high-class educational 
institution that mental and moral science be taught along with nat- 
ural science. One of the main causes of the materialistic tendencies 
of the age is to be found in the circumstance that in many of our sci- 
entific schools every science is taught except the science of the human 
mind, and that in some of our colleges so many elections of studies 
are allowed that philosophy is altogether avoided by a considerable 
body of the students. The consequence is that there is an exclusive- 
ness and a onesidedness in the formation of the mind and character 
of our youth. It is supposed that there is thereby imparted a very 
comprehensive and advanced style of education ; but, after all, they 
are training only half the mind, and this not the highest. Our youths 
hear only of forces and motion, of nerves and brain, and never of 
mind, of its thoughts and feelings and its aspirations, moral and 
spiritual. Nor is this tendency to be counteracted in those institu- 
tions, increasing in number, in which mental science is taught as a 
mere branch of physiology, and our ideas, beliefs and moral convic- 
tions explained by heredity and by cerebral and nervous action. 

4. Let the teaching in our schools and colleges be sanctified by the 
word of God and by prayer. It is not enough to teach religion in 
some sort of general way — say to give elaborate defences of it. Our 
religion is the Bible, and we should embue the minds of our students 
with the living word, of which some of them have lost a great part of 
the knowledge they had acquired at the Sunday-school. Every one 
knows that young men are apt to be swayed more by the spirit of the 
college than even by the instructions they receive from their teachers. 
Let us labor and pray that our religion pervade our colleges as a spirit ; 
and this will save us from infidelity more than all lectures and dis- 
cussions. They should not expect to rise to a full comprehension of all 
the truths which have been so far revealed to us. “ We know.” Yes, 
we know ; but we know in part only. We who dwell in a world 
‘fovhere day and night alternate;” we who go everywhere accom- 
panied by our own shadow — a shadow produced by our dark body, 
but produced because there is light — cannot expect to be absolutely 
delivered from the darkness. Man’s faculties, exquisitely adapted to 
the sphere in which he moves, were never intended to enable him to 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


211 


comprenend all truth. The mind is in this respect like the eye. The 
eye is so constituted as to perceive the things within a certain range ; 
but as objects are removed farther and farther from us they become 
more indistinct, and at length are lost sight of altogether. It is the 
same with the human mind. It can understand certain subjects and 
to a certain distance; but as they reach away farther they look more 
and more confused, and at length they disappear from the view. And 
if the human spirit attempts to mount higher than its proper elevation 
it will find all its flight fruitless. The dove, to use an illustration of 
Kant’s, may mount to a certain elevation in the heavens; but as she 
rises the air becomes lighter, and at length she finds that she can no 
longer float upon its bosom ; and should she attempt to soar higher, 
her pinions flutter in emptiness and she falters and falls. So it is with 
the spirit of man. It can wing its way a certain distance into the ex- 
panse above it, but there is a limit beyond which, if it endeavors to pass, 
it will find all its conceptions void and its ratiocinations unconnected. 

Placed as we are in the centre of boundless space and in the middle 
of eternal ages, we can see only a few objects immediately around us, 
and all others fade in outline as they are removed from us by distance, 
till at length they be altogether beyond our vision. And this remark 
holds true not only of the more ignorant of those whose eye can pene- 
trate the least distance ; it is true also of the learned. It is perhaps 
true of all created beings that there is a bounding sphere of darkness 
surrounding the space rendered clear by the torch of science. Nay, 
it almost looks as if the wider the boundaries of science are pushed, 
and the greater the space illuminated by it, the greater in proportion 
the bounding sphere into which no rays penetrate ; just as (to use a 
very old comparison) when we strike up a light in the midst of dark- 
ness, in ])roportion as the light becomes stronger, so does also that 
surface, black and dark, which is rendered visible. 

The Council may, I hope, allow me to close with a brief reference, 
such as r seldom make in public, to m'y personal history as bearing on 
the method and spirit I have been recommending. In my past life I 
have had glorious opportunities of doing good among young men. I 
had them for sixteen years in the ministry of the gospel, in which, along 
with a respected colleague, I had at one time a congregation of up- 
wards of 1,400 communicants, and had classes for young men and 
women varying from 100 to 180 in number. I was other sixteen 
years teaching philosophy in a young college where everything, in- 
cluding students’ opinions, had to be formed. For now twelve years 
I have been in a college in this country where my means of usefulness 
have been limited only by my powers of body and mind. With many 
weaknesses and errors, of which no one is half so conscious as I am 
myself, I have been working according to the principles laid down in 
this paper among some of the youth of this country likely to rise to 
positions of influence-, and have commonly had from 160 to 200 pupils 
under me receiving instructions in philosophy. In the Irish college 
I knew of only one young man who went away an avowed unbeliever ; 


212 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


and he had been induced by a friend not to attend my upper class lest 
he should fall under my influence. I have watched the career of the 
thousand young men who studied under me there, most of them wield- 
ing influence in their own country, some of them in high positions in 
India, and a few of them in this country, and I have not heard of 
one of them openly joining the ranks of the infidel. In this country 
four out of the twelve hundred students who, trained under able Chris- 
tian instructors, have graduated in Princeton since I became connected 
with it, have left its walls believing in nothing. Let me give you 
their subsequent career. With the first, an able student, I talked and 
prayed when he went away. Two years after I heard of him con- 
ducting prayer-meetings ; a year after he was elected by the college 
to deliver the master’s oration, and he came back to give a noble de- 
fence of Christianity in the place where his fellow-students had known 
him as doubting of everything, and he is now a minister of the gospel. 
The second was a good student in English literature, and I sent for 
him after graduation, talked with him and asked him to pray with me. 
He replied that I might pray if I chose, but as for himself, he did not 
believe in a God to pray to. I simply remarked that he had a pious 
mother who was praying for him, and that I should not wonder if, in 
answer to her prayers, I found him coming back and asking me to 
pray with him. I gave him a letter which helped to procure him a 
position in a public office. Two years or so passed away and I heard 
nothing of him ; but one day I was in a hotel hundreds of miles 
away when a gentleman came up to me and asked me if I was Presi- 
dent of Princeton College. Upon my allowing that I was he said, 
“But what makes you rear infidels?” I assured him that we did 
not. ^ He then told me that he had been obliged to listen day after 
day in his boarding-house to the most rabid scoffing he had ever list- 
ened to. I named the young man at once, and told him he had not 
got his infidelity from us. Feeling that he had teased me enough, 
the gentleman now said, “ I may as well tell you the issue. That 
young man went down to his mother’s house to convert her to in- 
fidelity and she floored him, and he is now addressing young men’s 

Christian associations, and is thinking of the ministry.” Sometime 

sitting in the same part of my study in 
which he had refused to pray with me, he asked me to guide his de- 
votions. He is now a minister of the word. A third was led astray 
by the book on the “Supernatural.” I have had little opportunity of 
meeting with him, but I have heard of him within the last few months 
as taking part in a Sunday-school and opening it with prayer. The 
fourth was known in college as having given up all faith. I sent for 
him after his graduation and asked him what profession he meant to 
follow. He replied somewhat sorrowfully that he absolutely did not 
know what to turn himself to. “A lawyer?” I asked ; but he said 
he had no taste for it. He would like to be a journalist, he went on 
to say, but he was afraid of the temptations to which he would there- 
by be exposed. I then asked if he would like to be a minister of the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


213 


gospel. He sprang from his seat and declared that there was nothing 
he would like so much, but that he had no faith in anything. He 
made only one request — that I would allow him to come back another 
year and study under me as a post-graduate. We parted after we had 
prayed. He came back the following year to study higher science 
and philosophy. He is now arj advanced student in a theological 
seminary. 

I have hesitated as to whether I should tell these things in public ; 
but I have a testimony to bear, and I may not have many other op- 
portunities of bearing it. I have to testify to all men of the faithful- 
ness of God in blessing means used with so many infirmities. In one 
respect I have been somewhat disappointed. I have not been disap- 
pointed in the circulation of my works, nor in the number of my 
students, nor in their attention to the instructions I have given them, 
nor in the effects produced in staying their minds ; but the literary 
men of the day have not been inclined to appreciate my sober philos- 
ophy, which I claim to be the genuine philosophy of Scotland and 
America. They condescend to talk of it as well meant, but not suffi- 
ciently high or deep, and this because I have not mounted into the 
clouds and lost myself, or gone down with materialists into mire and, 
dirt. I do run some risk of being crushed between the two prevail- 
ing philosophies — the transcendentalism of Germany and the material- 
ism of England — yes, of beloved England ; but I have kept my position 
as obstinately as ever a Scotchman did, and I mean to keep it, and I 
hope sacredly to carry out the wishes of the great missionary, Alexan- 
der Duff, in a message sent me from his dying bed. And I will leave 
to posterity the means of knowing what I held, and I leave the issue 
to Him to whom the issues belong, bearing this testimony, if need be, 
with my dying breath — that God has been faithful and owned me in 
a way I never expected, and blessed ten times more than I deserved 
any small efforts I have made to spread what I believe to be the truth. 

The following discussion next ensued on 

THE DISTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF PRESBYTERIANISM. 

The Rev. J. T. Smith, D. D., of Baltimore. — It seems to me 
that the difficulty as to the theory of the Eldership springs from 
a misunderstanding of terms. In the minds of very many the 
term “ representative ” is taken as equivalent to delegate. They 
hold the power is in the body of the people, and the officers 
are simply their delegates, executive officers — that, and nothing 
more. There is another theory, and, as I suppose, the true one, 
which recognizes the fact that all power is primarily or inhe- 
rently in the Lord Jesus ; that that is intrusted by him to certain 
officers ; and that those officers are directly the representatives 


214 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


of the Lord Jesus, receiving the law from his lips, and executing 
his will, and not the will of the people. The call of Christ is 
invisible ; it does not publicly indicate the persons to whom it 
is extended. That is ascertained by the consciousness of the 
call in the heart of the man, by providential indications, by his 
qualification and circumstances, and then again, and chiefly, by 
the election of the people. As an officer of the Church ho is 
not a mere executive of the will of the people ; he is the repre- 
sentative of Christ direct and accomplishing his end. Now tlie 
phrase, representative of the people, as applied to the Ruling 
Elder, implies just this : he is chosen from among the people; 
he understands the wants of the people; and in this regard 
he represents them more directly than the Preaching Elder 
can do. 


The Hon. James Dawson, of Washington, Iowa. — I want 
not to criticise anything that has been said on the Ruling 
Elder, but to emphasize the importance of his position as 
fixed by. the Presbyterian Church and as authorized by the 
divine institution. All Elders are Ruling Elders; but all are 
not Teaching Elders. The Ruling Elder stands, so far 
as ruling is concerned, on a perfect level with the minis- 
ter m everything, except the word and doctrine. We do not, 
as Elders, I fear, feel this to be so important a matter as it is — 
that the purity, the peace and the prosperity of the Church lie 
upon the Ruling Eldership equally with the Teaching Elders. It 
IS said that the Elder that rules well is worthy of double honor 
especially he that labors in word and doctrine. No higher duty 
can be placed upon a man upon this earth than to be the teaching 
ambassador of Jesus Christ; and the next position he can be 
placed in is to rule in the house of God. If we felt the impor- 

^’’“'■‘^hes would be likely to prosper more. 
An Elder has a great deal to do in the Church ; and a young 
nis a congregation never had a better instrumentality 
to help him up to honor and dignity than a faithful, prudent 
corps of Elders as his assistants. Faithfulness is required on 
the part of the Elder as well as on the part of the minister 
for the purity and prosperity of the Church of Jesus Christ. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


215 


The prophet places the faithful teacher of his word at the head, 
and the unfaithful at the tail of creation. Faithfulness is required ; 
and it is equally required of the Eldership. 

James Croil, Esq., of Montreal, Canada. — Professor Wilson, 
who made reference to the Eldership yesterday, went a great deal 
further than I think a great body of the Elders want to be carried. 

I do not think we claim for ourselves equal power with the min- 
ister in any regard. If I understood Professor Wilson he made 
that statement. The other gentleman who read a paper upon 
the subject did not go far enough for my fancy. He just exactly 
stopped where I think he ought to have begun. He did not 
tell anything about the modern Elder ; and that is what we are 
all very much concerned about. I can only say a few disjointed 
sentences on the subject. It is a very large and important sub- 
ject. I hope to elicit from other members of this Council some 
very useful and valuable information. 

I ask this question. Is an Elder a Presbyter ? If he is a Presby- 
ter, then he is a Bishop. If he is a Bishop, then he is a Teaching 
Elder, surely. How many kinds of Bishops are there in the New 
Testament ? I want to get an answer to this question. If you 
ask me : Is an Elder a Presbyter? I say yes, and I say no. I say 
theoretically he is a Presbyter ; but I say practically, after an expe- 
rience of thirty years in the Eldership, he is not. I say yes, he 
is a Presbyter. But to what extent does this entitle him to rights 
and privileges in the Presbytery ? Oh, you say, he may sit and 
vote and deliberate in the Presbytery. Perhaps he may, to a cer- 
tain extent ; take my own case. I am- one of eighteen Elders, 
and I am to be selected as a delegate to the Presbytery ; but I am 
only one of eighteen, and only stand one-eighteenth of a chance 
to be so selected. It takes nine tailors to make a man, but in 
this case it takes eighteen Elders to make a Presbyter. You 
say he may take part in the prayer-meeting, he may visit the 
sick— so may any other Christian man, I presume. Oh, you 
say, but he may assist the minister in dispensing the ordinance 
of the supper. I suppose if there was lack of Elders any 
pious man in the congregation may be asked to do that. You 
say, Oh, he may even be asked to take up the collection. I sub- 


216 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

mit, Mr. Chairman, it is perfectly competent for the door-keeper 
to do that. So I do not see that we gain very much in our 
standing by these qualifications. 

I am speaking of the modern Elder, not the scriptural Elder. 
I want to be told to which class I belong. You say an Elder 
is a Presbyter. I go to the Presbytery — did any one ever 
conceive it to be a proper thing to ask an Elder to take 
the Moderator’s place in the Presbytery ? It has never been 
done in point of fact, at least I never knew of it in 
Canada. I am merely stating that as one of the disabilities 
of the Eldership. Here is a point that no one will dispute: who 
is it that ordains ministers ? Is it the Presbytery ? Yes. All 
the Presbyters ? No. If an Elder should come forward and 
attempt it, it would be said, hands off ; you should not put 
your hands on the minister’s head. I have nothing to do with 
the ordination of ministers, therefore I am not a Presbyter to 
that extent. What is the Church Session ? That is a meeting 
of the Elders with the Teaching Elder in the chair. It must be 
well known to members of this Council that no such meeting 
of a Church Session can possibly be held unless the minister is 
in the chair. Is not that a disability ? I cannot occupy the 
chair even in the absence of the minister, if there shall be no 
Church Session held till dooms-day. I only show that we are 
not Presbyters, as some of you will make us to be. It follows 
that the modern Elder is not the scriptural Elder. I do not 
see that there is any way of getting out of the difficulty, but 
I think if such be the case it is just as well to let us know what 
a modern Elder ought to be. The remedy for this is either 
to reduce the pretensions of the Eldership, or educate the 
Elders to a more efficient discharge of their duties. 

Gen. .D. W. Houston, of Leavenworth, Kansas.— It is true 
that the modern Elder is not the scriptural Elder; but it is also 
true that the modern Elder ought to be the scriptural Elder. 
Why is not the modern Elder the scriptural Elder ? There are 
two reasons for it. The qualifications of the scriptural Elder are 
plainly laid down in the New Testament-he must be a man 
who is apt to teach; possessed of administrative qualities; of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


217- 


good report of them that are without ; not lately brought into 
the Church. Wherever the man is selected with those qualifica- 
tions he will be a scriptural Elder. But too often in our churches 
the man is selected because of his high social standing, or be- 
cause of his wealth, and not because of his scriptural qualifi- 
cations; and therefore he is not a scriptural Elder. 

Principal Grant told us yesterday that, when we quoted a man’s 
language, we ought to quote the whole of it. Repeatedly in this 
matter of the Eldership, the words of the apostle Paul have been 
quoted, and in not one instance have the whole of his words been 
quoted. What are the whole of those words ? “ Let the Elders 

that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially 
they who labor in the word and doctrine, for the Scriptures 
saith. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the 
corn, and the laborer is worthy of his reward.” In the primi- 
tive Church, these scriptural Elders had remuneration for 
their services, and because they had remuneration they became 
the drill masters of the sacramental host, who, by their self- 
denial, their energy, and their elevated consecration, brought 
the Roman world to the feet of Christ. The Elder has a duty 
to perform, and a duty that calls for a large amount of his time. 
The duties of the scriptural Elder did call for a large portion of 
his time ; and, if you do not give him compensation, unless he is a 
very rich man, he cannot afford to give that time. But you reply, 
in our day we scarcely raise enough money in the churches to 
pay the preachers, and yet you talk about giving compensation 
to the Ruling Elder. There we strike at the very core of the 
matter. I believe, on this whole matter of church finance, we 
have departed in our modern times from the scriptural method ; 
and when we return to the scriptural method, we will pay our 
Teaching Elder, and we will pay, in the same proportion, our 
Ruling Elders ; and then you will find our Elders all standing 
on the scriptural ground. 

Henry Day, Esq., of New York. — I think this is a contest 
between the Lay Elders ; and the Lay Elders ought to settle it. 
The difficulty with our Canadian brother (Mr. Croil) was, I im- 
agine, that his experience was not exactly like the experience in 


2i8 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 

some other countries. The difficulty seemed to be that he did 
not assert his rights like a freeman. It may be because he lives 
in the Dominion of Canada. If he lived in the United States he 
would feel that he could be a Moderator and a Teaching Elder; 
because it is certain that even a Lay Elder can be Moderator in 
our General Assembly, and some day that will happen. I would 
not be surprised if Judge Strong should be chosen as Moderator 
if he should attend the next General Assembly. It strikes me 
that this system of Lay Elders is one of the grandest things in 
the polity of the Presbyterian Church. It is natural law and the 
natural method of government, the very government you would 
all resort to if you were thrown upon a desert island and were 
obliged to make a government for yourselves. The civil gov- 
ernment would be made in this way, and the ecclesiastical gov- 
ernment would be made exactly in this way, by a representation 
from among the people and by some one man to represent the 
authority in the highest sphere. That is Presbyterianism, and 
that is scriptural government. It is one of the proofs that it 
is a divine government, that it is natural ; that it can be every- 
where enforced ; that it secures every man’s rights. 

As to the advantage of having the Lay Eldership ! There 
are as a general rule certainly one hundred members of the 
Church where there is one Christian minister. Nothing is so 
important as that the. minister shall understand what are the 
wants and the feelings of his people, how they think and how 
they act. He should bring himself down among them so as to 
know what they are. Now how beautifully this is all secured if 
you have a body of representatives in a Church Session, repre- 
senting all the classes, all the intellectual qualities, all the social 
status of the Church ! 

We are all equals, as I understand. Our Canadian brother 
says we are not We do not do the same thing, but we are all 
equal in authority ; and when we come to vote we have each as 
much power as the other. I would like to advise my brethren, 
t le ishops, the Teaching Elders. I think they could sometimes 
earn from the Eldership. I think you are apt to be too intel- 
lectual, too philosophical ; you are apt not to know how the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 219 

more common mind, that is not all the time reasoning and all 
the time thinking, is affected. Many of us move among all 
classes of men; we see all sorts of men and all sorts of disposi- 
tions and all sorts of minds brought out, evil and good ; and we 
can educate you in some respects : at least, we can give you our 
advice. 

Here I would like to say a word about something that was 
said yesterday by our friend. Dr. Dc Witt. I do not believe that 
we run any risk in these days of giving too much money to cul- 
tivate the beautiful. I do not believe any of you do not rejoice 
in all the beautiful ornamentations of this room. What was it 
done for? Why did the instinct go out at once among all 
Presbyterians to make the room as beautiful as it can be? 
Why, it is human nature coming out, it is the progression of 
society in the love of the beautiful. Do not put your foot 
down and give the world to understand that Presbyterians 
are going to worship in the bare walls. Do not drive the 
people away by the baldness of everything surrounding Pres- 
byterianism. Keep up with the times : of course, I do not 
mean the depraved times; I do not mean in anything that is 
wrong. 

The Rev. Principal D. H. McVicar, of Montreal. — I 
wish to dissent from some views expressed by Mr. Croil. He 
has understated the privileges he enjoys in Canada. I should 
not like my fair country to be under any cloud, although it is 
somewhat to the north of you. At the same time his views are 
substantially correct. It appears to me quite evident that as 
Presbyterians we are inconsistent in the positions which we hold 
in relation to what are called Ruling Elders. First of all, in 
arguments we are accustomed to establish, triumphantly, as we 
think, that Presbyters and Bishops are identical ; we say to»our 
friends of the Episcopal Church, that in the New Testament 
Church the Episcopoi and the Presbuteroi are identical. Then 
we turn around, with amazing facility and inconsistency, and 
strip certain of these Presbuteroi of the power of the Episeopoi, 
and refuse to allow them to exercise the functions of the 
Bishop. We permit them to rule in Sessions and in the Pres- 


220 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


bytery; and in General Assembly they exercise all the pow- 
ers of the Teaching Bishops or Elders, but when they return 
home they are caused to sit on a lower plane; they are 
not allowed to exercise the full function which in argu- 
ment we accord to them. Either cease pressing these argu- 
ments or invest Ruling Elders with the full functions of their 
office. 

It may be said that there is not sufficient evidence in 
Scripture to do so. To my mind, at least, the evidence upon 
which we make the distinction between the two classes of 
Elders, Teaching and Ruling, is insufficient. It appears to 
me it would conduce greatly to the advantage of the Church 
to give, full status to these Ruling Elders; to make them, 
in other words. Teaching Elders. It may be said that many 
of them are unfit to be such. The answer is very simple: 
make them fit. Let them be persons of proper standing 
in the church ; then we shall increase the power of the Pres- 
byterian Church in an unlimited measure. There can be no 
doubt at all that this method of pushing back the Ruling 
Elder, and giving him a lower position than the word of 
God gives him, is a great weakness in Presbyterianism, and 
our power is to be derived very largely from increasing the 
efficiency of the Session, and having all the members of it 
qualified to teach and to do all the other work which their 
office includes. 

The Rev. James Nish, of Victoria. — It is with considerable 
diffidence that I rise to address this venerable Council, and espe- 
cially to dissent from the deliverances now given forth by the 
learned Principal who has preceded me. I imagine if we will 
only correct our nomenclature it will be discovered that we do 
not 'detract from the dignity of our Ruling Elders. The fact 
is that we have two classes of Presbyteries. We have the Con- 
gregational Presbytery and we have the Classical . Presbytery. 
All our Elders are members of the Congregational Presbytery ; 
and there all Elders stand upon the same footing, although in 
consequence of his experience the place of president is assigned 
to the Teaching Elder. This, however, is simply a matter of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


221 


arrangement ; any member of the Session may be moderator of 
the Congregational Presbytery. All the members of the Presby- 
tery cannot become, or, at least, it would not be expedient they 
should become, members of the Classical Presbytery. The Classi- 
cal Presbytery is made up of delegates ; and by arrangement the 
Teaching Elder is ex officio member of this Presbytery, whilst 
one of the other members is elected as a representative. I main- 
tain that a Ruling Elder is a Teaching Elder, or ought to be a 
Teaching Elder, and that every Teaching Elder is a Ruling 
Elder. That is our theory ; we ought to carry it out more fully 
into practice. I am afraid, at the same time, that some of our 
Ruling Elders have entertained that view of the office which was 
certainly held by a member of a congregation who had ex- 
pressed a desire to be made an Elder. They began to question 
him : If we were to appoint you an Elder could you discharge 
the functions of the office ?” “What are they?” was the reply. 
“Well, could you conduct a prayer-meeting?” “No; I am 
not qualified for that.” “ Well, you could at least teach a class 
in a Sabbath-school.” “No; I have no aptitude for giving 
instruction to the young.” “ But you could go and visit some 
of the sick; you could assist in a work of this sort?” “No, 
that is just the very thing I am not fitted for.” “What could 
you do, supposing we were to elect you a member of the Ses- 
sion?” “Well,” he says, “look here: if you give me a place 
in the Session and any matter is brought forward at any time, 
I think I could manage to raise an objection.” 

I apprehend we have neglected our duty in not letting Ruling 
Elders realize their obligations and responsibilities. I know the 
gifts are possessed by them and need to be developed. This 
would be a thoroughly religious development. 

Hon. Peter S. Danforth, of New York. — It seems to me 
that if any one can speak upon this subject of the Eldership, I 
ought to speak. For forty years in succession I have been an 
Elder in the Reformed Church of North America, and I have 
had no difficulty in finding my status. I have had no desire to 
preside in our General Synod. I have had no difficulty in find- 
ing my own place. I had supposed that my duty as an Elder 


222 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


in the church was to be as an assistant to the pastor, to uphold 
his hands in every good work. I had supposed that was a part 
of my duty; at least I have tried to discharge the duty in the 
way of aiding the minister of the church punctually, continu- 
ously and persistently. I had supposed that, in the absence of 
the pastor, the prayer-meeting was my field of duty, so far as in 
me lay, to take his place for the time being, and either myself 
conduct, or some other Elder of the church conduct, the meet- 
ing; and participate in the solemn and interesting exercises of 
that miccting. I have found no difficulty in finding what there 
was to be done by an Elder. Taking the Bible as my standard, 
and the rules of my Church, there is no difficulty. It seems to 
me that an Elder can easily find his place, and if he will be faith- 
ful to his Master, he will find enough to do to occupy all his 
time. A praying, active, consistent Elder never finds his hands 
tied by the minister or by the congregation. 

The Rev. Dr. Robert Knox, of Belfast, Ireland.— I believe 
that if our Elders do not take as large a part as we might hope 
they would take in spiritual work, the fault lies largely with the 
clergy. I have gone on the principle, for many years, of train- 
ing my Elders, and cultivating their gifts, and giving them op- 
portunities not only of visiting the people, but addressing them. 
When I left Europe to come to this Council, I handed over to 
a body of nine Elders the entire work of conducting the prayer- 
meeting during my absence ; and on the Sabbath before I left I 
stated to my congregation that I could not find a preacher for 
the next Sabbath ; but I had spoken to two of the Elders, and 
one of them would conduct the service in the morning and the 
other in the evening, and that they might thus expect to sit at 
the feet of two Ruling Elders. I have often, in my own church, 
sat upon the platform and called upon one Elder after another to 
rise and address the people. They have been trained for that 
work ; and I have found, invariabl)^ where the minister invites 
and encourages an Elder, if he is a man of the right spirit, that 
he will be prepared to take part in all spiritual work, and, if God 
has given him the gift, even to occupy the pulpit. We 'should 
take the blame on ourselves as ministers if our Elders do not 
help us, as they ought to do, in our spiritual services. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


223 

Rev. Prof. Nicholas PIofmeyr, of Cape of Good Hope. — I 
address the Council not as a minister but as an Elder, as I am 
an Elder of the church in the town where our theological semi- 
nary is established. With reference to the claim put forth by 
one of the Elders to be allowed all the work and honor to which, 
as a rule, the ministers are called, allow me to say that the glory 
of Presbyterianism partly exists in the harmony at which it aims 
between the two principles of liberty and order, a^id for the sake 
of order there must be division of labor, and special preparation 
for special labor. Besides, there is diversity of gifts, and many 
who are apt to help in governing the Church, are not apt to 
teach the word of God. 

CHRISTIANITY AND THE WORKING CLASSES. 

The Rev. Dr. Prime. — It was the idea of the Programme 
Committee that we should divide the time among the various 
subjects that are on the programme for discussion. We have 
still another hour- left before adjournment, and the subject of the 
papers of last evening is one of very great interest and impor- 
tance — the relation of employer to employed, and the relation of 
Christianity to the working classes. I move that we now pass 
on to the consideration of that subject. 

The motion was agreed to. 

The Rev. J. Marshall Lang, D. D., of Glasgow, Scotland. — 
In the city of Glasgow, which I need not say is one of the great 
social and industrial centres of the old country, the problem 
with which a man is continually confronted is that which was 
treated by my friend Dr. Blaikie, last evening. I thank him for 
his paper. The highest encomium I can pronounce upon it is 
that it is worthy of the author of Better Days for Working Peo- 
ple. With Dr. Blaikie, I may also thank Chief-Justice Drake, 
who so fully presented Christianity as the friend of the working 
classes. A judge of the Supreme Court of the United States 
in the chair, and a chief-justice on the rostrum speaking as 
Chief-Ju.stice Drake did— well, all I shall say is, “happy is the 
people that is in such a ca.se.” 

Dr. Blaikie said last night that one of the most notable fea- 


224 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


tures connected with this relation of employers and employed 
is that it is working uncomfortably. Uncomfortable is, I take it, 
a very mild word. There are suspicions, and too often manifest 
antagonism, which cause a relation that almost savors of hostil- 
ity, and in consequence of which we see those who ought to 
represent a partnership standing aloof like cliffs that have been 
rift asunder. You do not need to be told that beneath the sur- 
face, deeper than the eye can reach, of the superficial observer, 
there are forces which, unless some counter action is provided, 
bode harm to society and religion. You in America are on the 
eve of a great political issue ; and do you recollect that there 
are a million and a half of voters in this country belonging to 
secret organizations, all of which, or the greater part of which, 
are connected with the international society of which Carl Marx 
is the head, and which proclaims destruction of property, aboli- 
tion of the family, no God, no morality? You tell me that is 
but the extreme phase of this movement. Be it so. Notwith- 
standing it is an extreme, it reminds us how there are alienations 
and mistrust, on account of which we may well take counsel 
how best to deal with the circumstances under which we are 
situated. How the chasm, to which I have adverted, is to be 
bridged over, is a question that takes us into regions that I may 
not enter, the regions of social and political economy. I am 
quite sure that though we may pass through great and sore 
travail, in some way there will be a readjustment found of the 
existing relations between employer and employed. 

But what we have to deal with just now is the power of the 
gospel in reference to this relation. Dr. Blaikie told us, and I 
think no one will question it, that if only the gospel, as a living 
force, were more operative in the character of employer and em- 
ployed, we would see a happy state of things. How do you find 
the apostle writing in the Epistle to Philemon ? He sends back 
his son in the gospel to be a slave, and he bids the master re- 
ceive him and give him his task and appoint him his work, but 
“ not now as a servant, but above a servant — a brother beloved.” 
That was the method of conciliation ; that was the true readjust- 
ment; and that is what Dr. Blaikie was bringing out. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


225 


I would simply say to my brethren that whilst it is wise for us 
not to mingle ourselves in the labor disputes — whilst it is cer- 
tainly wise for us to be extremely cautious as to all that is said 
about trades-unions — I think we can speak warmly and distinctly 
against all one-sided unions, whether federations of employers 
against employed, or of employed as against employers; and that 
we should aim at realizing, or seeking to promote, that which is 
certainly wanting in the existing state of matters — a true confi- 
dence between man and man, master and servant, employ.er and 
employed. It is a lack of that confidence, of plainness in state- 
ment, of rightness in dealing, which is the cause of so many of 
the disputes and the occasion of so many of the strikes, that we 
all so deeply deplore. I trust we shall all realize more and more 
that whatever remedies may be propounded from this side or 
that, it is to the Word and to the Spirit alone we must look for 
the real remedy. 


SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 

The papers read this morning by Drs. Calderwood and 
McCosh were next discussed : 

Prof. Stephen Alexander, LL. D., of Princeton. — My reply 
to the charge of the intrusions of science where it has no busi- 
ness, may all be concentrated in a single proposition, the truth 
of which I think will at once be admitted. The abuse of a doc- 
trine does not make it untrue ; nor does the undue and im- 
proper extension of it make the doctrine itself untrue. I should 
not have taken my place here this morning were it not that I de- 
sired to relieve an anxiety, on the part of religious men, as to 
the attempts of science to account for the origin and primi- 
tive state of the human race. There are two great generaliza- 
tions of the race — Bible or no Bible. If a crew were cast 
ashore on a desolate island, whatever might be their religious 
opinions, they would all take their guns along with them. 
Why ? Because there is a universal experience, in the line of 
human depravity, of a determination to go the wrong way, and 
for one to-injure his fellow on purpose; and, although in very 
many cases the sinfulness of sin may not be distinctly discerned, 

15 


2 26 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

nor its appropriate character fully admitted, yet it is a positive 
induction of the race, apart from Scripture, that man is depraved. 
Again, it is a fact that the food of a live body must be that 
which has been alive. With the mere exception of salt and water 
you feed upon what has been alive, but it must be dead before it 
can enter into the circulation and support of life. Why, then, 
should it be thought incredible that God should raise the dead 
when from that which must be dead first you live every day ? The 
careful prosecution of that admirable scientific induction of which 
I have spoken, also pronounces upon another thing, and that is 
that the inevitable sequence of life of any sort wherever you find 
it is death. But the hypothesis of Scripture goes behind and 
beneath all this, and maintains that man was innocent at first,, 
and that he did not become mortal till he had sinned. 

The Rev. Dr. William U. Murkland, of Baltimore, Mary- 
land.— There is no disputing the fact that the questions which 
have been discussed to-day confront every thoughtful man. 
They are the themes on every man’s tongue. They are not 
relegated to the closet or to the pulpit ; they belong to every- 
day life. Here is a phenomenon impossible twenty years ago — 
the public press largely reporting the proceedings of this great 
body. Now I insist, in this age which has been characterized 
as destitute of faith and as yet terrified at scepticism, that the 
first duty is to hold fast to the unity and harmony of all truth.. 
Let not ministers of the gospel be shaken in their faith. A 
preacher of an inspired Bible, I am yet an humble student in the 
school of philosophy, which Milton calls divine ; and while on 
one hand I preach that God hath made of one blood all nations,. 
I also rejoice in the grand generalizations of science, which, 
through the spectroscope of philosophy, proves that God has 
made of one substance everything that is. Let us settle what is 
to be defended ; not the notions of men ; not all the interpre- 
tation which we hold. That which we are to defend with our 
lives is the inspired word, and that alone. It is the citadel of 
our faith, we must remember that. Some of you may remem- 
ber how once a great body of Russians refused . to smoke,, 
although they drank brandy like good Muscovites ; and when 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


227- 


Peter the Great asked them, Is it more harm to smoke than 
drink ? “Yes, said they ; ” “ not that which entereth into a mam 
defileth him, but that which cometh out of a man defileth him.” 
Let us remember that we have a particirlar sphere upon which, 
science cannot impinge — the conscience which belongs to the 
Creator, and the great and mighty sympathies of a free spirit; 
along which we can draw men until we get them up to God, 
When we lead them there, we lead them into departments im 
which scientists cannot challenge our authority. 

The Rev. Dr. Robert Watts, of Belfast, Ireland. — Dr. Cal- 
derwood has laid down these fundamental principles in scientific 
investigation : that scientists have to deal with phenomena, and 
must be restricted to phenomena. The difficulty is to keep them 
within the bounds of phenomena. They will overleap these 
bounds. When the British Scientific Association met in Bel- 
fast, Dr. Tyndall took a long leap over that boundary. He said 
he projected his vision beyond the boundary of experimental 
science, and discerned in matter the promise and potency of all 
forms of terrestrial life. I do not know what he saw beyond the 
boundaries of experimental science. It would require very 
sharp discerning powers to see anything out there. No scientist 
could draw the conclusion that Prof Tyndall drew if he kept 
within the boundaries laid down by Dr. Calderwood. The diffi- 
culty is in regard to the boundary-line which you draw around; 
science when it explores the phenomena ; and the question arises,, 
how far theology and science are to interfere with one another. 
You may draw the boundary-line around theology, but you can- 
not keep scientists out, and you may draw the boundary-line 
around science, but you cannot keep theologians out. The 
Roman Catholic hierarchy held a meeting immediately after the 
meeting of the British Association, and drew a boundary-line. 
Was it scientifically drawn when they said no scientists had any 
business with theology ? When a scientist begins to deal withi 
phenomena he must go behind the phenomena. He must trace 
every phenom^enon to the principle of cosmogony lying behind ; 
and he has not exhausted the phenomena until he has so traced 
everything in them. Are we to be told that when he finds, in. 


228 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


the very constitution of matter, the mutual affinity that subsists 
between the atoms, that he has finished his task as a scientist 
before he has carried those phenomena up to their ultimate 
Author possessing intelligence ? Why is it that oxygen and 
hydrogen combine to form water? Because of their affinity. 
What is meant by this affinity, but simply the .qualities they 
possess ? The quality cannot be separated from the essence of 
the thing. He,, therefore, who gave that quality and showed in- 
telligence in giving it, could not give it except by creating the 
essence of the thing ; and I say that science has not done its 
work of investigation until it carries its investigation clear 
through the ultimate elements of matter, and recognizes the 
authorship behind them qualified to produce them. 

Consider the atheist. He takes this round globe of ours, and 
jf he could find a crucible large enough he would put it into it 
-in order to burn out every trace of intelligence that is found on its 
organism. When he has gone through the mystic process of the 
.analysis, he is ready to raise the voice of triumph. But from 
that crucible, in which he hopes to see every trace of intelligence 
obliterated, there come forth three-score witnesses to proclaim 
iihe existence of creation’s God. I will allow no man to say to 
me that I am not to carry the investigation as a scientist clear 
through the phenomena and behind them, to find the cause. 
My work is not finished until I reach the ultimate cause. 
That is the reason that scientists are continually coming into the 
boundary of theology. You cannot keep them outside of it. 
Hor should we admit that a scientist may investigate all that 
scientists are investigating and, throughout the whole, never 
trace the phenomena up to their Author. 

Rev. W. E. Boggs, D. D., of Atlanta, Georgia. — Coming from 
the far south of the United States I feel that I have been privi- 
leged to-day in hearing the living voices of two men whom I 
have long honored as my teachers. President McCosh and the 
distinguished Professor from Edinburgh. I express my un- 
bounded thankfulness to a gracious Providence that we have, in 
this era of disturbed thought, still spared to us those ripe scholars, 
folding up our hands and speaking words of caution to the hot 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


229 


blood that boils in the heart of every Christian when a man lays 
his hand upon the ark of God. 

In my humble judgment, the great difficulty of a harmony 
between revealed religion and the teachings of science is due,, 
on our side, to two vicious things. The first of these is 
the persistent endeavor, after the mediaeval fashion, to find 
in the Scriptures of God a revelation of all possible truths, the 
rudiments or the more developed theories of physical science.. 
Every time that we have come up to the line of battle on 
that issue, we have been routed. The truth is demonstrated, 
by history that Almighty God has not put into that perfect 
revelation, which is a revelation of all that we ought to 
believe concerning the gospel of Jesus Christ, the rudiments 
or the developed philosophy of the science of this physical 
universe. 

The next thing I have to say (because it is far more important 
to us as preachers to look at our own faults than at the faults of 
enemies) is this, which was plainly brought to our attention by 
both of these distinguished professors ; and I thank them for it. 
We are too prone to grow indignant and to lose our self-com- 
mand. We are too prone to forget that God has all eternity tO' 
do his work in, and that he that sits in the heaven laughs at the 
puny efforts of men to set aside his glorious truths. We should 
keep calm ; and we should not expect that great problems are- 
to be solved in a moment. Our brethren tell us that when we- 
calmly and quietly draw the line between theology and science,, 
men will walk over it. Of course they will. But let us not 
therefore be angry ; let us gently, in the name of reason and 
love, demonstrate the intellectual blunder, and leave the man’s 
thoughts to his God. 

These are the two great principles that I think we will find', 
to be developed by the past, and to be absolutely involved', 
in our success in the future : First, not to hold the revelation 
of God responsible for any man’s religion ; and, in the second 
place, to keep our tempers, and to keep our hearts bathed in. 
the love of Jesus Christ, which should make us pity more the- 


230 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

man’s fatal mistake to himself than be angry at the harm that 
he has done. 

The Rev. Principal John Cairns, D. D., of Edinburgh. — I 
cannot speak as a man of science, and I do not profess to speak 
in that character ; but I may venture, with all deference, to sub- 
mit to this venerable Council an impression that has been made 
on my mind in favor of Christianity by the controversies between 
Christianity on the one side, and men of science, so called, on 
the other. Christianity, in the midst of all these conflicts and 
antagonisms, is still laboring, is still growing, is still maintaining 
its own distinctive ground. That is a great fact. Let us take 
the comfort of it. I am here as one of the laity in science, yet 
I have been comforted beyond measure by the experience that 
• there is this power in the midst of all the enlightenment of the 
nineteenth century, in the midst of the enlightenment which I 
rejoice to have found in this great continent over which I have 
travelled, and which I have seen illuminated by the light of 
secular and theological schools. I have had the joy of seeing 
that Christianity is still holding its ground, and going on con- 
quering and to conquer. 

Let us not be disturbed or easily shaken in our faith. I was 
told, when I went through the university in this city, that 
isome of the buildings devoted to science were the greatest 
in the world. Whether it be so I know not, but here in the 
midst of these is a meeting which is the greatest that has 
been held, m one sense, in the world ; here is this meeting of 
men of science as well as men of faith, and we stand upon our 
faith firm and true as we did before. Let us go away with 
that comfort and that joy, when we hear of conflict and 
struggle, and apparent scientific difficulties in the Bible which 
cannot easily be solved. Continue to raise up, as a great army 
to God, men who, turned to Christ and Christianity, are living 
our religion, and I care not what difficulties you find behind 
in Genesis, or anywhere else. This glorious gospel is the power 
of God to salvation to every one that believeth. That per- 
sistent fact is our stronghold. 

The Rev. Principal Grant, D. D., of Kingston, Canada.-Dr. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


231 


Watts has misunderstood Dr. Calderwood, simply because he 
gave a different meaning to the word science than Dr. Calder- 
wood gave to it ; and he was inexcusable because Dr. Calder- 
wood clearly defined what he meant by science. He distinctly 
said that science referred to the phenomenal or observational. 
And, accepting that definition, we certainly have no right to ask 
scientific men to go on, after they have finished with their scien- 
tific tests, to prove scientifically the existence, of God. I have 
very great suspicion of a scientific man who thinks he can dem- 
onstrate by his science the existence of God in any manner what- 
soever. Dr. Calderwood distinctly told us where the division 
line should come in ; but I think it would have been a little 
fairer to scientific men if he had not so distinctly and sweepingly 
said that interference with science by theology is a myth. Dr. 
McCosh said that in his young days a conflict arose about 
geology. If theology has nothing to do with science, why the 
conflict ? Men did believe in those days, when the geologists 
told us that the world was not made in six days, that the geolo- 
gists were irreligious. Previous to that there was the geocentric 
theory; the Church had held to that. We must therefore excuse 
the feelings of scientific men. More recently the discussion has 
been about evolution. Every one knows the alarm with which 
religious men regarded the very works already referred to of 
Herbert Spencer and Darwin. I know plenty of men still who 
think it irreligious to say the world was not made in six days, 
or that there is such a thing as evolution. 

Come to another point, a point that was just touched on by 
Professor Alexander, with regard to the origin and primitive state 
of man. Suppose a scientific man says, I find scientific proof 
that men have lived on the earth ten or twenty thousand years ; 
are there not plenty who would tell him he was wrong in his 
theory, it being opposed to the chronology of Genesis ? In view 
of that I think it would have been fairer had Dr. Calderwood 
not so sweepingly said that theological interference was alto- 
crether a myth. As Dr. Calderwood pointed out, science is not 
responsible for Dr. Tyndall. Dr. Tyndall speaks for himself. 
Neither is the Church of Christ responsible for the errors of 


232 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

theologians ; and there have been errors on the part of theolo- 
gians as well as scientific men. Neither one of the two attitudes 
that we have taken in the past should be taken by us ; neither 
the attitude of conflict, declaring that science is opposed to 
religion, nor the attitude of trying to reconcile Genesis and 
science. The true attitude is to go on in our own work and let 
science do its work, because there never can be a reconciliation 
of science and theology until each has spoken its last word; and 
that word neither has yet spoken. 

The Rev. H. A. Nelson, D. D., of Geneva, N. Y.— I wish to 
make a very brief plea in behalf of a rigidly scientific use of the 
word science. I was profoundly grateful to Professor Calder- 
wood for the care and lucidness with which he set forth the dis- 
tinction between science and the unverified theories of students 
of science. My mind assented to all his positions as I under- 
stood them. Yet with the utmost deference I suggest, and ask 
his consideration of the suggestion, whether his use of the word 
science does not unhappily restrict it to the science of the 
material world. Should we not gain something for true science 
if we would constantly use the word to signify, on the one hand, 
nothing which has not been verified, and on the other to in- 
clude all which has been verified, from the bottom to the top ? 

The science of the material world is “concerned exclusively 
with observed facts.” But there are facts known by intuition, and 
there is a science of these— the science of the human mind. 
There is another class of facts which are not learned by observa- 
tion, nor known by intuition, but by revelation. 

There are supernatural facts as reliably attested as any facts 
of the material world. The systematic apprehension of these 
supernatural facts is as truly science as the systematic apprehen- 
sion of natural facts. Theology is science. Instead of saying 
that “ theology does not interfere with science,” would it not be 
more accurate to say that theological science and natural science 
cannot interfere with each other ? 

Unless theology is science we ought not to call it by a name 
the termination of which is distinctive of the several departments 
o science. Clear thinking requires us to insist that there is 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


23s 


“ science falsely so called,” and also true and valid science, of 
the material world, of the human mind, and of God. 

The Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, D. D., of Detroit. — Whether it 
be accurate or not, the popular use of the term science includes 
more than the sphere of observation within which it is experi- 
mental. It includes, for instance, classification and arrangement, 
in which science is constructive ; and it includes argument or 
logical process, in which science is inductive. 

It occurs to me that one of the difficulties in the supposed 
conflict between science and religion comes from this — that peo- 
ple who may be very safe and scientific in the department of 
observation may be very inaccurate and careless in the depart- 
ment of classification and arrangement, and extremely illogical 
in the department of induction. 

Dr. Hopkins remarks that some' who may be safely quoted as 
trustworthy in the department of experiment and observation, 
will utterly mislead us when they step beyond that sphere ; and 
he instances Dr. Darwin, who makes the astounding statement,, 
followed by an astounding conclusion, that in the Northern seas 
the polar bear is sometimes found swimming along on the sur- 
face of the water with his open mouth catching the insects upon 
which the whale feeds. Nobody doubts the fact within the 
sphere of observation, but then follows' this illogical conclusion,, 
that if the polar bear continues that process long enough he will 
turn into a whale. 

Mr. Lincoln, on one occasion, had a consultation with his col- 
leagues in reference to the Proclamation of Emancipation. 
Mr. Bates was rather intemperate in his haste in demanding 
the immediate issue of that proclamation, whereupon Mr. 
Lincoln said, “ It is not worth while to proclaim the slaves 
free unless we can back up the proclamation by the force of 
arms. You remind me of the schoolmaster in Illinois who said 
to one of his boys, ‘ How many legs has a sheep?’ ^ Four.’ 
‘ Well, suppose we call the tail a leg, how many has it ? ’ ‘ Five.’ 

‘ No, it has not, you fool — calling it does not make it so.’ ” Now 
scientific men are very prone to lend the sanction of a great 
name to inferences that are unscientific. Because they happen 


234 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


to be accurate within the sphere of observation and experiment, 
it is inferred that they are equally as accurate in the sphere of 
induction. But calling a thing does not make it so. The infer- 
ences of scientific men by no means establish the truth of their 
conclusions. If on the one hand the scientific men who talk 
about the intolerance and ex-cathedra deliverances of Christian 
professors woul-d be a little more careful not to speak ex-cathe- 
dra from chairs of science, we would have far less apparent con- 
flict between science and theology. 

I would have come a thousand miles to have heard the two 
papers we have heard this morning. In my younger days, and I 
am by no means old now, I was misled into scepticism; but it 
was by a shallow and superficial science; and the deeper I went 
into science the more surely I came back to God. The trouble 
with most sceptics is, a little learning is a dangerous thing ; with 
all due modesty and with deference to such brethren and fathers 
as have spoken to us this morning, I say it — if they could sit 
under the instructions of such men as Dr. Calderwood, and my 
beloved friend. Dr. McCosh, who I am glad to say presides gver 
one of the grand colleges of our own country, we would have 
a great deal less unscientific scepticism. 

The Rev. Dr. W. P. Breed. — I would like to give notice, 
which I hope the members of the Council all will hear : there 
will be, Providence permitting, the celebration of the sacrament 
of the Lord’s Supper, to-morrow afternoon at half-past three 
o’clock, in the West Spruce Street Presbyterian Church. The 
service will be conducted by members of this Council, and all 
the members of the Council are invited to be present. 

The Council then adjourned, with devotional services, until 
the afternoon at half-past two o’clock. 

September 2 ^th, 1880. 2 . 30 p. m . 

The Council was called to order by the President, for the 
session, the Hon. Horace Maynard, Postmaster-General of the 
United States. The Rev. J. B. Dales, D. D., of Philadelphia, 
led in prayer. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


235 


COMMITTEE ON RECEPTION INTO THE ALLIANCE. 

The Rev. Dr. Calderwood presented a report from the Busi- 
ness Committee recommending that a committee be appointed 
to receive the applications from Churches desiring to become 
members of the Alliance, said committee to report at the next 
meeting of the Council. 

The Rev. Robert Knox, D. D., of Belfast. — Before the motion 
is put I wish to say that it is desirable that the brethren ap- 
pointed on this committee should be men of experience and 
profound theological knowledge, and possessed of the entire 
confidence of the Council. Whilst it is desirable to gather in, 
and incorporate in this great Alliance, all branches of the Pres- 
byterian Church over the world, we must take care not in any 
way to relax or broaden the basis of our Alliance. Therefore 
I nominate the following as the committee : Dr. A. A. Hodge, 
Dr. Brown, Principal Caven, Dr. Flint, and Dr. Murkland, with 
Dr. Blaikie and Dr. Mathews, ex-officio members. I move that 
those gentlemen be appointed as the committee. 

The President. — Will Dr. Knox pardon me if I suggest that 
the first question is to decide whether the Council will agree to 
have any committee at all appointed ? The resolution has not 
yet been acted on. 

Dr. Knox. — I waited until the resolution was put to the house, 
and merely complied with a request made of me to put forward 
the names. I have no objection to a division of the motion. 

The President. — If the motion is made to amend the report 
by inserting these names, it is in order. But unless such a mo- 
tion is made, the regular course will be to see whether the 
'Council will adopt the resolution. 

The resolution was adopted. 

The President.— A list of names has been proposed to con- 
stitute this committee. 

A Member. — I would suggest that on such an important com- 
mittee we should have some ruling elders. I therefore propose 
the name of Henry Day, Esq. • 

Another Member. — I think that the number of names is by 


236 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


far too small, and I move that the matter be referred to the Busi- 
ness Committee to make up a different and larger list. 

The motion was agreed to. 

Henry Day, Esq., of New York.— I move that all applica- 
tions made for admission to this Alliance, at the present session, 
be referred to that committee, and, if they see fit, acted upon at 
this session. As I regard it now, anybody asking admission to 
this assembly has no chance of getting a hearing. . There is no 
committee whatever before whom they can bring their cases. 
Now, it may be — very likely it is the fact — that there are bodies 
in our country who would make application to be admitted if 
they had an opportunity ; who have a right to be admitted tO' 
this Alliance ; and whose claims demand consideration. This 
committee will be a proper one to answer all such applications, 
and I would therefore move that it have the authority to report 
upon any application that may be made at this session. 

I go further. Yesterday there was a report made here upon 
an application from the Cumberland Presbyterian Church by 
the Committee on Credentials. They were refused admittance. I 
for one felt very much grieved by that decision. This is an Ecu- 
menical Council, and we ought to bring in everybody of* the 
Presbyterian order and polity that comes anywhere near us. 
The constitution was intended to be drawn so that it would let 
m any one in all these great assemblies that comes really near 
to, or is joined with us. But when application is made for ad- 
mittance by the Cumberland Presbyterians, who, you will re- 
member, represent about half a million of the people of this 
country, they are refused. They are Presbyterians in polity, and 
they are Presbyterians in doctrine. I think, certainly, they come 
as near the required standard as the Reformed Churches. 

Dr. Calderwood. — This discussion is getting beyond the sub- 
ject before us. Thai matter was settled yesterday ; and I submit 
that we cannot reopen it in this way. 

The President. The remarks are not in order. But as this 
IS only a temporary body, the chair hesitates about applying the 
rigid rules of order which ’obtain in a body that continues in. 
session for weeks or months. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


237 


Henry Day, Esq. — I do not wish to make any trouble. I want 
to smooth over all difficulties ; and I would be the last man that 
would desire to get up a disturbance. But when you consider 
the vast amount of influence the Cumberland Church exerts 
with its various Presbyterian bodies, I think the committee made 
a mistake. When one hundred and ten thousand Christian com- 
municants, accepting the Westminster Confession, all except the 
sections on Predestination (and how many of the bodies that are 
represented here have got those sections ? how many from the 
Continent have got them ?) knock at our doors for admission ; 
they should not be turned away. They do not say anything 
against the doctrine of Predestination. They do not exactly 
what the Westminster Catechism tells us to do, and tells us very 
gently. They just let those doctrines go, and say nothing about 
them, though, if they please, they can believe them as well as 
we. And I think if we were writing that Confession over to- 
day, we would not put in it everything that it now contains. I 
simply ask that their appeal be reconsidered by this committee. 
That is all I want: that the vote that was passed adopting 
the report be reopened to consider this application of the 
Cumberland Presbyterian Church ; and that the result of such 
action be made known in a report at the next session of the 
Alliance. 

The Rev. Prof. William G. Blaikie, D. D., LL. D. — I cannot 
remain a member of the committee if we are expected to go into 
this case again, and make a report during these sessions ; be- 
cause it is utterly impossible to do justice to the necessary in- 
quiries in so short a time. It is one thing, on the pressure of 
the moment, to say whether a body conforms or does not con- 
form to the regulation, which provides that the members of this 
Council must represent churches whose creed is in harmony 
with the consensus of Reformed Presbyterianism ; but it is an- 
other thing to give the subject the due consideration it demands. 

Now that this Council is taking more permanent form, it is 
essential that some clearer definition be given as to what really 
constitutes a claim to membership. That requires deliberation. 
I should only be too glad to do my part in the committee, pro- 


238 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


vided we are given plenty of time ; but I respectfully decline 
being forced to consider this important and delicate question in 
so brief a time, and under such unfavorable circumstances. 

The Rev. William Wood, of Campsie, Scotland. — The Com- 
mittee on Credentials is taken unawares by the introduction of 
this subject. I do not know whether the chairman of the com- 
mittee, or any other of the members of the committee, excepting 
myself, be present ; but I will say that that committee gathered,, 
at considerable length, the facts in connection with the applica- 
tion from the Church named, and they came to their conclusion 
after considerable thought. This Council has pleased to adopt 
the finding of the committee. A reconsideration of that applica- 
tion would require a very considerable length of time in order 
to do it justice. The Council should carefully consider what 
they are about before saying to a new committee that that 
application must be examined into upon its merits. 

The Rev. Principal G. M. Grant, D. D., of Canada.— It is 
very unfortunate that a question of such importance should 
have been decided by this Council without any notice having 
been given that the subject was about to come up j because I am 
afraid, in taking that action so hurriedly, many members of the 
Council did not know about it, and unintentionally this body has 
violated a fundamental provision or plank of its own platform. 

I understood that the Alliance was to include the Reformed 
Churches holding the Presbyterian system. Now I am aware- 
that the Cumberland Church does hold to that system,* yet 
the strange ground is taken that they are to be ruled' out. 
We have Reformed Churches from the continent whose confes- 
sion of faith is included in two or three paragraphs. There is 
the French Church, for example. Yet they are in this Council. 
But you have ruled out this large body without any discussion. 

I think it is very unfortunate that it was done without notice. 

I think that the motion pending should be carried in order to 
give the committee an opportunity of considering the subject,, 
and that it may be brought before the Council after due notice 
has been given. I think that common courtesy to this body 
requires such a course. I did not know that any such action 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 239. 

had been taken. I do not think it is doing justice to the one 
hundred and ten thousand Presbyterian communicants concerned 
that this important subject should have been disposed of in such 
an off-hand manner. 

The Rev. Prof. Alexander B. Bruce, D. D., of Glasgow. — I. 
desire to express sympathy with the remarks just made; we are 
entirely in the dark. It is not worthy of this Council to dispose 
of so great a matter without knowing what we are doing. I was 
present when the report was presented, but did not know its 
bearing. Now, that I do, I regret that we have taken this step 
without more consideration. I think that a number of us feel 
regret at the decision which the Council came to. I am pre- 
pared to say that we should not dispose of so great a question 
in so light a way. 

The Rev. William Brown, D. D., Fredericksburg, Va. — I 
feel myself impelled by an imperative Sense of duty — not merely 
as a member of the Council but as a member of that committee 
to whom this question was referred, — to offer a few remarks in 
regard to the subject before us, which is not only important, 
but, as we all feel, very delicate in its character. As to what was 
done by the committee in the minute which was adopted, and 
which was reported to this Council, you will notice that it 
turns upon one point. It will be conceded by all that in the 
polity of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church— a very large 
body and one in many respects of great merit, and of great use- 
fulness — one of the requisitions of our constitution is met . 
namely, that its polity should be Presbyterian ; but the point 
on which the report of that committee turns is this : that we 
had not sufficient evidence of their agreement with the reformed 
consensus. I quote now from memory, but I believe I give 
the very words of the constitution: “The consensus of the 
Reformed confessions.” Now it may be true that the scope of 
those terms is not entirely settled by the Council as yet. But 
the committee felt itself warranted, upon satisfactory informa- 
tion, in going to this length— that we had not sufficient evidence 
of an agreement by that body in that consensus. 

I suppose that there may be two views taken of this subject 


240 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

in the Council. There may be what might be regarded by 
some as a rigid interpretation of those words, and there may be 
a very latitudinarian interpretation. I will not go into that part 
of the subject at present ; but I think the report of the committee 
was the only wise and judicious one that could have been made 
under the circumstances. And I think it would be extremely 
injudicious for this body to undertake now, and upon . any 
information which might be thrown out by one or another, and 
which would be regarded by some as uncertain and not authentic, 
to go into anything like a determination of this question. The 
form of the minute adopted by the committee indicates by the 
word “ sufficient ” that the evidence brought before us does not 
satisfy us now. It does not exclude further consideration of the 
question in view. The proposal has been agreed to to appoint 
a committee to whom this and all other applications may be 
made, and that it shall report at the next Council. I do not see 
that we are under any necessity fof doing this thing in a corner. 
It would be most unfortunate so to do it. The decision of that 
question may very deeply affect the future of this whole Alliance 
movement. It is very important that while, on the one hand, 
we should exercise the utmost liberty and kindness consistent 
with our position as Reformed Churches, in accordance with 
the consensus of the Reformed confessions, we should not on the 
other hand go at all beyond it. If we do, my own judgment is 

and I think it will be that of the Council — that we put in 
extreme peril this whole movement. The better course will be 
to let the question go to the committee appointed to investigate 
the whole subject, and let it bring in its report at the next meet- 
ing of the Council. 

The Rev. Joseph T. Smith, D. D., of Baltimore. — I hope this 
matter will be allowed to rest. I do not think that this body is 
prepared to take any action looking to the admission of the 
Cumberland Presbyterians. I was a member of a committee 
appointed by the General Assembly of the Church North, to 
meet and confer with a similar committee from the Cumberland 
Presbyterian Church in reference to mutual correspondence. 
After a long controversy, the committee were unanimous in the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


241 


report to the Assembly, that we could not recognize them as 
brethren in accord with us in that full degree which would 
justify such correspondence. 

Robert N. Willson, Esq., of Philadelphia. — I rise to a 
point of order: That the Council has already passed upon 
the matter which is now being discussed ; and that it cannot 
come before us again unless it be formally reconsidered. My 
point is a two-fold one, perhaps : whether at this session this 
matter can be again considered at all, and whether, if we 
can take it up at the present session, it must not be formally 
reconsidered ? 

The Rev. D. A. Wallace, D. D., LL. D., of Wooster, Ohio. — 
I wish to make a statement in defence of the Committee on 
Credentials. I am a member- of that committee and was .called 
upon to preside here yesterday morning when its report was made. 
In the first place, in open Council, that matter was referred to 
the Committee on Credentials', and every member of the Council 
was supposed to understand that it was in their hands. In the 
second place, that committee reported after giving the subject 
as full and careful consideration as, under the circumstances, it 
could. It reported a definite proposition. It was made at a 
time when it was generally understood that the committee would 
report ; and when it was read every member of the committee 
expected that the conclusions would be assailed, and that a dis- 
cussion would take place. There was no attempt made to crowd 
it— no doing of it in the corner. There was no attempt to 
smuggle it through — nothing of the sort. It was done openly 
and above board, and I don’t think that any of the brethren- 
should suggest that there was any attempt to smuggle it 
through. 

Principal Grant. — The gentleman who has just sat down is 
the only one that has suggested smuggling. I have not heard' 
the word from any one else. 

The Rev. Robert Knox, D. D., of Belfast.— When an assembly 
such as this, or any court of the Presbyterian Church, comes to 
a deliberate finding, I hold that that finding cannot be reviewed^ 
during the same session of the body. But it is perfectly com- 
16 


242 


THE PRESBYTETHAN ALLIANCE. 


petent for any brother who may be dissatisfied with the decision 
to give notice that at the next meeting of this Council he will 
bring this question up again; a review now, however, is not 
competent. 

The Hon. William Strong, LL. D. — If the action of the 
Council, in accepting and adopting the report of the Committee 
on Credentials, was a decision that the Cumberland Presbyterian 
Church was not entitled to admission as a member of this Alli- 
ance, then this motion of Mr. Day is not in order; but if, as I 
understand it, the adoption of that report had no legal operation 
except to determine that those individuals who came here, 
claiming to represent the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 
were not entitled to seats, then it seems Mr. Day’s motion is in 
order. , We have not decided the question which that motion 
attempts to bring before us. The one is a question of persons 
—of the right of individuals to seats on this floor ; the other is 
a question as to the right of a Church to become a member of 
this Alliance. I think that all that we have decided is, that the 
individuals who claimed seats, or asked for seats, as representa- 
tives of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, were not, under 
the circumstances, entitled to seats— that the credentials which 
they offered did not entitle them to seats on the floor as mem- 
bers of the Council. It seems to me that that is all the legal 
effect of our action, no matter what reasons the committee gave, 
for their conclusion. I am quite willing that the matter should 
now be referred ; but, as a member of the Business Committee, I 
am not prepared to say that we could be ready to make a report 
at this meeting of the Council. If the Council should instruct 
that committee to take this subject into consideration and report 
during this term, I, for one, should endeavor to discharge my 
duty; but I am not sufficiently acquainted with the extent to 
which the Cumberland Presbyterian Church agrees with the 
general concensus of the Reformed Churches, to be able to form 
a judgment upon the question whether this Church, as a body 
ought to be admitted to this Alliance; and whether I could 
obtain sufficient information upon that subject during the session 
of this Council I am not prepared to say. If the Council see fit 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


243 


to send the subject to us, I am willing to do what I can to come 
to a conclusion, and if I can come to a conclusion, to report to 
this body ; but if I am not able to inform myself sufficiently 
during the sessions of this Council, I shall feel constrained to 
ask for longer time. I have no objection to this being referred, 
nor to the instructions, always assuming that I am not obliged 
to report a conclusion before I am able to come to that conclu- 
sion. 

If the resolution which was brought in by the Committee on 
Credentials, and adopted by the Council, was a decision of this 
question, then the only mode to reach it is by a motion for re- 
consideration. In that way it might be reached; but I have not 
supposed that to be necessary, as I have not regarded my vote 
upon that question as deciding that the Cumberland Presbyte- 
rian Church was not entitled to admission as a Church in this 
Alliance. Our vote upon the question, as I understood it, 
decided simply that the individuals asking admission as dele- 
gates were not entitled to seats. 

The President. — The chair will entertain no further re- 
marks except upon the question of order. If the point of order 
is insisted on, the chair will be obliged to decide upon it. 

Henry Day, Esq. — After all, the Council should leave the 
matter to the good sense of the committee. Let them deter- 
mine the question whether they will come to a decision at this 
session or the next. I desire to modify the motion in that way. 

The motion, as modified, was adopted by a vote of 34 to 27. 

The Rev. Professor Robert Flint, D. D., LL. D., of Edin- 
burgh, then read the following paper on 


AGNOSTICISM. 

Agnosticism is a most comprehensive theme, and it cannot reason- 
ably be expected that the few remarks, which are all that time permits 
me to offer regarding it, should do more than touch a very small part 
of its surface. Where it would be absurd to attempt to be profound 
or thorough, I shall seek merely to be practical. With this aim in 
view, I shall confine myself to a consideration of the causes of the 
present prevalence of Agnosticism in the region of religion, and to an 
indication cf the counteractive or remedial forces. 


244 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


The term Agnosticism is often vaguely and loosely employed ; it is 
only, I believe, accurately and appropriately employed when regarded 
as an equivalent for what has been variously called philosophical, or 
theoretical, or metaphysical scepticism. The limitation of the word 
to the sphere of religion is most objectionable, and should be resisted. 
There is no reason for calling a man an agnostic merely because he is 
an atheist, or a positivist, or a materialist. The name is only appropri- 
ate to one whose refusal to believe in the existence of God, and of 
spiritual things, is rested on the allegation that the human mind is 
inherently and constitutionally incapable of knowing whether there is 
a God and spiritual things or not. But there is no kind of truth 
which may not be rejected, on the assumption that the human mind 
is inherently and constitutionally incapable of ascertaining whether 
there is such truth or not. The weakness of the human mind is a 
plea which may be brought forward in any region of inquiry. And 
the plea is the same, no matter in what region it is brought forward. 
Things, however, which have the same nature should have the same' 
name. Wherever, therefore, assent is withheld because of the alleged 
incompetency of the mind to ascertain the truth, there is Agnosticism. 
The rejection of any one kind of truth on that ground is as much 
Agnosticism as the rejection of any other kind. What is essential in 
Agnosticism is the reason on which it supports itself — the attitude 
towards truth and knowledge which it assumes ; what is non-essential 
are the objects or propositions to which it is applied. 

Some have represented the scepticism, which may appropriately be 
called Agnosticism, as negation or disbelief,*" others contend that it 
should be confined to doubt. For reasons which I have not time 
here to state, I hold that it may be either doubt or disbelief; it is 
not, however, either merely doubt or disbelief, but the doubt or disbe- 
lief which rests on the supposition that what are really powers of the 
human mind are untrustworthy — that what are actually normal percep- 
tions, natural or even necessary laws and legitimate processes, are not 
to be depended on. Ordinary doubt and ordinary disbelief have their 
reasons in the objects or propositions examined by the mind, not in 
distrust of the mind itself; they imply nothing more than the convic- 
tion of the absence of evidence for, or the existence of evidence against, 
the particular position in dispute. But Agnosticism challenges evi- 
dence, and refuses to be convinced by it, on the deeper and subtler 
ground that the mind is not endowed with faculties by which it can 
derive truth and certainty from what is alleged to be evidence. 

In the present day, Agnosticism is seldom applied, as it was by the 
ancient Greek sceptics, to all forms and kinds of what is called knowl- 
edge ; it is also rarely now maintained, as it has, however, not unfre- 
quently been maintained, to be valid with respect to what is termed 
reason and science, but not to faith and religion ; on the contrary, it 
is only in reference to the spiritual and the supernatural that it is very 
prevalent, and, as regards them, it is alarmingly prevalent. Contem- 
porary Agnosticism, unlike the more consistent Agnosticism of former 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


245 


ages, endeavors to show that ordinary experience and the positive 
sciences may be received with deference and confidence, but that re- 
ligion and revelation must be rejected, as presenting only credentials 
which the human mind is incapable of testing. Why is Agnosticism 
in this form so common? and how is it to be dealt with? 

First, then, although this special form of Agnosticism — Agnosticism 
in regard to religion — be far more common than any general form of 
Agnosticism — Agnosticism in regard to knowledge in itself — the lat- 
ter may fairly be specified as one of the causes of the former. The 
general doctrine, to some extent, originates and explains the special 
doctrine. Those ‘‘dead but sceptered sovereigns” — Hume and 
Kant — “still rule our spirits from their urns.” The Agnosticism of 
Sir Wm. Hamilton and of Dean Mansel as to knowledge of the In- 
finite, was but a modification and application of Kant’s theory of 
cognition, and the entire process of argumentation by which Mr. 
Herbert Spencer relegates religion and its objects to the region 
of the unknowable, is borrowed from Hamilton and Mansel, One 
constantly hears tlie agnostic views of Hume and Kant, of Comte 
and Mill, expressed and avowed by men who have never read a 
page of their writings, but who are not the less influenced, on that 
account, by their opinions. Then every phase of Agnosticism in 
religion must, when called upon to defend and justify itself, appeal 
to the Agnosticism of metaphysical theory. The negations of the 
positivist, as to the spiritual and the supernatural, for example, are 
mere arbitrary assertions, until based on some agnostic theory of the 
nature and conditions of cognition. It is this necessity of vindicating 
Agnosticism in religion which has more than anything else, I believe, 
led recently in Germany to the resuscitation of the negative or scep- 
tical portion of the philosophy of Kant ; or, in other words, to the 
spread of what is called Neo-Kantism. A very large number of the 
Neo-Kantists are men utterly incapable of understanding the system 
of Kant as a whole, and utterly devoid of sympathy with what is best 
in the spirit of that system — men who accept what they call critical 
philosophy in the most uncritical way — men whose blind and idola- 
trous worship of the weaknesses and defects of the philosophy of 
Kant has its main source in the fancy that a simple appeal to the 
negative conclusions of the Kritik of Pure Person will entitle them to 
treat religion as an illusion, and to disregard everything but what 
they are pleased to call experience. Of course, although a doctrine 
like Neo-Kantism may owe its existence mainly to religious scepticism, 
once it has been produced it will aid in confirming and spreading 
the scepticism in which it originated. 

The practical inference which I draw from what I have now indi- 
cated is, that the Churches are vitally interested in the prosperity of 
the mental and speculative branches of knowledge, such as psychology, 
logic, and metaphysics. Agnosticism in religion must have its roots 
there, and can only be completely overcome by being eradicated 
there. It may be so far met by being shown to be arbitrary in its 


246 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


rejection of ultimate and self-evident principles ; to be essentially in- 
consistent and self-contradictory in every form — general or special, 
total or partial — in which it can be exhibited, and to be pernicious in 
its consequences; but the only thoroughly adequate antidote to it is a 
truthful and comprehensive mental philosophy. Agnosticism is largely 
founded, for example, on narrow and partial doctrines as to the nature 
of belief. The theory of Hume, that belief is constituted by vivacity 
or strength of impression ; of James Mill, that it is resolvable into the 
inseparable association of ideas; of Dr. Bain, that its basis and ulti- 
mate criterion is action ; of M. Renouvier, that its essence is an act 
of free determination, etc., must lead to Agnosticism in some form. 
Then, in order to preclude it in all forms, a true doctrine of belief 
must be supported by a true doctrine of knowledge, and that, again, 
by a correct and adequate doctrine of evidence. Agnosticism must 
be the necessary result of overlooking or depreciating any element 
power or means of knowledge, any kind of evidence, or any natural 
and truthful criterion of evidence. Place, for instance, the criterion 
of truth exclusively in sense or sentiment, in the theoretical reason or 
the practical reason, in authority or universal consent ; reduce it, with 
Locke, to the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas — 
with Leibnitz, to the absence of contradiction; with Herbert Spencer, 
to the inconceivability of the negative, etc. — and you must logically 
become, if only a partial agnostic, still an agnostic on a very large 
scale. The more a man, therefore, reflects on this subject of Agnos- 
ticism, the more must he be impressed by the conviction that all our 
churches are vitally interested, and all true theology is greatly and 
intimately dependent on, the successful culture and general diffusion 
of a sound and enlarged philosophy, such as will repel all exclusive 
doctrines, allow us to be just to every order of facts and ideas, and 
leave room for faith and affection fully to develop themselves. 

In the next place, the anti-religious Agnosticism of the age is of 
course greatly favored by the critical temper, the analytical spirit, of 
the age. We are living at a time when a very large number of per- 
sons claim the right to exercise their own judgment who have unfor- 
tunately but little judgment to exercise ; when a very large number 
of persons forget that the right of private judgment, although very 
important, is only a half-truth, and that the duty of judging rightly is 
its complement and equally important. We cannot help this, because 
the reason of it is that God has willed that we should live in this nine- 
teenth century ; and probably we do not need much to regret it, be- 
cause, with all its faults, the nineteenth century is by no means the 
worst in which our lots might have been cast. It is a century, however, 
pervadingly and pradominantly critical, and even largely hypercritical. 
Research takes us back in all directions to a state of society very un- 
like that which now prevails. The communism which some writers 
present as the ideal of the future is found to have been a general fact 
of the past. There is evidence that, in the history of every country 
inhabited by any division of the Aryan race— Hindu, Persian, Greek, 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


247 


Latin, Slavonic, Celtic, Teutonic — there was a time when private prop- 
erty in land did not exist, when the soil was distributed among groups 
of self-styled kinsmen, when separate ownership was scarcely known. 
In this archaic state of society man as an individual may be said to 
have scarcely existed. The law and the religion which corresponded 
to this stage knew next to nothing of individuals. They were con- 
cerned with families, with groups. No man felt with any distinctness 
that he had rights and duties simply as a man. The rights of private 
judgment, and of independent action, were not so much denied and 
restricted as undiscovered and iinimagined. Social authority was 
omnipotent. It is under the sway of this principle that all societies 
have grown up through infancy and youth. But in every progressive 
society there comes a time when its stronger minds feel that they are 
not merely parts of a social organism, but have a life and destiny, 
rights and duties, of their own, and simply as men. There are then 
two principles in the world : the principle of authority and the prin- 
ciple of liberty — the principle of society and the principle of individ- 
uality. These two principles coexist at first in a few individuals, but 
in process of time they come not only to coexist in some degree in all, 
but to manifest themselves apart ; and then there are not only two 
principles but two parties in the world, the one inclining more to the 
side of social authority, and the other more toward individual inde- 
pendence, each party existing in virtue of its assertion of a truth, but 
existing only as a party because it does not assert the whole truth ; 
each conferring its special services, each having its special dangers, 
each being certain to ruin any society in which it succeeds in crush- 
ing the other, but the two securing both order and progress, partly 
by counteracting each other and partly by co-operating with each 
other. When the principle of authority is generally and spontane- 
ously accepted we may be said to have what Saint-Simon called an 
organic or synthetic period of history; when the principle of individ- 
ual independence is predominant we may be said to have what he called 
a critical or analytic period. According to Saint-Simon all history 
may be divided into critical periods and organic periods. The crit- 
ical periods are those in which the minds of men are employed in in- 
vestigating the principles of government under which they live, in 
endeavoring to amend old institutions and to invent new ones, in 
which no creed commands the assent of all, so that society is without 
principles, discontented, changeful, and, in a word, in a state of an- 
archy. Organic periods, on the contrary, are those which possess an 
accepted doctrine, in which society is. cemented by the synthesis of 
a common faith, in which the actual institutions give satisfaction to 
the world and men’s minds are at rest. Thus pre-Socratic Greece was 
organic, post-Socratic Greece critical. Roman history began to pass 
from organic to critical with Lucretius and Cicero. With the defini- 
tive constitution of the Christian Church in the sixth century began 
the new organic period of feudalism ; and in the sixteenth century the 
Reformers inaugurated another critical period, which the philosophers, 
scientists, and others have continued until the present time. 


24 ^ 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


This generalization may not improbably be in various respects im* 
perfect, and yet it may be accepted as containing a large amount of 
truth. Three centuries ago a doubting, questioning, scrutinizing spirit 
began to make its presence widely felt in many forms ; and down to 
this day it has been continually growing in strength. Its history is 
the main current of modern history. Its course and character have 
been very largely directed and determined by forces and modes of 
thought which are not specifically religious, and which may readily 
become anti-religious. It has shown itself in the region of intellect 
chiefly in the elaboration and application of the physical, experi- 
mental, positive, inductive sciences, and in the region of action by 
wonderful ingenuity and energy as regards things secular. It is apt 
in the one sphere to become empiricism or materialism, and in the 
other to become worldliness; and those who are carried by it to either 
error are necessarily disposed to justify themselves by adopting agnos- 
tic views and supporting them by what are alleged to be critical 
methods. This alliance of Agnosticism with criticism is a source of 
great influence to the former, while it vitiates and corrupts the latter, 
and is undoubtedly very dangerous to religion. Many of our modern 
critics first assume that there can be no real objective knowledge of 
God and divine things; that the phenomena of religion, those of 
Christianity included, may be fully explained on naturalistic prin- 
ciples, and at least without reference to special revelation ; and then 
]jroceed to explain away, by means of narrow and onesided theories 
of development and ingenious but inconclusive critical processes, 
everything which conflicts with their assumption in the history of the 
Jews, in the character, words and works of the Saviour, in the lives 
of the apostles, in the Bible and in the Church. 

How are our churches to comport themselves toward this danger 
which threatens them all, and which in some phase, some modifica- 
tion, some degree, may present itself to any one of them any day ? 
Well, each church must of course bear its own burdens, and perhaps 
the more each church is left to deal with its own cases, free and un- 
biased by extraneous opinion, and the less reference is made to them 
by other churches, the better. It is certainly a very mean and un- 
worthy thing in any church to try to make ecclesiastical capital out 
of the troubles of a sister church. What I wish, however, to empha- 
size here is this : that the mere exercise of discipline by any church 
must be deemed a very poor method indeed of replying to agnostic 
criticism, or any kind of illegitimate criticism of religion and revela- 
tion. The only method of meeting it, which can be reasonably ex- 
pected to do permanent or general good, is by opposing to it criticism 
of a legitimate kind. Its irreverence must be confronted with piety ; 
its narrow and exclusive views of development with adequate and com- 
prehensive ones ; its ingenious but erroneous conjectures with sound 
and true inductions ; its hypotheses, plausible merely because drawn 
from facts arbitrarily selected and illusively combined, with conclu- 
sions drawn from all classes of the relevant facts. A truly reverent, 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


249 


truly enlightened, profound and thorough biblical scholarship can 
alone successfully combat agnostic criticism. Presbyterian churches, 

1 am sorry to say, have seemed in general but little to realize how im- 
portant such scholarship is. It is high time that they were doing so 
now. If they are foolish enough to think that they can supply the 
place of it by suspensions and excommunications they will find them- 
selves deplorably mistaken. These, even when most cautious and 
most just, will do little positive good ; if hasty, harsh, or unjust, they 
must do much positive mischief. 

I meant to speak, in the third place, of the influence of dogmatism 
and dogmatic systems on the spread of anti-theological Agnosticism, 
but can now merely indicate what I designed to attempt under this head. 

It was to show how such Agnosticism naturally follows from the one- 
sidedness and exclusiveness of many dogmatic systems; from the con- 
flict of dogmatic systems; and from the pretensions to perfection and 
finality sometimes put forth on their behalf. On this last point espe- 
cially I could have wished to enlarge. Churches often forget that it 
is their duty not only to retain the religious truth which has been 
transmitted to them, but to increase it by ever fresh and fuller studies 
of all God’s disclosures of himself; that it is their duty to be continu- 
ally deepening, enlarging, and improving, their theology. There can 
hardly be a more serious danger. It is by an ever-growing appropria- 
tion and application of the truth which God has revealed that a church 
advances toward the realization of its ideal and mission ; and the ap- 
iiropriation and application of truth presuppose its apprehension. A 
' church which rests satisfied with the acquisitions which former gen- 
erations have drawn from nature, providence, and Scripture ; which 
does not seek to add to the old treasures stored up in its creeds, cate- 
chisms, and dogmatic systems, new treasures; maybe orthodox— may 
have espoused as yet no grievous positive falsehood, but its whole at- 
titude toward the truth is a wrong one. It is at heart disloyal to the 
truth and dead to the love of it ; and, once a church is dead and dis- 
loyal to the truth, it will soon be dead and disloyal to all that is good. 
When a church loses that love of the truth as it is in Christ, which 
constrains it to seek in him ever new treasures of wisdom and knowl- 
ed"’’e ■ when it comes to look with suspicion on new discoveries and 
to discountenance the spirit of independent and original investigation ; 
when theological research and theological instruction are the last 
things it strives to encourage, that church is not far from the terrible 
condition in which errors are justified and lies embrace^ Every such 
church practically and most powerfully teaches agnostic disbelief in 
spiritual truth. Every such church presents its theology m a light 
admirably calculated to make men conclude that it is a sham science, 
a pretended exposition of the unknown and unknowable. Eveiy 
church, on the other hand, which seeks earnestly more and more 
divine light; which welcomes what is new in theology, if it be true ; 
which encourages fresh and original theological speculation, if only 
it be sincere and reverent; cannot but bear a powerful practical testi- 


250 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE 

niony that theology is real and vital knowledge, and eminently worthy 
of study. I have great respect for Calvin ; I believe in the doctrine 
of the Westminster Confession-; but I utterly disbelieve the notion, 
which I regard as one of the most powerful causes of Agnosticism, 
that theology came to a stop with Calvin or the Westminster Confes- 
sion. I believe, on the contrary, that the human mind scarcely ever 
worked more energetically or successfully in the fields of theological 
science than it has been working during the nineteenth century, 
entire theological sciences, like biblical theology and comparative 
theology, having been built up almost from the foundations within 
that period ; and there are still in theology worlds to conquer by the 
human mind divinely guided and enlightened. “ There remaineth 
yet much land to be possessed.” 

I must stop without concluding. I should next have described how 
Agnosticism arises from false views of the relations of science to re- 
ligion, and how it must be combated by true views on this point ; 
but here, I am sure, you may fairly take in what has been already said 
to-day regarding it by gentlemen than whom none more competent to 
treat of it could possibly have been found; and then, if you like, you 
may credit me, on the score of superior comprehensiveness, with all the 
merits in the papers of Principal McCosh and Professor Calderwood. 

If time had allowed I should finally have dwelt on the thought that 
whatever tends to make us unspiritual, worldly, selfish, is favorable 
to Agnosticism ; that all that tends to raise us above unspirituality, 
worldliness, selfishness, is unfavorable to it; and that the strongest of 
all anti-agnostic forces — in fact, the one great safeguard of humanity 
against the general or final triumph of Agnosticism — is none other 
than the redemptive power of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. 
Each one of you fathers, brothers, sisters — by simply so living as to 
show that religion is supremely worth believing, may do far more* to 
combat the spirit whence Agnosticism arises than I or any one could 
do by a merely formal written attack upon it. The grand argument 
against anti-religious Agnosticism is the practical one of a consistent 
and vigorous Christian life — the argument which, through God’s grace, 
we can all use. 

The Rev. Dr. Mathews announced that Ed. De Pressense, 
D. D., of Paris, who was on the programme to read a paper on 
Apologetics,” had written a letter expressing his inability to be 
present ; but sending his paper in French. He moved, and the 
motion was agreed to, that the paper be committed to the Ed- 
itorial Committee to be prepared for publication. It will be 
found in the appendix, page 902. 

Dr. Mathews read a congratulatory communication from 
the Methodist P:piscopal Ministers’ Association of Philadelphia, 
and said : In.consideration of this I offer the following: 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


251 

Resoive'dy That the salutations addressed to this Council by our 
Methodist brethren be received and heartily reciprocated. 

The resolution was agreed to. 

The Rev. Dr. H. A. Nelson, Geneva, N. Y., offered the fol- 
lowing : 

Whereas we are informed that our Christian brethren of the 
Methodist Churches are to hold an Ecumenical Conference in London 
in the year 1881 ; 

Resolved, That two ministers and two ruling elders be appointed 
to convey to that body the fraternal salutations of this Alliance, with 
the assurance of our hearty fellowship with them in the cause of our 
one Redeemer and Lord. 

On the motion of the Rev. Dr. Breed, it was referred to the 
Business Committee. 

After devotional services the Council adjourned to meet on 
Monday, at half-past nine o’clock a. m. 


FOURTH DAY’S SESSION. 

Monday, September 2^111, 1880. 

The Council met at half-past nine o’clock a. m., in Horticul- 
tural Hall ; the Rev. William Brown, D. D., of Fredericks- 
burg, Va., President for the session. 

After devotional services, the minutes of the previous session 
were read and approved. 

METHODIST CORRESPONDENCE. 

The Rev. S. I. Prime, D. D., from the Business Committee, to 
which had been referred the resolution proposing the appoint- 
ment of fraternal delegates to the Methodist Episcopal Ecumen- 
ical Conference, reported the following resolution : 

Resolved, That inasmuch as the constitution of our Alliance makes 
no provision for reciprocating such correspondence, and we are not 
apprised of the wishes of the Churches in that regard, it is not prac- 
ticable at present to make such appointments as are contemplated in 
the resolution. 

The Rev. Dr. H. A. Nelson. — I offered the original resolu- 
tion at the suggestion of a distinguished gentleman of the Meth- 


2j2 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

odist Episcopal Chutch, who wrote to me, and, as he informed 
me, had written to one or two other members of the Council, 
who are not now on the ground, expressing his confidence that 
such action on the part of this body would be highly acceptable 
to the body with which it is proposed to communicate. He was 
careful to say that of course he did not act in any official 
capacity ; (and indeed there has been no opportunity yet for any 
official expression of the wishes of our Methodist brethren;) but 
that, with his knowledge of their views, he was confident that 
such an attention from this body would be acceptable to those 
to whom it was directed. I offered the resolution, therefore, 
after consultation with some of the members of this Council, 
confident that such a manifestation of Christian courtesy could 
not be unsafe, and might tend greatly to the promotion of the 
interests which we hold in common with our Methodist brethren. 
I was careful to limit the resolution to a simple expression of 
our fraternal regard, and our wishes for the promotion of our 
common interest. • I should certainly be as reluctant as any 
other brother to take any action v/hich would commit this body 
unadvisedly to anything further than that. 

The Rev. Principal John Cairns, D. D., of Edinburgh.— 
I do not know the nature of the conimunication that has come 
to us, nor am I acquainted with the reason which actuated the 
Business Committee in proposing the resolution now before us. 
However, if it be the disposition of this great Council not to 
accede to the proposition here made, I hope it will be under- 
stood by our Methodist brethren that our action is so taken, not 
from any want of interest in their work, nor from any want of 
sympathy with them in that which is distinctive of us, and of 
therii alike, as separated from Romanism, and from other forms 
of error. We greatly honor them for the work they are doing 
in America and throughout the Christian world. I may men- 
tion that when, five years ago, the great Presbyterian union 
took place in Liverpool, the first voice that was lifted up to 
welcome us was a Methodist voice. While it may not be wise 
for us to adopt the proposition which was made on Saturday, I 
hope that, as soon as it may be possible, some such resolution 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


253 


as the one indicated by Dr. Nelson may be adopted ; and that 
we may attest to the country that, while we differ from our 
Methodist brethren, and differ from them on points of impor- 
tance, we rejoice with them in their work, and in their large ap- 
proximation towards Presbyterianism; and are desirous in every 
possible way, in which we can do so consistently with the prin- 
ciples of this Alliance, to testify our sympathy with them and 
our readiness to co-operate with them in the work of our com- 
mon Lord. 

The Hon. Wm. E. Dodge, of New York.— When the letter 
from our Methodist brethren was read at a previous session, 
several friends sitting near me who, like myself, were exceed- 
ingly interested in that communication, and who felt that there 
ought to be a committee appointed in response to it, suggested 
that some action should be taken accordingly. The answer 
which was made to that was that the matter would be covered 
by the appointment of a delegation from this Council to an an- 
ticipated similar convention to be held in London. An objec- 
tion which is made by the Business Committee is, that it is 
uncertain whether such a convention will ever hp held. The 
answer to that objection is this, that if, in giving expression to 
the fraternal feeling of this Council, we do constitute a com- 
mittee such as the one here proposed, and if for some reason 
that committee cannot carry out the intention of their appoint- 
ment, no harm will accrue therefrom ; whereas, if a council or 
convention such as is anticipated should be held, and that com- 
mittee should fulfil the purpose of their creation, great good 
might be effected thereby. 

The Hon. Isaac D. Jones, of Baltimore. — This is the second 
time that we have had an approach from our sister Churches, for 
I must so call them, being of the Protestant faith as they are. 
There are some subjects upon which all who love our Lord and 
Saviour, Jesus Christ, of whatever name, may unite. Not many 
years ago I had the honor of being chairman of a pretty large 
committee, representing a meeting of several thousand citizens 
of the city of Baltimore, which included not only Christians, but 
persons who were not members of any Church, and also many 


254 the PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

influential Israelites. The purpose of the committee was to 
appeal to, and make its influence felt upon, the Legislature of 
Maryland, in a matter in which not only all the Protestant 
Churches in the city of Baltimore, but the Roman Catholic 
Church, and the Israelites were largely interested ; these two 
latter being represented on the committee. The movement was 
one in defence of the Sunday law, which prohibited the profana- 
tion of the Sabbath day, then assailed by a very numerous asso- 
ciation in an application for its repeal, backed by an enormous 
sum of money with which it was expected to buy up the Legis- 
lature. We were exceedingly happy to have the co-operation 
of the Catholics and the Israelites in that emergency. 

I had no intimation in regard to the matter which we had 
before us the other day concerning our Cumberland Presby- 
terians, and therefore I shall say nothing upon that point; 
but, in regard to our Methodist brethren, it strikes me that 
in seeking to attain the great object upon which we all unite, 
the spreading of the gospel among heathens, and through- 
out the world, we may very properly accept their co-opera- 
tion and send them, either by letter or by delegates, our salu- 
tation ; and that in so doing we are not affecting one iota of 
the differences that may exist among us. I think that the duty 
of our modern Christianity is to lay stress, not upon the points 
of our differences, but rather upon the points upon which we 
all unite, and to co-operate in that spirit. I think that the 
time has passed for keeping before our eyes the differences 
which are not essential to salvation, and the time has come 
when we should lay more stress upon points that are essen- 
tial to salvation, and which we recognize our sister Churches 
as maintaining. 

I concur most heartily in the sentiment that we should meet 
in a Christian spirit these approaches that are made to us, these 
desires for a more intimate recognition ; and that we should give 
the right hand of fellowship, as every Christian is ready to do, 
to fellow-Christians from one end of the world to the other, to 
the inhabitants of India, to the roving Indian of the Choctaw 
Nation, to the people of Africa, and to every quarter of the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


255 


world. I think that the more seriously this spirit is cultivated 
the more successful will be our efforts in this Council, in the 
accomplishment of the object which we all have at heart. 

The Rev. Dr. Nelson. — It seems to me that the reason given 
by the committee for not assenting to the resolution, namely, 
that there is nothing in our constitution which provides for such 
a thing, is not quite sufficient. I am led to take this view of it, 
because of the fact that this Council is a new body, and one of 
which we may say that it is still forming its constitution. If we 
adopt the resolution providing for sending a deputation to the 
Conference of Methodists, that action will form a precedent for 
similar action hereafter, and to that extent will be accepted as 
within the province of our constitution. I think that it would 
be well for this Council to establish such a precedent in a matter 
which is purely one of courtesy, and manifestation of regard 
toward our Methodist brethren. In the opening proceedings of 
this Council, there was an expression of Christian sympathy 
and good-will toward all who are engaged in the great work of 
spreading the gospel. There could be no better way of giving 
a practical exhibition of that sympathy and good-will than by 
appointing a deputation, or sending a letter, to the Conference 
of Methodists proposed to be held in London. 

The Rev. William Reid, D. D., of Toronto, Canada. — I did 
not exactly understand the sense in which the word “ corre- 
spondence ” was used in the report of the Business Committee ; 
but my impression is, that the assumption upon which the re- 
port' is predicated is that no such correspondence could properly 
be received. The fact, however, will be borne in mind, that we 
have already received a correspondence from the Methodist 
Church. A communication has been laid before the Council, 
and accepted by it, tendering the fraternal greetings and best 
wishes of that body. If there is anything in the constitution 
which forbade that, we have already disregarded it. But as a 
standing committee will probably be constituted to continue 
in existence between the adjournment of this Council and the 
convening of the next Council, this matter might be disposed 
of now by laying it aside to be referred to that committee when 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


256 

created, with authority either to appoint a deputation, or send a 
letter to express our fraternal regards for the Methodist body 
about to meet in General Conference in London. 

The Rev. Dr. Prime. — I move the recommittal of the resolu- 
tion to the Business Committee. 

Judge P. S. Danforth, of New York city.— I would move, 
as an amendment, that the recommittal be accompanied with in- 
structions from the Council to report a resolution declaring that 
we do send our regards to our Methodist brethren, and provid- 
ing the means for carrying out the declaration. 

Dr. Prime. — If the amendment prevails, there will be no oc- 
casion for recommitting the matter, as we might as well dispose 
of the matter at once. 

Judge Danforth intimated that he would not insist upon his 
amendment. 

The Rev. James I. Brownson, D. D., of Washington, Pa. — 
Presuming that the report of the committee would be adopted, 
substantially, in the form in which it was submitted, I ventured to 
write a little preamble to be prefixed to it, and this I beg leave 
to read. If it is the pleasure of the Council to refer the 
whole matter back to the committee, I will ask that this may 
go with it : 

Resolved, That recognizing the earnest Christian zeal and faith- 
ful work of the Methodist Church in Christian lands, and holding 
ourselves in readiness to co-operate with it in every good enterprise 
for Christ’s sake — 

Then will follow the wording of the resolution to be adopted 
on the report of the committee. 

The Rev. John Jenkins, D. D., LL. D., of Montreal, Canada. 
— Could we not decide this matter without the trouble of recom- 
miting it and having again to consider it ? 

The Moderator. — Undoubtedly it is competent for the Coun- 
cil to decide it now ; but the chair would suggest that time 
would be saved by referring it to the committee. 

Dr. Jenkins. — It would be very desirable that we should 
know when the report of the committee will be brought for- 
ward. Will it be brought forward to-morrow morning? 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


257 


The Moderator. — I have no doubt that it will be. 

The Rev. Prof. Alexander F. Mitchell, of St. Andrews, 
Scotland. — I concur very sincerely in what was said by Dr. 
Cairns, in regard to the desirableness of our drawing closer the 
bonds between us and the Wesleyan Methodists. I have long 
entertained this feeling; and I appreciate the fact, that Presby- 
terianism will never be in the position in which it ought to be in 
England, until it come to an understanding with the Wesleyan 
Methodists. I hope, therefore, that the communication which 
was addressed to us some days ago will be kindly treated, and 
that a kind and Christian answer to it will be returned. But 
there are grave difficulties in the way of sending a deputation 
to London. We have a constitution which requires that new 
methods shall be dealt with in a particular way, and that nothing 
of this kind shall be resolved upon until it has been sent to the 
Churches that constitute the Alliance and is reported upon by 
them. It would be a very grave undertaking, indeed, I think, if 
we were to set aside our own constitution and resolve, off-hand, 
to appoint deputies to represent us in the Councils of any other 
Church. 

The motion to recommit was agreed to ; and Dr. Brownson’s 
amendment was also referred to the committee. 

CONCERNING RULING ELDERS. 

Rev. Dr. Prime. — The Business Committee also recommend 
the adoption of the following resolution : 

Resolved, That a committee be appointed to obtain information 
in regard to the election and ordination of Ruling Elders in the va- 
rious branches of the Presbyterian Church connected with this Gen- 
eral Presbyterian Alliance; the formula .subscribed by such Elders;; 
and the functions and duties pertaining to the office, as set forth in 
the polities, or employed in the usages, of such churches. Said com- 
mittee to consist of Dr. Knox, of Belfast, as convener, to have power 
to add to their number, and to report to the next meeting of the 
Council. 

The Rev. T. W. Chambers, D. D., of New York.— In all for- 
mal papers adopted by this body, the formal title of the body 
should be incorporated. As a matter of convenience, we may 

17 


258 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

speak of the “ General Presbyterian Council,” but the name of 
this Council is that of The Council of the Reformed Churches 
holding the. Presbyterian system.” 

The Moderator. — The chair takes it for granted that there 
is no objection to an amendment of the resolution, so as to make 
it accord with the suggestion just made. 

The resolution was so amended and adopted. 

NEXT PLACE OF MEETING. 

The Rev. Dr. Prime. — I will read a communication which 
was addressed to the Council, and has been considered by the 
committee. It is as follows : 

Philadelphia, Septe77iber 22^, 1880. 

Dear Brethren : The members of the delegation of the Irish 
Presbyterian Church have agreed to invite the Council to hold its 
next meeting in Belfast. Belfast has a population of a quarter of a 
million, and nearly forty Presbyterian Churches. The Irish Church 
is one of the oldest branches of the Presbyterian family. 

If the Council accepts this invitation, the delegates promise in the 
name of their countrymen a cordial welcome. 

Signed in behalf of the delegates, 

Robert Knox, Chairman. 

The Business Committee recommend the selection of Belfast 
as the place for the next meeting of the Council, and that the 
time of the meeting be the year 1884; also that a Committee of 
Arrangements be constituted to appoint the season of the year 
in which the Council shall be held, and to make the necessary 
arrangements for the meeting. 

The report was agreed to unanimously by a rising vote. 

Rev. Dr. Knox. — In the name of the Irish delegation I wish 
most heartily to express our thanks for the vote you have just 
taken. I am particularly gratified with the manner in which the 
resolution has been adopted. We have promised you a cordial 
welcome. I do not think that anything we can say can go any 
further than that. We cannot emulate the magnificent display, 
the courtesies, and the hospitalities, of Edinburgh, the capital of 
British Presbyterianism. We cannot hold out any hope of rival- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


259 


ing the generous enthusiasm of this city of Philadelphia, the 
capital of Presbyterianism in the new world. Why you got up 
on Saturday night, I presume for our special gratification, a dis- 
play of about one hundred thousand Republicans ; and we could 
not promise you a sight like that — nor could we even promise 
you a spectacle of thirty thousand bearers of lights — but we can 
promise you this, as warm hearts to greet you as ever glowed 
in the breasts of men or women. 

Rev. John Jenkins, D. D., LL. D., of Montreal, Canada. — 
I think it is due to the Council that the Business Committee 
should state the reason why the time of meeting has been ap- 
pointed for 1884, instead of three years hence. I have no 
doubt there is a very good reason for it, but I think it is due to 
the Council that the statement should appear. 

The Rev. Dr. S. I. Prime.— There was one reason, among 
others, in the minds of many of the committee which seemed to 
be a decisive one, and that was that the year 1883 had been 
fixed upon as the time for the International Exhibition to be 
held in the city of New York. As that exhibition would 
occupy probably from May until November, and as a large num- 
ber of our friends would desire to be in this country at that time 
who would otherwise go to Ireland, it was agreed to defer the 
meeting until the following year. We propose to go to Ireland, 
when we do go, in great force. 

Rev. Dr. Jenkins.— The reason just stated is a sufficient one, 
and ,I am well pleased that I evoked it. 

CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS: 

The Rev. Philip Schaff, D. D., LL. D., Chairman of the 
Committee on Creeds and Confessions, appointed by the First 
General Council, presented the following report : 

In presenting their report, your committee beg to remind the 
Council, that they were appointed merely to collect information on 
certain specified matters, and “enjoined,” when presenting their 
report, “ not to accompany it with any comparative estimate of the 
creeds and regulations of the different Churches, or with any critical 
remarks on their respective value, expediency, or efficiency.” 


26o 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

By correspondence and otherwise your committee have obtained a 
considerable amount of the wished-for information, which has been 
collected with great care and is of permanent historical value. They 
are as follows : 

Great Britain. 

The Church of Scotland. 

The Free Church of Scotland. 

The United Presbyterian Church. 

The Synod of Original Seceders. 

The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland. 

The Presbyterian Church of England. 

The Calvinistic Methodist Church of Wales. 

' The Irish Presbyterian Church. 

The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland. 

Five hundred copies of the reports, from the above Churches, have 
been printed in Scotland and sent here for distribution among the 
delegates. 

British Colonies. 

The Presbyterian Church of Canada, with reports from its con- 
stituting Churches. 

The Canada Presbyterian Church. 

The Presbyterian Church in Canada. 

The Presbyterian Church in Canada in connection with the 
Church of Scotland. 

The Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia. 

United States. 

The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. 

The Presbyterian Church in the United States. 

The United Presbyterian Church of North America. 

The Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States. 

The Reformed Church in America. 

The Reformed Church in the United States of North America. 
The Welsh Calvinistic Methodist (or Presbyterian) Church. 

France. 

The National Reformed Church of France. 

The Union of the Evangelical Churches. 

The Reformed Evangelical Church of Paris. 

The Evangelical Church ; Rue de Provence. 

The Evangelical Church; Rue St. Maur. 

The Independent Evangelical Church of Vigan. Gord. 

The Free Evangelical Church of St. Hippolyte. Gord. 

The Free Evangelical Church of St. Jean. Gord. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


261 


The Free Evangelical Church of De Verges. Gord. 

The Free Evangelical Church of De Marsillargues. Herault. 
The Evangelical Church of Toulouse. Haut Garonne. 

The Evangelical Church of Bordeaux. Haut Garonne. 

The Evangelical Church of St. Foy. Gironde. 

The Evangelical Church of St. Antoine. Dordogne. 

The Evangelical Church of Clairac. Lot et Garonne. 

The Reformed Evangelical Church of Esperanses. Tarn. 

The Evangelical Church of Cannes. Var. 

The Evangelical Church of Nice. 

The Evangelical Church of Lyon. 

Switzerland. 

The Reformed Church, Canton de Vaud. 

The Evangelical Church of Neuchatel. 

The Reformed Church of Geneva. 

The Reformed Church of Zurich. 

The Reformed Church of Bern. 

The Reformed Church of Basel. 

Austria. 

The Reformed Church in Bohemia. 

The Reformed Church in Moravia. 

The Reformed Church in Hungary. 

Spain. 

The Spanish Christian Church. 

In laying these document before you, we beg leave to suggest, 

1. That the documents be published as an appendix in the volume 
of proceedings. [See Appendix, p. 965.] 

2. That a special committee be appointed to report to this Council 
what further action, if any, shall be taken on the subject of Creeds 
and Confessions. 

Philip Schaff, 
Chairman of the Committee. 

Philadelphia, September 22 d, 1880. 

The report was accepted, and adopted by a unanimous vote. 
Under the second recommendation the following committee 
was appointed : 

The Rev. Principal John Cairns, D. D., of Edinburgh, Scot- 
land, chairman ; the Rev. Prof. Alex. B. Bruce, D. D., of Glas- 
gow ; the Rev. H. A. Nelson, D. D., of Geneva, New York ; the 
Rev. Philip Schaff, D. D., of New York ; the Rev. Prof Alex. F. 
Mitchell, D. D., of St. Andrews, Scotland ; Hon. Wm. Strong, 


262 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

of Washington, D. C. ; A. T. Niven, Esq., of Edinburgh, Scot- 
land j the Rev. Prof Robert Watts, D. D., of Belfast ; the Rev. 
Dr. Jos. R. Wilson, of Wilmington, N. C, and the Rev. Dr. H. 
A. Morris, of Cincinnati. 

Dr. Cairns. — W hile perfectly willing- to serve as a member 
of the committee, I would humbly beg to be excused from 
occupying the prominent place of chairman. I labor under 
such very great disabilities, the chief of which is great occupa- 
tion with other work at the present time, that I am constrained 
to make this request. 

The President. — The chair trusts that Dr. Cairns will not 
insist upon his declination, but will consent to serve. 

Dr. Schaff. — The duties of the committee will probably not 
be very onerous. They will consist simply in collecting infor- 
mation, classifying the same, and laying the results before the 
Council. The committee will not be required, nor will it have 
the right, to criticise the contents of the documents coming into 
its possession. The question which confronts us is whether we 
shall here drop the whole subject or go further into such investi- 
gation as it may seem fit to require. It would be especially 
unfortunate if Dr. Cairns, who is very familiar with this whole 
question, particularly so far as it lies within the Scotch and Eng- 
lish branches of the Alliance at the present time, should decline 
to serve upon the committee. The proposition is simply for a 
committee consisting of leading divines of the Churches com- 
posing this Council to be appointed to prepare a summary of 
the creeds and confessions upon which the Council is professedly 
based. By such information we may be able to know what the 
complexion of the body itself is, and may be able to decide more 
readily than we otherwise could such perplexing questions as 
the one which came up yesterday when a body as to whose 
creed we were not sufficiently informed applied for admission. 
It will be for the committee thus constituted to appoint a per- 
manent chairman, if that may seem desirable. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


263 


The Rev. A. B. Van Zandt, D. D., LL.D., “James Suydam, 
Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology,” of New Brunswick, 
N. J., then read the following paper on 

CREEDS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS TO CREEDS. 

A Creed may be a brief formula to which assent is given in terms 
a “ Credo,' ^ or it may consist in the more extended statements of a 
confession or catechism, as embracing “ res credendce." 

In either case it is an authorized expression of the faith of those by 
whom it is adopted. And when it is adopted as expressing the faith 
of a church, it becomes also a solemn compact or covenant, obliging 
those who thus receive it to abide by the doctrines therein expressed, 
so long as they remain in the communion of that church. 

In this country, where the separation of Church and State is com- 
plete, we recognize no authority in the civil government to impose 
any Creed, however brief or general in its terms or import. Tliere 
are, indeed, certain regulations, municipal and social, based upon the 
principles of the Christian religion, necessary to conserve the rights 
of conscience in the unmolested worship of God, and no less neces- 
sary to good order, which the civil government has a right to estab- 
lish, and is bound to establish, because tins is a Christian nation. 
But it has that right under that grant of power which belongs to it as 
“an ordinance of God,” by his good providence here established as 
the government of a free Christian people, and not by virtue of any 
inherent authority over the faith or consciences of men. 

In all Protestant countries this principle is so far respected, that 
the right of dissent from the creeds of churches established by law, 
though it may entail certain disadvantages, yet remains undisputed. 
But where the binding authority of a creed is founded wholly on as- 
sent to its doctrines, the chief occasion for the fierce controversies of 
an hundred years ago has passed away, and we may hope there has 
also passed with it much of the prejudice against creeds and confes- 
sions to which those controversies gave rise. 

Nevertheless, there are always those who are disposed to decry the 
use of these accepted formulas of the faith, as disparaging to the 
Scriptures, the ready instruments of ecclesiastical t}tanny, restrictive 
of free inquiry, and inimical to theological progress. 

The subject assigned for this paper will lead us, therefore, to con- 
sider — 

I. The necessity and uses of Creeds ; and 

II. The nature and extent of the obligation incurred by subscrip- 
tion to them. 

As against their necessity, the formal principle of Protestantisn'i 
itself, the sufficiency of the Bible as the rule of faith and umpire of 
controversy, has been strenuously urged. It is argued that whilst 
asserting the right of private judgment against the pretensions of 


264 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Romanism, we are conceding to these human compositions all that 
Romanism claims: that we are in fact, though not formally, giving 
them a co-ordinate authority with Scripture, if, indeed, we do not 
sometimes twist and torture Scripture to bring it into conformity with 
our creeds. 

But this objection, like most others, is based upon an entire mis- 
apprehension of the design and use of creeds, as they are regarded 
from a Protestant standpoint. 

We are all agreed that the Scriptures are an infallible guide, an 
ultimate appeal, and that every man is bound to imitate the noble 
Bereans, and to the extent of his ability ‘'search the Scriptures,” in 
settling his convictions of truth. But then it happens, that we are 
not all agreed as to what the Scriptures do actually teach. What 
then ? Two alternatives are before us. We may fall back upon a so- 
called infallible church, and, in the face of palpable contradictions, 
and festering corruptions, accept her decrees as the articulate voice 
of God ; or, we may consent that every man shall be fully persuaded 
in his own mindf and so far as men so persuaded are agreed, we may 
consent that they should also “ walk together by the same rulef fully 
expecting that, in the progressive development of truth, God wull 
bring them into nearer accord, if not by removing all grounds of 
difference, yet by reducing them to those matters concerning which 
men may differ, and yet maintain “the unity of the Spirit, in the 
bonds of peace.” 

This is precisely the difference between Romanism and the princi- 
ple of Protestantism. The one imposes a creed, wuth the appended 
sanction of “Anathema.” The other proposes a creed as a summary 
statement of the teachings of God’s word, and invites investigation. 
With the former the Church, as a hierarchy, is the final arbiter, and 
dissent is damnation. With the latter the Scriptures are the ultimate 
appeal, and whilst the controversy proceeds, each one may be true to 
his own convictions, with kindness and charity towards all who may 
differ from him. 

Which of these alternatives is most consonant with the spirit and 
letter of the gospel it is not difficult to determine. 

2. But now, the objection takes another form, and creeds and con- 
fessions are held to be an implied disparagement of Scripture. Can 
man write in words more intelligible than those which the Holy Spirit 
has indited ? Can we improve upon the perspicuity of God’s own 
word ? Certainly not, and no such presumptuous idea has ever entered 
the mind of any framers of systems or makers of creeds. But since it 
has pleased God to reveal his truth in concrete forms, it certainly is 
permitted to analyze and arrange it in systematic order. Can man 
equal the exquisite productions of nature, when the earth, draped in 
the beauty of spring, rejoices in the exuberance of blossoms and flow- 
ers? But is it therefore an imputation upon the wisdom or works of 
God, that he has left it to human study and skill to classify and 
arrange these voiceless, yet articulate, expressions of his goodness. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


265 


according to their properties and uses ? It is conceded on all hands, 
that there can be no progress in any science without those generaliza- 
tions which embody and embalm the fruits of protracted and toilsome 
investigation. 

Is theology an exception to this universal law ? Is Scripture to be 
interpreted by intuition and without comparison and induction? 
'['he ample fields of nature contain no truths so profound as those 
which revelation has disclosed. Nor in the multitude of its varied 
forms is there a greater necessity for systematic arrangement and set- 
tled definitions, than in the many-sided teachings of the Bible. 

A recent writer has urged that “ we have no detailed and formal 
creed in the Scriptures.” So neither have we any elaborated or de- 
fined science in nature. Because God intended that in every depart- 
ment of truth we should arrive at knowledge by the use of those fac- 
ulties with which he has endowed us as an essential element of that 

image of God ” in which we were created. Hence, from the begin- 
ning truth has been revealed in forms which ofttimes concealed more 
than was disclosed not because it was intended that the unexpressed 
should remain unknown, but become known the more clearly, and be 
felt the more deeply, because wrought out by the laws of our mental 
activity in the mind itself. Thus, the simple record of a fact may 
involve the deepest mysteries of the faith. The most practical of all 
teachings may be grounded upon doctrines the most profound. 

By the opponents of creeds, for example, the Sermon on the Mount 
is often set over against the doctrinal teachings of the epistles. But 
no lips ever uttered truth in more sententious and comprehensive 
forms than may be found in that inimitable discourse. Its opening 
sentence is an epitome of the gospel, not otherwise to be understood 
than in the light of those doctrinal teachings with which it is con- 
trasted. For aside from other Scriptures, who can define that poverty 
of spirit which entitles to the first beatitude, or that “ Kingdom of 

Heaven ” which is its portion ? 

Dispense with those compact statements, in which scattered truth is 
gathered into compendious forms, and the whole work of analysis and 
svnthesis must be done over again by each individual for himself. 
But because unable to do that work, the word of God must remain a 
sealed book, comparatively, to the great mass of mankind. Then, 
too, the Church, unfaithful to her trust, must forego one of her most 
important functions, as keeper and witness of the truth. For if the 
Church has no right to give definite form to ascertained doctrines in 
the symbols of her faith, neither has she the right to proclaim those 
doctrines by any authorized expositions of Scripture. What then In- 
comes of her teaching function, and how are the utterances of the 
pulpit to be distinguished from the out-givings of any self-constituted 
guide who chooses to put forth his vagaries for gospel? In one word, 
the Church, as an organization, could have no existence without some 

defined •standards of doctrine. , • , j 

3. But a third form of the objection to creeds is based upon tneir 
alleged abuses. 


266 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Even those who admit their necessity as declarations of those 
things most surely believed among us,” yet insist that they shall be 
nothing more than mere historical records of the then present faith 
of the Church, or council, from which they emanate. But, it is said, 
once attach to them in any respect or degree, the notion ot authority 
as the expression of ascertained truth, and forthwith they become 
chains to shackle the understanding and repress inquiry. As if the 
Church of God, with the promise of the Holy Spirit to guide her 
into all truth, never yet has been able to ascertain anything, with suf- 
ficient certainty, to write it down as fundamental ! 

It is even urged that the Church cannot put forth any creed as the 
expression of her faith, without thereby exerting an influence un- 
friendly to research, and restrictive of mental freedom. As if mental 
freedom was conditioned upon absolute ignorance, for else thought 
must be governed by knowledge, already acquired ! It is only where 
nothing is known, that speculation is absolutely free. The moment 
a single fact or doctrine is recognized as true, it becomes a factor in 
the problem, and thought must conform itself to this new condition, 
or else our thinking is nothing better than a waking dream. 

Substantially the same reasoning will apply to the objection that 
creeds are inimical to theological progress. There are few forms of 
modern cant more common, or more convenient as a cover to all 
sorts of theological vagaries, than the current phrase, a /progressive 
theology." It is a phrase that carries such an air of life and activity. 
It sounds so broad and liberal, too, especially when put in antithesis 
with “ cast-iron creed" and a petrified orthodoxy," that it may 
easily become the text for many a pungent paragraph in defence of 
heresy. But, like some other sayings which lie along the borders 
between’truth and error, this also, by its ambiguity, maybe appropri- 
ated by opposite parties. In one sense, it may be the intended ex- 
pression of that necessary progress, which is the fruit of the increasing 
knowledge and ripening experience of the Church, as the divine word 
unfolds its treasures in its adaptation to the wants of each successive 
age. In another sense, it may be the accepted apology for that de- 
structive criticism, which would overturn the very foundations of the 
faith, by making human reason to be the judge and measure of trutli, 
and demanding a readjustment of the “oracles of God,” that they 
may accord with whatever philosophy may happen to prevail. 

Progress in theology is indeed a desirable and necessary movement. 
It indicates the life of tlie Church in the closer study and clearer 
apprehension of her charter. It would be a disparagement of Scrip- 
ture to suppose that it contained nothing so definite and fixed as to 
be beyond the vicissitudes of human affiiirs, and the fluctuations of 
human opinion. But as there have been accretions to the Canon of 
Scripture, as God’s purposes were unfolded, so there may be to the 
sum of Christian theology, by the unfolding of new relations of truth, 
under the providence of God. But these accretions must.be, by 
using all previous acquisitions as stepping-stones, to higher and 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


267 


broader apprehensions of the one complete and perfect system. It 
is only within the limitations of this view that we can recognize the 
notion of a “ Progressive Theology.” But to such progress creeds 
and confessions are not hindrances but helps. 

4. But the question is asked, and with an air which implies that its 
answer must conclude against all creeds, “Who shall be our creed- 
makers? ” To this we reply in one word, creeds are not fnade — th-ey 
grow. The manufactured article betrays its origin by a lack of 
vitality, and being “of the earth, earthy” it soon passes away. 
Every creed which has been accepted as a symbol of a historical 
Church will be found to have been taken up into the faith of that 
Church, long before it was formulated in specific articles. And this 
because creeds are not framed to create a belief, but to express it; 
and this, most commonly, from the necessity for explicit statements 
arising out of the exigencies of controversy. This fact is suggestive 
as bearing upon the somewhat pronounced modern demand for creed 
revisions. There can be no yielding to such a demand until a Church 
has already fallen away from its accepted symbols, or new questions 
have arisen of such vital importance that an explicit deliverance on 
them can no longer be avoided. 

II. But a more difficult question remains to be considered. Many 
who accept creeds as necessary expositions of doctrine, yet differ 
widely as to the nature and extent of the obligation incurred, by sub- 
scription. The question, how far a man is bound to conformity by 
subscription to the creed of his Church, is one of every-day prac- 
tical importance. 

It is sufficiently obvious that on this question extremes are to be 
avoided. But the discovery and adjustment of the golden mean is 
not so easy. It is against the whole Spirit of our Protestantism and 
would be ruinous to any Church to insist upon unqualified assent to 
every sentence and clause of an extended confession; but it is no less 
contrary to good faith and honest dealing to profess acceptance of a 
creed or confession, and yet hold one’s self at liberty to rejept and 
contradict whatever in it does not accord with one’s own opinions. 
Where then shall the line be drawn at which liberty becomes license? 
What is the criterion by which to distinguish an honest subscription 
from a disingenuous evasion ? Who is to decide what may or may 
not be excepted from the obligation of an ex-animo conformity ? 

For meeting the difficulties thus suggested, two methods have been 
proposed. 

First, to simplify the creed, until it shall express only the essentials 
of the Christian life. Second, so to modify the form of subscription, 
that it shall involve no obligation of conformity to details, or expla- 
nations of doctrine. 

The first method is, in effect, a giving up of the whole controversy, 
by reducing the creed to such narrow limits and general terms, as to 
defeat all the purposes for which creeds exist. 

The second method would equally destroy the value of subscription. 


268 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


as a test of doctrine, or a protection against error. The formula of 
subscription ^'‘for substance of doctrine^' may be g. relief to a scrupu- 
lous conscience, or it may also be a convenient refuge from the un- 
welcome pressure of an orthodox creed. The phrase itself is too 
indefinite and ambiguous to fix a man’s theological status, or the 
position of a Church in which such a form of subscription prevails. 

It is not, then, by reducing creeds to the brevity of a few undefined 
general articles, nor yet by modifying the terms of subscription so as 
to destroy all the significance and value of the act, that we are to 
avoid the extreme of a too rigid enforcement of the obligations of an 
accepted creed. In point of fact, that extreme is seldom reached, 
and in these days the danger in that direction is rather a theoretical 
possibility, than a matter of actual apprehension. Ecclesiastical mar- 
tyrdom now lies oftener in the path of those who insist upon the 
obligations of an honest subscription. 

The truth is, that where creeds are not imposed but accepted, the 
practical difficulties of subscription recede almost to the vanishing 
point. A man is not obliged to confess in the words of a creed which 
does not express the faith that is in him. But to whatever creed he 
does confess, thereto he is bound until lawfully discharged from that 
obligation. Moreover he is bound to that confession not with indefi- 
nite reservations, but ex-animo^ and in the historical and commonly 
received meaning of its articles, as held by the Church whose creed 
it is. If he has scruples or doubts concerning this or that paragraph, 
or proposition, it is for the authority requiring the confession to 
decide whether these excepted propositions are necessary to the integ- 
rity of the creed, as a system of doctrines. An honest man will 
make these scruples known in limine^ and he will always find provision 
made for their due consideration. He will find, too, that their 
treatment is liberal and generous: more generous sometimes to the 
individual than just to the denomination represented. 


The" Rev. Talbot W. Chambers, D. D., of New York, read 
the following paper on 

BIBLE REVISION. 


1. It is Needed. 

2. Has Improved Text. 

3. A Proper Origin. 

4. Unsectarian. 

5. International. 

6. Unhampered. 


7. Conservative, 

8. Uniform, 

9. Deliberate. 

10. Reverential. 

11. Optional. 

12. Conclusion. 


The authorized version was first printed in 161 1, and in the course of 
a single generation succeeded in displacing all its rivals and in becom- 
ing the acknowledged English representative of the original Scriptures. 
This position it has maintained until the present time. Yet during 
the last two centuries many attempts have been made to alter or to 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


269 


supersede it in whole or in part, both by individuals and by companies 
of men, and no small amount of time and pains has been employed in 
these efforts. None of them, however, has succeeded. Neither the 
character nor position of their authors, nor the degree of learning, 
judgment and taste they have displayed was able to give these 
amended versions anything more than a partial and temporary circu- 
lation. They soon passed into entire oblivion, or were consulted only 
by scholars, while the old book daily acquired a stronger hold upon 
the confidence and affection of English-speaking Christians. Hence 
many have been led to believe that it would be always impossible to 
make a change, and when they point to the unbroken experience of 
two hundred and fifty years, it seems hard to resist their conclusion. 
Yet an organized effort for a thorough revision has now been carried 
on for ten years, and so far as the New Testament is concerned, has 
nearly finished its work. Nor is there any doubt that within a few 
years the Old Testament will in like manner be completed. 

Will it succeed? That is, will it gain popular favor, and in the 
course of time supplant the existing Bible, so as to be recognized by 
different lands and variant communions as the proper English expres- 
sion of God’s most holy word? Of course such a question cannot be 
decided in advance, the wisest of men not having the gift of 
prophecy. Yet there are several circumstances which encourage a 
favorable view of the prospect. The object of this paper is to set forth 
these with as much fullness as our limits permit. . 

I. The work is Needed. The excellence of the authorized version 
is very great, as is shown by the fact of its early, wide-spread and long- 
continued acceptance by those for whom it was made, and by the 
result of a careful comparison with any other version, ancient or mod- 
ern. Still it is not perfect, nor so nearly perfect as it might be, as 
may be seen by turning the pages of any even moderately critical 
commentary, where every chapter shows corrections judged necessary 
in order to bring out fully and fairly the sense of the original. This 
fact is not owing to any want of learning in King James’s translators 
(as has sometimes been ignorantly said), or to dogmatic prejudices or 
party spirit. They were among the most learned men of a learned 
age, and represented among themselves all the phases of Protestant 
faitii which then prevailed in England. But many of the most valu- 
able and helpful of the ancient versions of the Scriptures were inaccess- 
ible to them, and others were possessed only in a very uncritical and 
unsatisfactory form. And they labored under other disadvantages 
peculiar to the period in which they lived. The science of Biblical 
criticism was unknown ; and modern philology had only begun that 
advance which has been so extraordinary. Sacred geography and 
archaeology were in their infancy and lexicogiaphy was far from the 
rigidly scientific form it has of late assumed. And there were very 
few severely critical commentaries. It was, therefore, not possible m 
the nature of things for the men of that day, however learned or acute 
or pious, to make as exact a determination of the meaning of the 


270 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Hebrew and Greek as is at the present time within the reach of much 
inferior men. To deny this, is to deny that arly actual benefit has 
accrued to exegetical knowledge from the labors of scores upon scores 
of scholars throughout Christendom prosecuted for generations in the 
zealous search for truth. Moreover, the changes of our language, 
although less obvious than in any other book of the same period, are 
still many and sometimes annoying, so that King James’s version is 
by no means to us what it was to its first readers. Some words have 
become obsolete, and others have altered their meaning, in several 
instances (such as “let,” “ by and bye,” etc.), so much so as to signify 
the exact opposite of what they once expressed. These archaisms are 
not offensive to the scholar, because they are at once understood by 
him, and are interesting in themselves as memorials of a past age; but 
to the common reader they are unintelligible and therefore injurious, 
making the Bible an unknown book, or what is worse, misrepresenting 
its meaning. 

It is apparent, then, that there is a real and not a fancied need in the 
case. The English Bible should represent the present state of the 
language, and the present stage of critical and exegetical investigation. 
The ordinary reader should be placed as far as possible on a level with 
the scholar in consulting its pages, at least so far as that end can be 
reached by accurate and idiomatic translation, and especially in the 
numerous cases in which there is substantial agreement among the 
learned, both as to the incorrectness of the common version and as to 
the way in which the proper correction should be made. 

2 . The revision will be based upon an Lnproved Text. The text 
employed by King James’s translators was derived from few manu- 
scripts and those of late date, and abounds with admitted imperfec- 
tions. These it has been the province of Biblical criticism to discover 
and remove, and for centuries the labors of learned men have been 
devoted to this end. It is estimated that there are about four hun- 
dred cases in which the sense of a passage is affected by the reading 
that is taken ; but comparatively only a few are important. Still it is 
desirable that we should have as pure a text as possible, and the com- 
mon reader should have a reasonable assurance that the book- he reads 
is free from corruptions. An immaculate text is of course out of the 
question. But critical helps have become so abundant that in a major- 
ity ^of cases men are able to conclude with a good degree of confidence 
what was originally written. The revision will exhibit therefore what, 
in the concurrent judgment of its authors, is the nearest possible 
approach to the very words which holy men of old used in declaring 
the will of God. Some have opposed the movement on this very 
ground, claiming that the matter is still too uncertain for any such 
course, a,nd that the part of wisdom is to wait for further light. But 
considering what has been done in this field, what rich materials have 
been gathered, how carefully the comparative value of authorities has 
been estimated, how far the principles of textual criticism have become 
settled, and how general is the agreement of the ablest critics on the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


271 


more important questions, there is small reason for apprehending any 
discoveries in the future which will throw the past into the shade. 
The most interesting and momentous recovery of the present century 
was the Sinaitic manuscript, and too much credit can hardly be given 
to its discoverer and editor, Tischendorf; yet the chief use of that 
])recious uncial has been not so much to furnish new readings of any 
])ortion of the text, as to give evidence in favor of one or other of the 
readings already known, and occasionally where the existing evidence 
was balanced, to add enough to turn the scale. 

It is reasonable, therefore, to suppose that little could be gained by 
delay. Something no doubt may be acquired in the course of the 
next century. But meanwhile it is surely of profit to use what has 
already been settled, and to make our Bible represent in some degree 
at least the achievements of modern Biblical criticism. In the main 
body of the work the requisite corrections can be introduced, while 
in all the more important cases a statement of the rival text can be 
added in the margin where it is of equal or nearly equal value. In 
this way the unlearned reader may be taught how the case stands in 
any given passage, and can have upon it the opinion of a large num- 
ber of British and American scholars. In many cases he will be saved 
from the danger of taking the mere mistakes of transcribers for the 
words of evangelists and apostles, or even of our Lord himself, while 
in others he will discern a new beauty and vigor in the turn given to 
an important utterance by the alteration or addition of a very few 
words. He may regret to part with passages such as the well-known 
text of the Three Witnesses in i John ; but the loss will be abundantly 
compensated by gains in other directions. 

3. The Origin of the enterprise will commend it to public favor. 
Previous efforts in the same direction have been due to individuals, 
or to small companies of men acting without any official or ecclesiastical 
sanction. Hence they were naturally regarded with distrust, and 
often failed to secure the degree of attention to which their merits 
entitled them. In the present instance the source of the movement 
challenges, not to say commands, universal respect. It comes from 
the larger of the two provinces of the Church of England, the eldest 
daughter of the Anglican Reformation and the lineal descendant of 
the devout and learned scholars who came together at the call of 
King James. The way had been prepared by numerous discussions 
in bogks and periodicals, and the conviction was gradually diffusing 
itself among the reflecting upon both sides of the Atlantic, that the time 
had come for a new and thorough revision of the English Scriptures. 
Still there was hesitation and uncertainty as to the mode of procedure, 
and it was not obvious at a glance who should assume the initiative. 
At this juncture the Convocation of Canterbury took the matter up, 
and after due deliberation settled upon a plan of action marked with 
great wisdom and a very catholic spirit. Then it became apparent 
that a great point had been gained, for, although the Convocation of 
York declined to co-operate, still the enterprise had a sanction of the 


272 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


highest character, one that precluded at the outset any idea of local, 
petty, or selfish aims, and gave assurance that whatever was done would 
be of such a nature as to merit the most careful and candid considera- 
tion. Of course no one supposes that all wisdom on this subject is 
confined to the province of Canterbury; but it is undeniable that the 
])osition, prestige and relations of the Convocation of that province 
make it the most fitting of all religious bodies in English-speaking 
Christendom, to inaugurate a work of such difficulty, delicacy and 
importance. And when the revisers, whether British or American, 
are asked by what authority they assumed the duty they have taken 
upon them, they are able to give a very prompt and satisfactory 
answer. It is not strange, therefore, that the Christian public give to 
the effort far more attention than has ever been shown to any like 
undertaking in former years, and are disposed to anticipate a favora- 
ble issue. And this the more because, while the revision originated ^ 
in the Church of England, its execution is by no means confined to 
that branch of the Church catholic. On the contrary every pre- 
caution has been used to render it — 

4. Unsectarian. Members of all the leading bodies of Protestant 
Christians have been invited to take part in the work, and are found 
cordially and actively co-operating in its accomplishment. Church- 
man and Dissenter, Prelatist and Presbyterian, Independent and 
Methodist, Baptist and Psedobaptist, the Anglican, the Lutheran and 
the Reformed, they who emphasize divine sovereignty, and they who 
put the stress on human freedom, they who see only unity in the God- 
head, and they who recognize plurality as welPas unity, appear alike 
in the lists of the men employed. However widely differing in other 
respects they agree in regarding the Bible as God’s most holy word, 
the one rule of religious faith, the one norm of human duty ; and 
their single aim is to make the version the most exact reflection pos- 
sible of the thought, the spirit and the expression of the original. 
Their work, therefore, cannot bear the stamp of a sect or party. It 
will not be colored by the views of any particular school. In its 
freedom from scholastic or denominational prejudices it will resemble, 
or even excel, the noble simplicity of the authorized version. I say 
excel, for even that great work was tinged, no doubt, unconsciously, by 
the familiarity of its authors with the Latin Vulgate ; but in the pres- 
ent case the concurrent action of so many revisers of different names 
is a security, that even accidental error of this kind will be guarded 
against, and that whatever other faults may be found, there will be 
none due to sectarian bias. If this be so, the revision will retain 
what has long been the glory of the authorized version — that it was 
the one bond of union among all Protestant Christians, and the com- 
mon standard of their faith. It is quite true that there will be some 
disappointment. Corrections of the text, or amendments of the trans- 
lation, will occasionally deprive a controversialist of some passages to 
which he has been accustomed to appeal in support of his particular 
views, and he will feel like a man whose supporting staff has suddenly 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


273 


been wrenched from his hand. But it is likely that what is lost in 
one direction will be regained in another, or even if this be not so, 
the evil will not be confined to any one class, but extended to all; so 
that in the general result each man will find himself as well able to 
establish his own views from the revision as he was from the authorized 
version. In any event he will be sure that whatever disadvantage he 
may suffer is not from any intentional obliquity on the part of the 
revisers. 

5. The International feature of the work is another ground of en- 
couragement. The enterprise was begun beyond sea in 1870, but in 
the next year an American committee of co-operation was organized ; 
and, since 1872, the two committees have been at work in constant 
correspondence with each other, having the same principles and pur- 
suing the same objects. The advantage of this arrangement is obvious. 
It gives the American people a direct participation in the authorship 
of the work, so that, when completed, it will not come to them bur- 
dened with any prejudice, as the sole product of a foreign land. On 
the contrary, America will be able to welcome it as a re-revision, in 
the preparation of which its own children have borne an honorable 
and useful part; for it cannot be in vain that from twenty to thirty 
additional laborers have been engaged in the work, and the less so, as 
the joint conclusions of one committee have constantly been com- 
pared with those of the other. In this way, the workings of different 
minds, and repeated revisions of the results obtained, have greatly 
diminished the chances of error. Indeed, the larger the number of 
persons employed, provided they have opportunity to meet and com- 
pare their results, the less the likelihood of their work being dis- 
figured by one-sided views or individual caprice. It is true that this 
advantage of personal conference has been purchased on our side of 
the water at the cost of limiting the selection of revisers to those per- 
sons whose residence was within easy reach of New York, where the 
.sessions of the committee are held, thus excluding not a few scholars 
whose co-operation would have been very desirable. Still, the gain 
has been worth its cost. 

The international character of the revision has been an advantage 
also in respect to the language employed. There are found in Britain 
and America certain differences of usage which obtain among all 
classes, even the most cultivated. For example, the word corn here 
always denotes maize, but in Great Britain it is used as precisely 
equivalent to what we call grain. In all such cases, it lies with the 
American committee to bring forward the fact of the variant usage, 
so that, if possible, ambiguities may be avoided, and a version secured 
which shall express the same thing to the British and the American 
reader. In the case of those words in which one usage must be 
sacrificed to the other, it is not easy to say beforehand which should 
give way; but it is certain that, whatever conclusion is reached, it will 
not be through ignorance of opposing claims, or lack of due consid- 
eration. The interests of the fifty millions on this side of the Atlantic 
18 


274 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


will not be lightly disregarded; nor, on the other hand, will the heir- 
looms of the language, as preserved in the country of its birth, be 
surrendered without reason. Of course, entire satisfaction to both 
parties is hardly to be expected, but it is certain that no effort will be 
spared to do justice to all claims. And if this can be made apparent 
to the impartial observer, he will be inclined to welcome a revision 
which is not.only undenominational, but also international, and suited 
for every meridian around the globe where the English language is 
spoken. 

6. The work of the revisers is Unhampered in every respect. The 
translators of the authorized version were restricted by authority in 
regard to certain terms which had become consecrated by long usage. 
No such restriction is laid upon the persons now engaged. The 
entire volume, from beginning to end, is put before them, and they 
are at liberty to use their best judgment in relation to every part of it, 
including the text, the division of the parts, and the marginal render- 
ings. I'hey are expected to study the versions ancient and modern, 
and especially the various English translations; but ultimately the 
inspired original is to be the guide, and the first requisite in all cases 
is fidelity. The revisers are responsible to God, and not to any man 
or set of men ; nor have they any concern with consequences, as to 
the way in which the revisions may affect any Church or party. 
Their duty is to put the reader in possession of the truest, fairest, 
most idiomatic English expression of the living oracles. They need 
call no man master, nor bear allegiance to any school or tradition. 
They work in no fetters of any kind, and are dependent only upon 
that good Spirit, without whose influence no permanent service can 
be rendered to the cause of truth. This fact will give weight to the 
final result, since it will be regarded as the conclusion of various 
minds working independently on the same great theme, and at last, 
by free conference, coming to a representation in which all can 
heartily unite. This, indeed, is no guarantee against the existence 
of any error, but it certainly does cut off what, in all previous trans- 
lations of the Scripture, has been a fruitful source of imperfection, 
and sometimes an impassable barrier against any improvement. 

7. Yet the revision is Conseri'ative. With all its freedom from ar- 
bitrary restrictions, it is a revision, and not a new translation, of the 
Bible. It gladly accepts as its basis the authorized version, whose 
excellencies are so many and so great; and it has for its fundamental 
principle the rule to make no change except such as is required by 
conscientious fidelity to the original. And when such change is made, 
it is to be, as far as possible, in the language of the period when our ver- 
.sion appeared. It would be proper to adopt this course as a mere 
matter of policy; for no thoroughly new translation, no matter how 
skilfully made, could ever expect to supersede a book so dear to the 
hearts of the people, and so enshrined in precious memories az the 
old Bible. Every such attempt is foredoomed to failure. But even 
if this were not the case, if the book stood only upon its intrinsic 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


275 


merits, without regard to any ancestral recollections, the proper 
course would still be the same. For, by common consent, the lan- 
guage of King James’ version is wholly unequalled in its simplicity, 
strength, ease, elegance, and rhythm. It has long been a standard of 
grave and reverend sp3ech, compelling the admiration even of those 
who had no sympathy with its contents or its aim. No improvement 
here is deemed desirable, or even possible. The aim, .therefore, of 
the revision is to leave untouched all that makes the glory and attrac- 
tiveness of the existing Bible, and only to remove the defects which 
have in any way arisen, whether from original oversight; or from the 
imperfect state of criticism and exegesis at the time; or from the grad- 
ual changes to which every living tongue is liable. The plan, there- 
fore, is conservative, in the best sense of the term, retaining all that 
ought to be retained, and amending only what imperatively requires 
amendment. The mew book will produce no unpleasant jar in the 
reader or hearer, since, in form and tone and rhythm, it will be the - 
same as the old, and the two can be used side by side without incon- 
venience. The only difference will be that corrections and explana- 
tions, in which the majority of the learned now agree, will be put 
i ito the text instead of being left to be made by the oral exposition 
of the pulpit, or by the innumerable printed helps and commentaries 
which are to be found everywhere. The same guarantee against any 
extravagance in this direction, is the fact, that among the rules, laid 
d 3 wn for the revisers, is one which requires that in the final action of 
the committee no change from the common version shall be carried, 
u.ilcss by a vote of two-thirds. 

8. Tiie Revised Bible will be distinguished by its Uniformity., In 
this respect the authorized is sadly deficient. In many cases the same 
proper name is spelled in two or even three different ways,, and 
the reader is bewildered if not seriously led astray. Or, again, the 
same Hebrew or Greek word is variously rendered when there. is no 
reason, rhetorical or logical, for the variation, and sometimes when 
the force or the elegance of the passage depends upon the preserving 
of uniformity. This is owing partly to the fact that King James’ re- 
vision was executed by six different companies, whose results were not 
carefully co-ordinated ; partly to the feeling of the translators, that 
identity of words would ‘‘savor more of curiosity than of wisdom 
and somewhat, also, to their habit of following the preceding revis- 
ions made at different times, and by different persons, in regard to 
proper names and old ecclesiastical terms. All this is changed in the 
newTevision. The aim of its authors is so to regulate the work as 
neither to confound things that differ, nor to create differences where 
they do not exist. They therefore seek in all cases where anything 
depends upon the matter, to render a Hebrew or Greek word by the 
.same English term, and, if possible, not to employ one English vord 
to render two different words of the original. If this be successfully 
carried out, an English concordance will be far more trustworthy than 
it now is or can be, for it will enable the unlearned reader to trace 


THE PRESBYTERIAlN ALLIANCE. 


276 

the history and use of a word with great certainty. The revisers are 
the more likely to accomplish this because, instead of being divided 
into six com])anies, they are divided into only two — one intrusted 
with all the Old Testament, the other with all the New. Thus, the 
same men critically examine the entire Hebrew or Greek text, and 
are enabled continually to watch the process of the revision, and see 
that uniformity of phrasing is maintained, unless there be good rea- 
.son for a contrary course. Besides, having before them the author- 
ized version, and the long train of criticisms to which it has been 
subjected^on this ground, they will be the better able to guard against 
a similar error in their own work. Even in this way they may not 
attain perfect exactness ; but, beyond doubt, they will make a very 
near approach to it, and thus greatly facilitate the efforts of the mere 
English reader in ascertaining the mind of the Spirit. 

9. The revision will be the result of Mature Deliberation. King 
James’ Bible occupied between six and seven years in its preparation. 
For the revision, ten years were originally allowed, but it has become 
evident that this is not enough, and it is now likely that it will be 
fifteen years before the entire work is finished. Some have com- 
plained of the delay, and consider it a great trial of public patience; 
but reflecting people will hardly join in this opinion. In a mat- 
ter qf so great importance, so far-reaching in its influence, not only 
in, English-speaking Christendom, but beyond it, the least excusable 
of all faults would be hasty and superficial treatment. There must be 
thorough study, patient thought, large research, and careful compari- 
son of views. The work must not only be based upon sound princi- 
ples and governed by judicious rules, but must be carried out with 
conscientious diligence and painstaking care. Less than this could 
not be endured for a moment. To supplant a book which has been 
venerated by high and low for nearly three centuries, and has entered 
into the heart and life of the people as no other volume has ever done, 
is not a thing to be accomplished on short notice or by a sudden burst 
of enthusiasm. So grave a procedure requires the utmost caution 
that no source of information be neglected, that no error fail to be 
guarded against, and that in every case the best rendering be adopted. 
Things which in the translation of other books would be of small im- 
portance here assume very great magnitude, because the matter in 
hand is the word of God — that word through which we are saved and 
by which we are to be judged. The great artist laboring for immor- 
tality excused himself on that ground for giving attention to what 
to others seemed trifles. Much more must all they who are engaged 
on what is the revelation of the infinite I am spare no pains to render 
the version perfect in all respects. They may not succeed, but this 
is the end they seek. And the conviction that such a spirit has ani- 
mated the present revisers, and that in consequence everything they 
offer has been patiently pondered with all the aid that could be gotten 
from any quarter, will go far to win a favorable reception of their 
work at the hands of the Christian public. For no other revision has 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


277 


had anything like the amount of time and labor expended upon it 
which has been lavished upon this work on both sides of the Atlantic, 
both in the individual studies of its authors and in their joint meet- 
ings for conference. 

10. The spirit in which the work has been conducted Reverential. 
It has been a recognized canon of criticism that in order properly to 
exj)ound any book a man must be in sympathy with its design and 
spirit ; otherwise, he will go hopelessly astray, however well qualified 
he may be in other respects. And this is equally true in the matter 
of translation. The cold or indifferent translator will transfuse his 
own feelings into his work, while on the contrary he who is profoundly 
impressed with the dignity and preciousness of his task, and whose 
soul is responsive to the matter with which he deals, becomes alive to 
even its minutest peculiarities, catches almost without effort its domi- 
nant tone, and reproduces the foreign original in a faithful counter- 
part. It is this more than any other one trait that gave to Luther 
and Tyndale their matchless skill and enduring pre-eminence as trans- 
lators of the Bible. Their whole hearts were in the work as one iden- 
tified with the glory of God and the good of man ; and their devout 
and reverential spirit impressed itself upon their pages. It is humbly 

’claimed that the present revisers share largely in this important quali- 
fication. They have no fellowship wfith the disposition which of late 
years has appeared, among some who profess and call themselves 
Christians, to speak lightly of the Scriptures as a partial or imperfect 
record of revelation, and to lessen the force with which the Book lays 
hold of man’s mind and conscience. On the contrary, they address 
themselves to their work with humility and awe as having to do with 
that which is of all things most sacred. They may have different 
theories of inspiration, but to them the Bible, the whole Bible, is the 
word of God, and as such separated by an immeasurable interval from 
every other book. Its constituent parts, therefore, are handled wfith 
tenderness and solicitude. There is no temptation to engage in haz- 
ardous speculations or seek after startling novelties, but the one thing 
to do is to render the meaning of Scripture accessible to the humblest 
reader in a form not inconsistent with its transcendent dignity and 
importance. The whole treatment is reverential, aiid the changes 
introduced are in exact consistency wfith this feeling. Recognizing 
the simplicity and majesty of the old version, they seek to perpetuate 
the same in the revision and to have the book in form and tone suited 
to the high and holy character of Him by whom it w^as given to men. 
They trust, therefore, that the devout reader will never be needlessly 
shocked at anything in the tone of the revised Bible, but find it still 
the same ‘-'sacred thing which doubt has never dimmed and contro- 
versy never soiled.” 

11. The adoption of it is Optional alike wiMi individuals and 
churches. This was the case with King James’ '’ersion. On the title 
page of that book it is said to be “Appointed to be read in churches; ” 
but no authority for this statement is known to exist. No one has 


278 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


ever shown an edict of Convocation, or an act of Parliament, or a deci- 
sion of the Privy Council, or a proclamation of the King, to this effect. 
The work was left to win its way by its own merits, without physical 
or moral coercion in its behalf. So it will be with the Revision. Its 
authors have no power to enforce its use; nor would they use such 
power did they possess it. They will send it forth to pass under the 
judgment of the great Christian public from whose oiiinion there is 
no appeal. The scholars of the land will determine whether it has 
made the English Bible a more accurate and faithful interpretation 
of the original Hebrew and Greek, and the body of the peojile will 
decide whether it retains the gravity, ease, and idiomatic .strength of 
the older version. Both parties will be left to settle these points by 
observation and experience ; and there will be, as indeed there can be, 
no endeavor to forestall these decisions before they are made or to 
re.erse them afterward. The question is one that belongs exclusively 
to the Church at large as an inalienable prerogative. This being un- 
derstood, there is nothing to prejudice the minds of men ; and they 
can come to their conclusion on the merits of the case. 

If they find that there is a gain over the old version in accuracy, in 
vigor, in uniformity, and at the same time no loss in simplicity, dig-^ 
nity and idiomatic purity, they will certainly give it the preference 
both in the closet and the pulpit ; but if after trial they are con- 
strained to say, the old is better," then the labor and expense of 
the revision will appear to have been thrown away, excepting so far 
as they may benefit an in<!ividual here or there, or prepaVe the way 
for some more prosperous effort in the far distant future. But the 
question must be decided upon its merits, and it will be vain to at- 
tempt to settle it upon any other ground. The interest of the Chris- 
tian people of Britain and America in the word of God is too serious 
and deep-seated to allow them to be influenced by extraneous consid- 
erations. Whatever thej finally conclude to be the most faithful and 
accurate expression, in our tongue, of the lively oracles of God, will 
surely gain their suffrages and become their hand-book for daily and 
devotional use. Proving all things, they will hold fast that which is 
good. 

12. Such are the considerations which render it likely that the at- 
tempt will succeed, and the revision take the place of the authorized 
version. But it is very certain that this change cannot be effected 
speedily. The time-honored book, which so long has been every- 
where accepted as the English Bible, and which has been hallowed 
by so many venerable and precious associations, will not be lightly 
relinquished. The great majority of the adult ])eoi)le of the j>resent 
generation will doubtless cling to the volume in the use of which they 
have grown up, and even if unable to answer the arguments offend 
in favor of the revision, will simply say that they are too old io 
change. Nor need these be harshly judged. The feeling wiiich 
prompts such an utterance is not superstition and obstinacy, but 
rather the offspring of a sentiment that is praiseworthy — one that 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


279 


cherishes old associations and feels peculiarly drawn to what has been 
endeared to men, in their deepest experiences alike of joy and sorrow 
as a euide, monitor, comforter and friend. But the case is different 
with the younger portion of the community. They will have grown 
up with the knowledge that the present version w'as considered luv 
perfect and that deliberate measures had been taken to provide some- 
• thinir better. They will thus be prepared to consider the matter 
more impartially when the work is done, and to yield as soon as they 
shall be convinced that the changes made are for the better, and not 
for the worse. The case will be stronger with those who come after 
them ; for these will have had the old and the new before thern from 
the beginning, and will therefore have no prepossessions which can- 
not easily be ^removed. If then the revisers have accomplished what 
they expected and attempted ; if they have removed existing ob- 
scurities and infelicities without introducing any of their 
have put the English reader in possession ol the chief imp,.rtant re- 
mits o^f modern scholarship, and yet retained the warp and the ""oof of 
the common version ; then may it be expected that, in the couree of a 
generation, the same result will be reached as was seen in the days of 
King James, and the revision will quietly take the place of its pre- 
decessor in the closet, the school, and the pulpit. It will become tl e 
universal standard ; and men will wonder why so great an aid and 
comfort in the acquisition of biblical knowledge was not attained at 

^^Sttn'^oU'ou'ree, it is possible that a contrary result may follow; and 
in regard to that it may be safely said that if the present effor to 
amend the English Bible should fail, it hardly seems possible that 
anv other should ever succeed. When one considers the peculiar 
auJpices under which this is prosecuted, the respectability of its 
origin the moderation of its aims, the catholic character of ts 
authors the cordial union of the two countries chiefly concerned, the 
number and reputation of the scholars employed, the pains that have 
e^n taken and the time that has been employed, it may well lie 
indfred that such a combination of favorable circumstances is not 
l ew to occur again, and if it should, would still give no more rea- 
son to expect a successful result than there is now. The 
this attenmt would therefore be tantamount to saying either that the 
T.' i cK Tdhle is SO good that it does not need any amendment, or 
Uiat there is not sufficient learning and wisdom in the modern Church 
o make the requisite amendments in an acceptable manner. Painfu 
Is such a conclusion would be, it would be welcome as a guard against 
as such a conci ^ present. It would prevent the waste of any 

any future eff - 1 endeavor after an impossibility ; 

an^inidequate and somewhat antiquated version of the Book of book . 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


2 So 

The President. — It Jiad been - arranged on the programme 
that the paper next tor be presented should be read after, not 
before, the usual intermission for the day ; but, owing to the 
great pressure of subjects to come before the Council, it has 
been considered by the Business Committee as advisable, with 
the consent of the author of the paper, that it should now be 
presented. 

The Rev. Prof. Edward D. Morris, D. D., of Cincinnati, 
Ohio, therefore read the following paper on 

PRESBYTERIANISM AND EDUCATIOxN. 

Romanism trains: Protestantism educates. Romanism cloisters 
learning : Protestantjsm utilizes and diffuses knowledge. Romanism 
disciplines a class : Protestantism develops and educates the people. 
'Hie training of Romanism has in view the advancement and exalta- 
tion of the Church : Protestant education seeks the welfare of human- 
ity. Romish discipline tends to isolate, narrow, specialize its sub- 
ject : the education of Protestantism broadens, fraternizes, ennobles 
its possessors. The training of Rome crystallizes itself in the monas- 
tiry, gray and secluded : Protestant education finds its best expression 
in the college and the common school. 

'Fhese relations of Protestantism generically to education are the 
direct outgrowth of its doctrinal and spiritual position. What has 
l)een styled the formal principle of the Reformation — the right and 
duty of personal study and personal interpretation of the Scriptures — 
('arries with it as a certain consequence, immediately the religious, 
but ultimately universal education. The Protestant scheme could 
maintain itself in the high place it had assumed, only through the 
lifting up of the people intellectually ; its diffusion, and even its ex- 
istence, depending upon such enlargement of mental capacity, such 
increase of knowledge, general as well as religious, in the men and the 
races whom it sought to deliver alike from spiritual and from intel- 
lectual thraldom. Hence the spontaneous interest in the mental 
cultivation of all classes, which manifested itself from the beginning 
wherever the Reformation prevailed ; hence the rise of philosophy, 
the growth of science, the spread of popular intelligence among the 
Protestant portions of Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries; hence that general quickening and exaltation of human 
life, in every aspect, which in such high degree now characterize 
Protestant as distinguished from Papal nations. To ascribe these 
historic results to the native capacities of the Saxon or the Celtic mind, 
or to the action of geographic or climatic causes, or to the accidents 
of civil development or political struggle, is simply one of those 
delusive generalizations in which the materializing philosophy of the 
day so frequently betrays its own weakness. The grand central 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


281 


agency which has wrought out these intellectual results, as the history 
of the past three centuries is certifying, must he found rather in what 
Protestantism was from the first, as a spiritual form of faith; and in 
what Protestantism, moved by an interior necessity, first introduced 
into European thought and European life. 

In the more limited theme now to be considered, the term Presby- 
terianism may be regarded as indicating not merely a specific type of 
Protestant belief or polity, or a special variety of religious experience 
or development, but rather a certain concrete element in the grand 
composite of historic Protestantism — an element characterized gener- 
ally by definite peculiarities in faith and structure, and representing 
itself in a series of Churches largely alike in doctrine, spirit, organiza- 
tion, influence. Taking the correlated term, Education., in its broadest 
.sense as including substantially the entire intellectual development of 
men, we may regard the theme assigned as including three successive 
inquiries : What are the special relations subsisting between this Pres- 
byterianism and such education ? What have been the practical 
manifestations or evidences of this relationship in the history of the 
Presbyterian Churches? What are the ])rominent duties which such 
a relationship and such a history are imposing on the Presbyterianism 
of our time? A few brief and casual glances in each of these direc- 
tions must suffice. 

I. What are the special relations existing between Presbyterianism, as 
one division of Protestant Christianity, and that intellectual training 
and development of men which has been broadly titled Education? 

In common with all Protestants we earnestly repel the charge that 
spiritual Christianity has no real interest in such mental development, 
but is the rather inimical to intellectual activity and to human learn- 
ing. In common with all Protestants we earnestly assert that no real 
antagonism exists between such Christianity and either the highest 
forms of science or culture, or the broadest varieties of popular edu- 
cation. In common with all Protestants we maintain rather that 
Christian faith is itself a great teacher; that spiritual growth and 
mental growth are divinely ordained parts of one grand process; that 
moral eWrywhere presupposes or involves intellectual cultivation ; and 
that in fact, a sound acquaintance with the Christian scheme, viewed 
in its varied aspects and relations, is the true source of the finest and 
ripest mental development which our humanity has as yet enjoyed. 
In common with all Protestants we affirm the existence of such deep 
and vital connections between true religion, and both the highest 
and the broadest education ; and declare our earnest conviction that 
what God has thus joined together, man ought never to put asunder. 

Yet as Presbyterians we seem to feel ourselves in some special sense 
and measure committed to these high positions. Not only do we 
hold with all Protestants that the largest possible develojiment of men 
intellectually is to be diligently sought in order to their more com- 
plete acceptance of the gospel as it is in Christ ; we desire such de- 
velopment also under a special conviction that it is only as men are 


282 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

thus cultivated mentally that they are likely to embrace the grand 
truths of grace in those forms and connections whicn we regard as 
hi<rhest and best. Believing, on the one side, in the power of tliese 
trudis, thus conceived and formulated, to elevate directly the inenta 
as well as the moral life, we recognize our correlative obligation to lift 
all men iip to that level of intellectual capacity where such concep- 
tions of the Christian doctrine may be readily apprehended, and 
where the soul thus receiving the truth may be most pervasively and 
savingly affected by the truth. Not only do we hold with all Prot- 
estants that intelligence is necessary alike to the proper unfolding of 
the Christian life, and to the proper organizing and administration ot 
the Christian Church ; we also believe that such intelligence is spe- 
cially needful in order to the best use of our chosen polity, to the 
highest udlization of our preferred methods of church activity, and to 
the fullest perfecting of believers in those forms of Christian experience 
and living toward which our doctrine and our organization naturally 
lead For such reasons we are prone to regard our Presbyterianism 
as specially under obligation, both inherently and historically, to sus- 
tain every interest of sound education. We hold ourselves as Presby- 
terians eminently bound to utilize and diffuse useful knowledge, to 
foster true science, to sympathize with the finest culture, and by all 
just processes to widen and exalt the thoughts of men, doing zealously 
what we may to lift humanity more and more decisively up to the 
largest attainable measure of intellectual as well as spiritual life. 

The first siiecific form oftliis relationship may be seen in the obvious 
connection, already suggested, between such education and the Presby- 
terian scheme of doctrine. A type of Christianity which, like Roman- 
ism, depends cihiefly on the spectacular in religion; which exalts the 
church as the objective source of salvation, and glorifies the sacraments 
as the only means of grace, and enrobes the priesthood with crimson 
and gilded authorities, will care but little for the intellectual condition 
of its votaries. In such a church, ignorance may indeed become the 
mother of devotion. But no variety of Protestantism, however dan- 
gerously it may approach the papal theory in this regard, could hope 
to prosper by any such process; for Protestantism, even in its lowest 
forms, is dependent upon the activity‘of the individual mind, calls 
into i)lay the higher sensibilities, requires the awakened energies of 
the ])ersonal conscience, and sets in productive motion all the best 
elements in the moral nature; ever conscious of its vital deyiendence 
on such mental action and conviction in those whom it would reach 
and bless. Such is the primary condition under which Protestantism 
in all its varieties exists, its security and its growth standing in exact 
projiortion to the intellectual as well as moral vigor of the men and 
the nations who have received its joyful proclamation. 

It is not invidious to say in this place that among all these varieties 
Presbyterianism makes manifest most directly, most vitally, this in- 
timate connection between the intellectual and the spiritual in religion ; 
for that Presbyterianism has little within it which appeals to natural 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


283 


curiosity or to the unintelligent fancy for parade and show. It does 
not even, like some varieties of Protestantism, appeal largely to the 
jesthetic i)rinciple— to the sense of beauty in form or in order, or of 
the artistic in sound or color, or of the elaborate in drapery or archi^ 
tecture or worship. Nor is it prone, like some other varieties, to rest 
much on the action of the emotional element in human nature ; to 
awaken ardent feeling; to play upon excited sensibilities ; to impel 
to duty through the agency of passionate impressions. Neither clop 
it depend primarily on the influence of the legal principle, whether m 
the form of abstract conceptions of ethics elaborately presented to the 
mind, or in the guise of hierarchal authority assuming to control alike 
the belief and the conduct. The primary and mam appeal of true 
Presbyterianism always and everywhere is to the intellect ; to the in- 
tellect as the proper organ for the reception of divine truth, and 
the agent through which that truth may most directly and deeply 
affect the conscience and the life. Setii ig aside as at beit secondary 
all other methods of reaching, interesting, saving men, it rests pri- 
marilv, in a word, on persuasion— such persuasion as flows from large 
and deep and calm perceptions of the truth, and from pure, rational 

appreciation of that truth. ,• 1 

- A type of Christianity appealing thus immediately to the rational 
faculty, must be specially dependent, alike for acceptance and for 
dilfusion, on a high degree of intelligence among the people. It is 
true that on the one side, such a type of Christianity atselt becomes 
a great teacher, inducing and cultivating such inte ligence. Ihe 
effort to apprehend its teaching is itself a mental discipline; they who 
have mastered its doctrines have, in that act, attained no small meas- 
ure of education. That much of the intellectual capacity of the in- 
dividuals and the peoples who have been nurtured under Presbyten.an- 
ism is attributable to the strong and constant discip me of Presby- 
terian doctrine, will not be tiuestioned by any 

But on the other side, such a massive construction of Christian tiuth, 
starting from the deep foundations of the Divine being, nature, pur- 
oos'e ■ rising into proportion under the shaping influence of the doc- 
trines of sovereignty and predestination and the covenants; expand- 
ing architecturally, into the grand scheme of elective grace, “d cul- 
mhiatin- with the highest ideal of Christ as sovereign, and of his 
Church and kingdom as the supreme elements in human life, both 
here and hereafter; such a construction of divine truth can expect to 
be extensively apprehended and received only as the minds of men 
are“ained ,o the consideration of such high verities, and by special 
cuUure are prepare.l to accept them. In some asr-ects this might be 
vieled as .an mfelicity, if not a misfortune: it may tend to narrow 
the ranire of appeal, and to make Presbyterianism too much I'te relig- 
on of a class other varieties of Protestantism, making less severe 
demands upon the intellect, may have, in some respects, a consequent 
“tage Yet the substantial fact remains, that among all such 
varTedesf his appeals most directly and constantly to the rational fac 


284 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


ulty in men, and consequently flourishes or declines as that faculty is 
more or less cultivated. Whatever trains men to think, or enlarges 
the area of their knowledge, or lifts them upward at any point in the 
scale of intelligence, tends therefore to its wider recognition and 
acceptance. Wherever education is neglected, and the knowledge 
and capacity of men are narrowed, there this type of faith loses its 
hold, and something less dependent on vigorous thinking takes its 
place. 

Another of these special relations between Presbyterianism and ed- 
ucation may be found in that peculiar type of religious experience and 
character which springs immediately from such doctrinal culture. 
Romanism is what it is as a religious development, in virtue of what 
the Romish system of belief is. Protestantism generally is what it is 
as a spiritual growth, in virtue, largely, of the sublime system of evan- 
gelical truth on which it reposes. Experience and character every- 
where follow belief: the dogma or the confession expressing itself in 
sentiments, precepts, practical characteristics, which are correlative to 
it. Out of the Protestant faith springs repentance rather than pen- 
ance, conversion rather than confession, godliness rather than asceti- 
cisni. While Romanism expresses itself in blind credulity, in unrea- 
soning submission, in works and observances, such as the Church 
prescribes, coupled too often with irreligious living, Protestant doc- 
trine proves its quality by its saving power — by the spiritual graces 
and virtues it engenders, and the beautiful fruits it bears in the regen- 
erated life. And, in general, it may said that Protestantism, under 
whatever name, produces essentially the same result : the sweet expe- 
riences, the holy virtues, the sanctified manhood wrought in the soul 
through evangelical faith, being in all lands and times substantially 
alike. 

Yet, while the spirit is one, there are differences of admii.istration. 
And each strong variety of Protestant belief produces in those who 
receive it, some corresfionding peculiarities^ in. experience and in 
character. Especially will a body of Chriiitians who count their doc- 
trines among their chief glories— whose symbols are their coalescing 
bond, their test of membership and of official qualification, and their 
joy and pride as a denomination-take on practically the strong linea- 
ments of their creed, and in their experience and living bring into 
light afresh all that is peculiar, forceful, pervasive in what they be- 
lieve. That the religious development of those who accept the Pres- 
byterian doctrine in preference to all other, has marks and notes 
which correspond peculiarly with their creed, is abundantly obvious. 
1 he typical Presbyterian is supposed to betray the special influenc? 
and action of his Calvinistic faith, even in the poise of his head, in 
the lines of his face, in the manner of his walk, as in his habitual 
conversation and life. Of him it may be said with eminence, that he 
IS what he is as a Christian man, because he believes what he believes. 

Of such a type of religious manhood, some measure of intellectual 
development and culture seems an indispensable condition. As no 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


285 

Protestant could flourish spiritually in such a mental atmosphere as 
Rome supplies to her votaries, sj eminently could no Presbyterian 
grow into religious maturity, after his own kind, excepting as his 
mind is enlarged by culture, and thus enabled to apprehend adequately 
the high truths he has professed to receive. So far as Ins spiritual 
characteristics differ, in form or in intensity, irom those of other 
evangelical believers, that difference must be traceable mainly to the 
doctrinal capacity of his intellect : and any mental degeneracy which 
would render him incapable of appreciating his own symbols, would 
also render him incapable of cherishing the sentiments, of sustaining 
the graces, of keeping up the forms of religious life, which distinguish 
him as a Presbyterian. No section of Protestantism is therefore so 
constrained as Presbyterianism, as well by the forms and methods of 
its spiritual experience, as by its system of doctrine, to foster in all 
practicable ways the freest and broadest education ; to no other would 
the absence of such education bring such immediate and irreparable 
disaster. 

A third illustration of the close relationship between Presbyterian- 
ism and education may be seen in the sphere of ecclesiastical govern7nent 
and administration. A type of polity which, like the papal, throws 
the direction of Church affairs exclusively into the hands of the priest- 
hood, or which, while bearing the name of Protestant, still retains 
within itself some degree of the same error, w’ill be but little depend- 
ent on the measure of intelligence in those whom it controls. If the 
private Christian is treated as a subject, rather than a citizen, in the 
kingdom of Christ, it may rather be true that the kind and measure 
of obedience ‘required in such a Church will be rendered the more 
readily by minds that are infantile — by disciples who have never 
learned to think or to act for themselves. But true Protestantism, 
while adhering loyally to Christ as the Head, and therefore believing 
in the monarchal principle as incorporated in all proper Church 
administration, still holds consistently to the broad democratic con- 
ception of the Church, also justified by Scripture, as “a government 
of the people, by the people, and for the people.” And hence, in 
nearly all the varieties of form which the Protestant Churches have 
assumed since the sixteenth century, the capacity of the people for 
self-government under Christ has been, in some degree, recognized ; 
and they have been trained more or less thoroughly to the high task 
of governing themselves. No Protestant body could afford to pass 
over to Romish ground at this point. And of all Protestants, the 
Presbyterian group of churches, with all the glorious record of their 
struggles against priestly authority held in living remembrance, and 
trained to liberty by such a polity as theirs, could least afford to 
admit, by any suferance, the notion that private Christians are sub- 
jects only in the Church of God. A Presbyterian who, while Christ 
governs him, does not also govern himself under Christ, is surely no 
Presbyterian. 

But such a duty requires intelligence in those who undertake it : it 


286 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE 


cannot be discharged where such intelligence is lacking. It is true, 
on the one side, that what niay be called the drill of the Presbyterian 
polity, tends to cultivate and broaden intellectually not merely those 
who administer, but hardly less those who submit to it. For the 
comprehension of its principles as well as its methods is as essential 
to right obedience as to right exercise of authority ; an ignorant 
membership will constantly tend either to lawless revolution or to 
spiritual vassalage. Hence, while the system itself educates, it also, 
on the other side, is specially dependent on education. Although it 
may indeed be applied in the cruder forms of society, and even 
among peoples just awakened from heathenism, yet it always presup- 
poses some degree of Christian knowledge, and is dependent on the 
development of mental as well as moral capacity in those who are 
ecclesiastically regulated by it. Of no other form of polity can it 
be more truly said, that intelligent, active, sanctified mind is its 
indispensable condition. 

II. Presbyterianism is thus, by its system of doctrine, by its preva- 
lent type of experience and character, and by its polity and adminis- 
tration, set in relations to education, which in some respects are 
special, and in all are vital. Among all varieties of Protestantism, 
this has chiefest occasion to concern itself immediately and constantly 
with the great problem of human culture in both its lower and its 
higher aspects. What then have been the practical evidences or mani- 
festations of this close relationship in the history of the Presbyterian 
Churches ? 

Guizot has justly described the Reformation itself as a “great in- 
surrection of human intelligence.” For such an insurrection, the 
haughty dogmatism and restrictive assumptions of the Papacy on one 
hand, and the revival of classic learning, the restoration of the Aris- 
totelian philosophy, the progress of material discovery, political 
awakenings and convulsions, and other like causes on the other hand, 
had long been silently preparing. And when the critical hour came, 
the insurrection occurred; not exclusively, though primarily, a revolt 
against Romish doctrine and domination, but also a revolution in 
favor of free thought and of universal education. A great insurrec- 
tion of the human soul against errors that were vital, and against a 
Church which was fast changing into anti-Christ, it was also, in a 
most pregnant sense, a great intellectual reform — an insurrection 
which was the necessary precursor of a freer intellectual life for Europe 
and for mankind. 

The first practical movements in the interest of general education 
in Europe were synchronous almost with the first outbreak of the 
Reformation. It is to Martin Luther that the world owes the original 
conception. As early as 1524, in the very stress of his great religious 
struggle, he penned an earnest address to the authorities of the cities 
of Germany in behalf of Christian schools, declaring in his own 
strong words that “ it is a grave and serious thing, affecting the inter- 
ests of the kingdom of Christ and of all the world, that we apply 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


287 


ourselves to the work of instructing the young.” Two years later, 
in a memorable letter to the Elector of Saxony, Luther advanced the 
broad princii)le on which nearly all modern systems of education are 
founded : that whatever is necessary to the well-being of the state, 
should be supplied by those who enjoy the piivileges of the state; 
and, consequently, that the state, as the natural guardian of the 
young, has the right to compel the people to support schools for the 
young. All honor to Martin Luther for this, among other priceless 
contributions to our best modern civilization ! 

As the result of his labors, and of the associated effort of other 
Protestant leaders, the common school became even in the sixteenth 
centurv an establishetl institution, not in Germany alone, but also in 
Protestant Switzerland, in the Netherlands, and in other divisions of 
Continental Europe. While the founding of some among the eminent 
universities of the continent attested on one side the strong affinities 
between Protestantism and the highest forms of culture, these en- 
deavors to secure the training of the young of all classes, this zeal for 
the spread of intelligence in even the humblest circles ; this cultiva- 
tion of the common people, were a far more impressive proof of the 
vital relation between the Protestant faith on one hand, and an edu- 
cated, elevated humanity on the other. As the clear vision of Luther 
saw from the first, Protestantism needed the common school even 
more than the university ; and that great need it became one of the 
primary duties of Protestantism in every part of Northern Europe to 
supplv. 

To' illustrate the distinctive agency and influence of Presbyte- 
rianism in 'this respect, we may turn to John Knox and to Scotland. 
In 1558, writing from Geneva his “Brief Exhortation to England,” 
Knox affirmed that “ for the' preservation of religion, it is most ex- 
pedient that schools be universally erected in all cities and chief 
towns, the oversight whereof to be committed to the magistrates and 
learned men of the said cities and towns; that of the youth godly in- 
structed among them, a seed may be reserved and continued for the 
prpfit of Christ’s Church in all ages.” In 1560, moved doubtless by 
what he had already seen on the continent, he urged the establishing 
of schools for the poor in Scotland, maintaining that such schools 
ought to be supported, if need be, by the kirk. What Martin Luther 
did for Germany and the continent, John Knox as earnestly did for 
Scotland and for the British Isles. , r • 

That these urgent teachings bore early and abundant fruit, we have 
the amplest evidence. The important General Assembly of 1638, 
while putting into form the fragmentary records of preceding Assenv 
blies, andat the same time reviewing their action, “ alloweth this 
article, ‘ anent the planting of schooles in Landward, the want 
whereof doth greatly prejudge the grouth of the gospel, and procure 
the decay of religion.” 'The Assembly likewise “giveth direction to 
the severall Presbyteries for the settling of schools in every landward 
parochin, and providing of men able for the charge of teaching of the 


288 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


youth.” In the same spirit the celebrated Assembly of 1642, in t^^e 
midst of the agitations of that eventful period, ordained that “every 
parish would have a reader and a schoole, where children are to be 
bred in reading, writting and grounds of religion ; ” and also required 
its Presbyteries “ to certify from one Generali Assembly to another, 
whether this course was continued without omission or not.” For 
reasons which are familiar, the Scottish school system grew up within 
the Church, rather than, as on the continent, within the State; and 
therefore from the beginning assumed chiefly the parochial form. Yet 
these ecclesiastical acts, and the vast number of others of like tenor 
found in the Minutes of General Assemblies of the Church of Scot- 
land in its various branches from 1642 to the* present time, abun- 
dantly testify to the fidelity of that Church to the cause of popular ed- 
ucation. In like manner do these acts amply explain the existence 
of that general intelligence, of that extensive diffusion of knowledge, 
of that mental action and vigor, and of that consequent- energy and 
elevation in character, which have made the Scotch people well-nigh 
pre-eminent among the nations. 

How far the Presbyterian Church in the United States has been 
identified with the cause of education in both the lower and the 
higher grades, is shown alike by the action of its chief judicatories, 
by the story of its practical effort, and by the growth of institutions 
originating with it, and still standing as monuments of its zeal and 
consecration. Such ecclesiastical action, taking note of the intel- 
lectual as well as the spiritual condition of the poor, especially in 
more destitute regions, encouraging the establishment of both 
parochial and common schools, protesting against all invasion of the 
national policy of universal education, favoring the founding of aca- 
demies and seminaries for both sexes, furthering the planting and en- 
dowment of colleges and universities, and directly assisting in the 
organization and control of institutions for the special training of 
young men for the ministry; such action may be found everywhere in 
the annals of American Presbyterianism, not only committing its va- 
rious branches to the support of education in the broadest sense, but 
also indicating a zeal, an energy, a devotion to that great task no- 
where surpassed. 

The history of such effort, though it constitutes one of the most 
important chapters in the general history of education on this conti- 
nent, cannot even be sketched here. From the early days when men, 
who were Calvinists in belief, and largely Presbyterian in their conce])- 
tion of the Church, founded the ancient universities of New England, 
through the subsequent period when the famous Log college and other 
like institutions on the Atlantic coast rose into form under Presbyte- 
rian auspices, down to our own time when colleges and seminaries are 
springing up by natural consequence in every State and Territory 
where the Presbyterian Church in any variety has been introduced, 
that history is one of which those who bear that name might justly be 
proud. Of the three hundred and forty-five colleges reported to the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


289 


Bureau of Education in 1878, forty-one were classed as distinctively 
Presbyterian, while nearly as many more are known to have originated 
largely through Presbyterian effort, or to be largely manned and con- 
trolled by men of Presbyterian name and affiliation. Of the one 
hundred and seventeen theological seminaries and theological depart- 
ments in collegiate schools, reported in the same year, thirty-two are 
distinctively Calvinistic, and of these twenty-one are connected with 
some branch of the Presbyterian Church. Thirteen such seminaries, 
including two theological schools for Germans, and two theological 
departments in institutions for the colored race, were reported to the 
last General Assembly of the most extensive section of that Church : 
having fifty-seven professors, with other occasional teachers, an at- 
tendance of more than five hundred, and an aggregate endowment 
approaching four millions of dollars. If these statistics are studied 
comparatively in several directions, and if these Presbyterian institu- 
tions are examined relatively as to resources, efficiency, and influence, 
ample proof will be discovered that the Presbyterian Church has been 
and still is among the foremost in the vast task of cultivating and 
moulding in these higher forms the American mind. 

Nor is that agency limited to these higher forms : the same interest 
has been manifested in the preliminary work of educating the young 
of every class. While some differences of opinion have existed among 
Presbyterians as to the comparative value of common schools, and 
schools parochial or denominational, yet the instruction of all the 
youth of the State by some process has been universally regarded as of. 
vital moment. The general school system, as it exists widely in the 
United States, has found in the main no friend more reliable, no ally 
more effective, than the Presbyterian Church. Especially has this 
become apparent at those times when, in the interest of an aggrandiz- 
ing Catholicism, the effort has been made to break up this system, and. 
to beguile the State into the support of sectarian schools. It is not 
improper to quote here a declaration adopted in view of such effort,, 
by the General Assembly of the Re-united Church, in its first meeting 
igyo — a declaration in which every section of American Presbyte- 
rianism will heartily join : • u • 

The public school in the United States is the most precious heir- 
loom of American liberty. Planted in the early colonial days, it has 
grown and expanded into one of the most beneficent institutions of 
the country. Its history is interwoven with that of the nation. No 
other agency, if we except the Church of God, has had so large a 
share in laying the foundations of popular inte ligence,. virtue and 
freedom. In hardly any other institution is the characteristic Ameri- 
can idea so happily and fully realized. It cannot be endangered, 
therefore, without peril to the vital interests of American society.. 

III. These cursory historical glimpses are sufficient to illustrate the 
general fact that Presbyterianism in all countries and periods has veri- 
Ld in practice what the study of its interior re ations 
lead us to anticipate. A broader survey would still further confirm 

19 


290 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


the assertion, that no division of Protestantism has done more, strug- 
gled more, sacrificed more, to give to all men everywhere the inestima- 
'ble blessing of a sound education. It is legitimate to close these 
references by a brief answer to the third inquiry : What are the 
prominent duties which such a relationship and such a history are 
imposing on the Presbyterianism of our time ? 

The broad problem of popular education is by general admission 
one of the vital questions of the age. This is true, not merely under 
Republican government, where every man becomes a citizen, and as 
such assists in determining public policy, and even in fixing the charac- 
ter ana destinies of the nation ; it is true under all forms of government 
in which the intelligence, the sentiments, the moral state of those who 
are governed sustain any relation to civil administration. Nor is the 
problem a governmental one merely or mainly ; it involves elements 
and issues that are both social and personal. It affects every interest 
of the individual life; it enters the family, and pervades and shapes 
the home; it penetrates human experience at a hundred different 
points-, influencing thought, feeling, ])urpose ; labors, relations, desti- 
nies, both earthly and everlasting. Hence one of the most deep, one 
of the; most pathetic outcries of humanity in this day, is for education ; 
an education which will bring with it an enlarged life in every aspect, 
and will impart dignity and worth to all human experience. The call 
for such education, at once an entreaty and a demand, heard not in 
America only, but in Europe also, both insular and continental, is 
growing louder and louder each year, and is already reverberating 
from country to country with an emphasis and a solemnity which no 
thoughtful mind can refrain from heeding. 

False theories of popular education are current here and everywhere: 
theories so various, so vague, so grotesque, as to be in large degree un- 
definable. Two of these errors are specially prominent— the churchly 
and the secular. The first would hand education over exclusively to 
the Church, and make the priesthood teachers, and limit knowledge 
to the narrow range which churchly need demands ; it would train 
rather than educate, substitute a religious cultus for mental discipline, 
develop the imaginative or the sensuous rather than the intellectual 
nature, and end, at least in the papal form, in producing a race of 
superstitious votaries instead of a generation of free, disciplined, 
active minds. 

The second theory ignores religion altogether, segregates the in- 
tellect from either the feeling or the conscience, subordinates or 
excludes every ethical element in culture, and contents itself with 
inculcating a series of knowledges, scientific and otherwise, leaving 
the pupil in ignorance alike of God, of duty, and of immortality. 
The first impairs education by confusing it with religion ; the second 
destroys it by secularizing its area and its aim. Surrender the school 
and the scholar to the first, and Scotland herself would become Italy ; 
surrender the school and the scholar to the second, and Germany 
would be transformed into the France of Voltaire and of the Revo- 
lution. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


291 


Between these two errors, so widely apart in their distinctive prin- 
ciples, and yet in some instances so singularly confederated, stands 
that mediate scheme of education which originated with the Reforma- 
tion, and in which all Protestants, and eminently all Presbyterians, 
rejoice together. This mediate scheme, planned in order to make 
education universal, and recognizing, at least in such a country as 
this, the wide variety of religious opinion represented in the common 
school, makes no claim that the school shall be turned into a place 
of worship, or of religious drill of any sort, or that any particular 
specimen of creed or doctrine shall be taught therein. This mediate 
scheme may consent to surrender the name of Protestant, or even the 
dearer name of Christian in any restrictive sense ; it might even in 
extreme cases consent to occupy ground where the believer and the 
deist were consciously at one. But it must ever insist that no divorce 
shall be wrought between education and religion ; it must ever claim 
that the great and primary principles of religion shall be revered 
and inculcated in some form in every place where the young are being 
trained for the responsibilities of maturer life. 

This mediate scheme regards as indispensable to all useful education 
such a degree of ethical and religious influence as shall both inspire and 
rectify the mind in its specific studies ; such a degree of influence, eth- 
ical and religious, as shall lead the pupil to a right appreciation of 
himself, and of the work in which he is engaged, and shall finally 
send him forth fitted by a cultivated manliness, by true virtue, by a 
deep and fervent sense of religion, for the life that now is, and that 
which is to come. 

To the proper application of this mediate scheme, the presence of 
the Bible in every school is an indispensable condition. Setting 
aside all question as to the method in which this Book of God shall 
be utilized — waiving all particular issues as to selections or mere ver- 
sions — it may yet be claimed that no substitute for the Bible has been 
or can be devised, which will render its presence needless ; that no 
influence is so fragrant, no benediction so pure, no vitality so quick- 
ening, as those which flow off from this volume, on the youthful 
mind and life; and, therefore, that no education can be complete, 
however redolent with knowledge or brilliant with science, which the 
divine benignities of this Book have not crowned and glorified. We 
are not indifferent to the objections, some of them weighty, which 
formal and tasteless usage, the handling of divine things by irreligious 
teachers, the protests of unbelieving homes, the exclamations of ex- 
pediency, the doctrine of equal rights falsely applied, are constantly 
urging against such employment of the word of God as an instrumen- 
tality in public education. But over against all this, we place the 
historic fact that this word has been the source of the finest thoughts 
and inspirations of mankind, and that no culture is equal to that which 
it supplements and sanctifies. Over against all this we place the dem- 
onstrated fact that this word is the true basis of the best national as 
well as individual life, and the only stable charter of human liberties. 


292 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Over against all this, and as a final answer, we place the crowning 
fact that all culture, all civilization, all forms of human development, 
into which the effects of this saving word have not been poured, as 
some divine contribution to our human growth, have been evanescent, 
unsatisfying, illusive. 

To this mediate scheme, thus consummated by the presence of the 
Bible in the school, the Presbyterian Churches of this land, and of 
other lands, are heartily committed alike by their inherent conviction 
and by their denominational action. American Presbyterianism has 
given its final answer to the churchly theory, in the deliverance of one 
of its representative assemblies: The appropriation of any portion 
of school funds for the support of sectarian institutions would be 
fraught with the greatest mischief, not merely to popular education, 
but also to the interests of American freedom, unity and progress.” 
American Presbyterianism has given its final answer to the secular 
theory, in words equally official and weighty : “ The divorce of popu- 
lar education from all religious elements, while involving a radical 
departure from the spirit and principles in which our school system 
had its origin, would be eminently unwise, unjust, and a moral 
calamity to the nation.” On the essential principles of the mediate 
system, born of the Reformation and justified by three centuries of 
happy experiment, the Presbyterianism of -all countries may and will 
stand together, protesting against all undue domination of the Church 
in education, detesting all attempts to render education godless or 
irreligious, and covenanting with one another and with God, that 
wherever the Church goes the school shall follow,until the blended 
light of education and religion, religion and education, shall shine on 
every youthful mind through all the earth. 

The other great duty of Presbyterianism in this day relates to what 
is called the higher education. No thoughtful observer can fail to 
realize what may be defined as a progressive loosening of that close 
alliance between Christianity and liberal education which originated 
in the period of the Reformation, and which hitherto has been main- 
tained almost without interruption for three long centuries. It is un- 
questionable that in some degree one of these parties is withdrawing 
more or less consciously from that historic alliance; the same ten- 
dency which is secularizing education in the primary, also betraying 
its influence in this higher sphere. Old universities planted by the 
care and sacrifice of Protestantism are in some instances becoming 
harboring places for doubt, and in some the citadels of unbelief. 
New institutions of like grade are established, in some cases through 
private munificence, and in others by state or national patronage, in 
which, by conditions prescribed, or by tacit consent, Christianity is 
either entirely excluded, or placed under restrictive limitations. 
Other less concrete illustrations of this progressive separation will 
occur at once to the thoughtful observer. The general result already 
is that no small proportion of our educated mind is going forth into 
professional and influential stations, if not at heart averse to Chris- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


293 


tianity, still resting in indifference to the whole matter of religion as 
one with which a cultivated man need not concern himself. Two 
particular manifestations of this general fact may be briefly named : 

On one hand much of current science, even where it is hot openly 
adverse to religion, is at heart neutral or indifferent. The challenges 
of science, calling into question the fundamental verities of faith, 
and assailing at every point the spiritual relations between God and 
man, are indeed sufficient to excite grave apprehensions, and to arouse 
the Church to a renewed and more strenuous defence of the realities 
thus attacked. But there is a danger far greater than this : the dan- 
ger that the scientific mind of our time will become utterly oblivious 
of religion — so absorbed in the study of nature, in the discovery of 
physical facts and laws, in the classification and comprehension of 
things seen and temporal, as altogether to forget the grander things 
which are unseen and eternal. Indifferentism is a more generic, 
immediate, fearful peril in such circles than positive scepticism. The 
secularization of the scientific mind bodes greater evil to the cause of 
religion than all existing unbelief. And if such indifferentism should 
come to be characteristic of institutions where the sciences are pur- 
sued, and whence new generations of scientific men are to proceed, the 
ultimate injury alike to religion and to education will be beyond 
computation. 

On another hand, much of what may be termed culture is passing 
through an experience essentially the same. The challenges of such 
culture are indeed serious: they involve the reality of all spiritual ex- 
perience, the validity of moral sentiment, the supremacy of ethics 
over aesthetics, and even the hope and anticipation of immortality. 
The grand in philosophy, the beautiful in literature, the divine in art 
— light and sweetness upspringing from the soul in man himself — are 
the substitute which culture is presenting as the highest business, the 
highest aspiration of life. Christianity set aside as an imperfect pro- 
duct of some past age outgrown by the developing thought of man, 
it offers to humanity an experience in which there is no Christ, no 
Church of God among men : no trust or love, no fears or hopes, that 
lay hold in any form on immortality. Yet these illusive views are 
not the most serious ground of apprehension. A greater peril lies in 
the indifferentism which devotion to culture as an end in itself in- 
volves. The danger is, that in giving itself up to the philosophic, the 
literary, the aesthetic, such culture will forget God and duty, and 
altogether ignore religion as a matter unworthy of concern. And if 
such substitution of culture for religion comes to be characteristic of 
our institutions of learning, the result will be as disastrous as if those 
institutions were handed over wholly to positive unbelief. 

In both of these directions it is apparent that a great duty is devolv- 
ing upon the Christianity of our time : the rescue of the higher 
education from these liabilities, and the restoration of that historic 
alliance, in which science and culture on the one hand and sound 
religion on the other shall again become essentially one. Waiving 


294 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


all reference to the particular aspects of the issue suggested, or to the 
special varieties of the argument, defensive and aggressive, as urged by 
Christian writers, as to the details of the reconciliation to be sought, 
we may still agree in regard to the great underlying duty. Chris- 
tianity owes it to itself and to humanity to seek, by every available 
process, the just, pure, divine union between religion on one side and 
the higher learning on the other. Wherever the disposition to sepa- 
rate them reveals itself, that disposition is to be earnestly resisted ; 
wherever they are regarded and treated as one, such alliance is to be 
encouraged and sustained. 

It is important here simply to recognize the general nature of the 
process by which such unification is to be secured. That process is 
essentially one of education. Legal conflicts, magisterial demands, 
dogmatic assumptions, unseemly denunciations will accomplish noth- 
ing. The scientist and the culturist are to be led back by the hand 
of sympathetic faith to the sublimer verities which in their ardor for 
specific studies they have overlooked or ignored. While they may be 
answered on their own ground, and by considerations apj:>ealing im- 
mediately to each in its own specialty, there is a higher answer which 
will prove itself far more effective : the answer of a clear, calm, deep, 
spiritual Christianity. They can and must be led to see that the 
unities between religion and learning in either form are incomparably 
greater than any diversities ; that the diversities are but partial and 
temporary, while the unities are essential and eternal. Even in the 
midst of present antagonisms, the brain of science is asking for 
spiritual verities ; and from the bosom of culture we may hear the old 
confession of Augustine: Our heart hath no rest, O God, till it 
resteth in Thee ! From scientific and literary circles, and from asso- 
ciations formed for scientific or literary ends, and even from institu- 
tions where this disposition to separate religion and learning has been 
manifested, evidences are coming of a recognition of the error in- 
dulged, and of a desire for the restoration of the ancient, sacred com- 
pact. What is needed is instruction — such instruction as spiritual 
Christianity alone can give. What is needed is such statements of 
the grand underlying truths of Christianity as will command the 
attention of science, the interest of culture, and will lead both science 
and culture back to living and loving faith. 

The task belongs alike to all divisions of Christianity, so far as they 
are qualified to undertake it. It is a task for Protestantism rather 
than Romanism ; and among Protestants it is in large degree a task 
for Presbyterianism. In some resj>ects, by our past relations, by our 
theological methods, by our forms of experience, and by our prevalent 
conceptions alike of religion and of learning, we are specially fitted for 
this work. It is one of our foremost duties, and well will it be both 
for learning and for religion if we are enabled in any measure to set 
forth their inherent harmony, and to establish on firmer foundations 
the ancient and holy alliance between them. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


29s 


The Council next entered upon a 

DISCUSSION ON PROFESSOR FLINT’S PAPER. 

The Rev. Geo. D. Armstrong, D. D., of Norfolk, Va. — I am 
not willing to suffer the paper of Professor Flint to pass without 
entering my protest against the doctrine expressed in it upon 
one point, and upon one point only. As a whole, the paper is 
an admirable one, and I listened to it with deep interest. The 
one particular against which I protest is contained in the con- 
cluding part of it. In speaking of the means by which the 
propagation of error, growing out of the spirit of inquiry that is 
abroad in the world, is to be prevented. Professor Flint spoke — 
I do not think I use a harsh expression when I say it — spoke 
sneeringly of Church discipline as a means of checking it. We 
must take the meaning of words from the connection in which 
they occur and from what is going on around us. The Pro- 
fessor seemed to be in sympathy with those who claim the right 
to teach, within the pale of the Church, doctrines contrary to the 
Confession of the Church to which they belong ; and w'ho com- 
plain of being persecuted and martyred because, by means of 
Church discipline, we seek to prevent that. 

Now, it has always been the position of the Presbyterian Church 
that she had a creed ; that she knew what that creed was ; and 
that, as a body of witnesses, we stood shoulder to shoulder in 
the advocacy of it. If there is anything that we have prided 
ourselves upon, it is the particularity with which we univer- 
sally hold to our creed. In the admirable paper which he 
read this morning. Dr. Van Zandt tells us, and he tells us 
very truly, that when a minister in any branch of the Pres- 
byterian Church stands up to teach, having accepted the creed 
at his ordination, he stands up with a certificate to the ortho- 
doxy of his teaching from the ministers of the Church to 
which he belongs. When one has come to entertain opinions 
which he knows are contrary to the Confession of Faith of 
that Church, and teaches those opinions publicly, I ask you, 
is it honest in him to do that while holding the certificate 
of that Church to his orthodoxy? Possessing my certificate, as 


296 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

he does, as a teacher of God’s truth, is it honorable in him to 
hold fast to that and, at the same time, to teach not only what 
I do not believe, .but what I abhor ? 

It may be asked by some, w'here is freedom of investigation 
and discussion if it is to be hemmed in and checked in this w^ay? 
I answer that the Presbyterian Church is not the whole of the 
Church of God in the world. The Presbyterian Church is not 
the whole world either. Let the man go outside of the Pres- 
byterian Church, and then teach what he pleases. Not within 
the Church, but outside of the Church, let him teach what he 
pleases. 

Not only is the privilege claimed of teaching inside the 
Church what is contrary to the Confession of that Church, but 
those who thus teach claim to themselves the honors of a sort of 
martyrdom. They, forsooth, are the ones who are brave enough 
to speak out what they believe ! I recollect hearing, some time 
ago, an incident of this kind, which you can apply to this class. 
A woman who had been preaching woman’s rights according 
to the extreme views entertained by some, had occasion, in 
resuming her travels after a lecture, to enter a crowded car in 
which all the seats were occupied. She remained standing in the 
passage-way, expecting that some gentleman would rise, as is 
customary in such cases, and give her his seat. An elderly 
man who sat near where she stood, after surveying her very 
deliberately, inquired : “ Madame, didn’t I hear you lecture last 
evening on woman’s rights?” “Yes, you probably did,” was 
the answer. “ Didn’t I hear you say then,” he continued, 
“that you thought women were entitled to be treated in all 
particulars like men ? ” “ Yes,” she replied ; “ you did.” “ Well, 

then,” said he, “ stand up and take it like a man.” 

The Rev. Wm. E. Boggs, D. D., of Atlanta, Ga. — I desire to 
express the intense pleasure and to acknowledge the great profit 
which, I trust, I received in hearing on Saturday from Professor 
Flint, one of the ablest papers which I have ever heard. Many 
years have passed since any man, whom I have seen on the 
floor of a debating body such as this, or in the chair of a pro- 
fessor, so manifested the power to speak as did the gifted brother 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


297 


who read that paper. Its effect was like the thrill of a tremen- 
dous galvanic battery which was sending its currents around 
this hall ; and I shall carry to my distant home the liveliest recol- 
lection of the pleasure and information which it gave me. But 
in that paper, I take it, there are some things which are to be 
received with qualification. It would be ungenerous and un- 
just to hold a man accountable for all the deductions which are 
made from the statements contained in a half-hour paper upon 
a subject upon which so much is to be said ; but there is one 
point particularly to which I would call attention as seeming to 
demand revision. 

I hold that the statement on the expected discoveries that the 
future holds for us in the great science of theology should be 
moderated. I say this because of the way in which I think men 
will act and will be governed by this discrimination, whether 
they regard the great discoveries of theology as behind us 
or before us. I believe the Reformed Churches holding the 
Presbyterian faith are ready to say that history proves that 
all the great discoveries of theology are behind and not before 
us ; that in this respect the science of theology is allied closely 
to that of astronomy and not to that of geology; and that those 
whkh await us in the future are but minute details of the dis- 
coveries which are behind us. And, unless a man faces the 
future with that belief in his mind, he is sure to show something 
of an eccentric determination that will bring him out of the line 
of truth. 

I wish to say further, in regard to the branch of the Church 
which I represent, that we are in some respects strict construc- 
tionists ; that we hold it to be a point of honor as among men, 
that, whenever a teacher in the Church departs from any im- 
portant part of the doctrine taught in our Confession, he should 
come forth like a man, make the fact known to those who 
gave him authority to preach the gospel, and say, like a man, 
“ I can no longer accept that faith as I signed it ; ” and give 
his doubts. If the Church says, “Let him stay within our 
borders,” let him do it; but for him to eat the bread of the 
Church, and to persist in preaching an error, while the Church 


298 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

is attacking the foundation-stones of that error, is not regarded 
by us as right or Presbyterian. 

The Rev. Prof. Nicholas Hofmeyr, of Cape of Good Hope.—’ 
Allow me to express my hearty consent with what was yester- 
day expressed by the brother from Ireland (Dr. Watts), namely, 
that we may not forbid science to touch on the higher truths, 
such as the existence of God. By man’s constitution, he must 
go beyond the mere phenomena, and ask what lies beneath and 
beyond them. Besides, we believe with the apostle Paul, as he 
has expressed himself in the first chapter of the Epistle to the 
Romans, that the invisible does not lie on a higher platform 
parallel with the visible, but does also dwell in the visible, 
manifests itself through the visible, and is understood by means 
of the visible. Only let us approach our researches in the 
domain of nature in the attitude which is the only right one 
between us and our God, namely, the attitude of adoration 
and worship. The materialistic character which at present 
often characterizes the findings of scientists is the offspring of 
an age pre-eminently defective in the spirit of adoration and 
worship. 

The Rev. Principal G. M. Grant, of Kingston, Canada. — I do 
not rise to defend Professor Flint. That gentleman is perfectly 
able to defend himself In making this reference to him, I wish 
to say that, from first to last in the reading of his paper, I did 
not detect any sneer. The two leading principles which he 
seemed to lay down are principles to which, I think, the great 
body of this Alliance must adhere. 

I refer now, of course, to the latter part of his paper wherein 
he said that the church which sought to meet questions of 
scholarship or speculation by the exercise of discipline, instead 
of by a wider scholarship and a more fearless thought, was the 
real friend of Agnosticism. I agree with him in that. By such 
a course, you at once make people suspect that the Church is 
afraid to meet disputants on the platform of free discussion ; and 
they at once draw their own conclusions. 

His second position was that, if we took the ground that the 
Westminster Confession was final and unalterable, we erred. I 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


299 


say we do err if we take that position ; for in doing so, we place 
it on the same platform with the Bible — we become idolaters, 
nothing more nor less ; and the Spirit of the living God will 
desert the Church that takes that position. 

The idea was set forth in one of the papers this morning, and, 
I think, grandly set forth, that creeds are not made, but grow. 
I accept that ; and in accepting it, I would ask one question, and 
would like to have an answer to it. How can there be growth 
if the condition of liberty be not allowed ? Can there be any 
growth if you do not allow the condition of liberty? You can- 
not answer that question in any other than one way ; and that 
is in the negative. 

But we are told that brethren may go outside of the Church. 
I answer that we do not indorse secession. No true minister of 
Christ should secede from the Church, so long as he is true to 
the one to whom he made his ordination vows — the Head of the 
Church. If he is preaching what he believes to be truth, why 
charge him with dishonor ? Has the Church no power of dis- 
cipline ? Let the Church exercise its power of discipline, and 
cast off the brother if he is unfaithful ; for the point is, that he 
does not think himself unfaithful, because he speaks the language 
of his own age, and not the language of two or three cen- 
turies ago. It is because he loves his Church, and wishes to 
teach all the truth to the Church, and God has called him to do 
so. If he is cast off, where is he to go ? He believes that he is 
more in agreement with his own Church than with any other. 
Is he to make another sect ? We have too many sects already. 
No ; it is his duty to speak all the truth that the Spirit of God 
teaches to his heart, and if he is wrong, let the Church say so; 
and let no one taunt a brother with dishonesty when he is acting 
honestly. 

We talk of ordination vows. A brother is under law primarily 
to Christ, and secondarily to the Church. Because he is under 
law to Christ, let him speak all that Christ teaches him. He 
owes a duty to the Church ; and let him give to the Church all 
the truth that he is capable of giving, until the Church says to 
him, “ We cannot tolerate you.” Let me illustrate my meaning 


300 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


by way of analogy. You of the United States have, from time 
to time, made amendments to your National Constitution. Now, 
if you were to propose, as a fundamental requirement, that no 
amendment shall be made to the Constitution of the United 
States unless the citizen proposing it shall have left the United 
States, gone to and lived in Canada or Great Britain, do you 
think that any such amendments would ever be ratified by you ? 
No ; you have more faith in liberty, you have more faith in 
truth, you have more faith in one another, than to suggest any 
such condition. You say, let every man speak openly, honestly 
and faithfully ; if we agree with him, we will ratify his proposi- 
tion ; if not, we will reject it. Is the Church, which is founded 
on the rock Jesus Christ, more afraid of liberty than the State, 
which is founded on the kingship of freemen ? 

The Rev. Henry Wallis Smith, D. D., of Kirknewton, Scot- 
land. — I stand here as one who feels bound, by the confession 
which he has signed, to remain in the Church to which he 
belongs only .so long as he feels that he can honestly stand by 
and defend that confession. Therefore, I have no difficulty 
whatever in rising to express my deep regret that any gentle- 
man should have imagined that my friend and brother minister, 
Professor Flint, designed to indulge in anything like a sneering 
attitude toward the exercise of discipline by our Church. No 
one, who knows Professor Flint, and who knows how nobly he 
has stood up for the Westminster Confession, fails to appreciate 
the fact that he would be the very last man, both from his 
theological principles and from his thorough honesty, to express 
any such sentiment. If Professor Flint had intended to take 
any attitude, other than the one which he plainly announced, 
he would have expressed his opinions very distinctly and very 
unmistakably in that direction, and you would have had no 
occasion to suspect that he had descended to a sneer. 

What Professor Flint said (and I desire to emphasize it) 
was, that the mere exercise, of discipline is not an adequate v 
means of replying to a heretical error. What he wanted the 
Church to guard against was the assumption of an attitude of 
impassability ; and he adopted that position because he believes 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 301 

that the Westminster Confession is a safe starting-point, whence 
we can go forth and discuss with most effectiveness those 
difficult and theological questions, which the criticism and 
the philosophy of the day are pressing upon us. What he 
desired to say, I have no doubt, was (and it is what I desire 
to say), that the very strength of the position of any Church, 
and of the position of those Churches which hold the West- 
minster Confession, is the belief that from that position we 
can without fear meet opposing criticism. I would add that 
from that position we can without fear follow the great law of 
conservative development, which, I believe, has always been 
manifested in the Christian Church. 

I do not know, in regard to what has been observed by another 
speaker, whether our great discoveries are behind or before us ; 
but this I know, that Lam directed by my Master to search the 
Scriptures; and I believe there are depths of meaning in those 
Scriptures which these nineteen centuries have failed fully to 
develop. 

Rev. Principal William Caven, D. D., of Toronto, Canada. 
There is no theological author in this Council for whom I have 
learned to cherish a more profound respect than for Professor 
Flint ; and I would deem it presumptuous on my part, until his 
essay’is completely before me, to offer anything in the way of 
criticism upon it. There are, however, one or two words that I 
ask the permission of the Council to say upon the subject which 
has been raised by the remarks of the brethren. 

A great deal of confusion is sometimes brought into the dis- 
cussions of this subject by confounding theology and biblical 
scholarship. In the region of biblical scholarship, it is of course 
simply a matter of fact that immense progress has been made, and 
is being made, from day to day. We have had some remarks 
on that subject in the essay of Dr. Chambers this morning. 
But it is a blunder to bring up this subject of progress m biblical 
scholarship in connection with the question of discipline, and of 
how a Church should treat error. So far as concerns the matters 
with which discipline has to do, any advancement in that which 
we have to expect has simply no bearing upon those matters 


302 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


at all. No man is to be disciplined for believing in the genuine- 
ness of the seventh verse of the fifth chapter of i John, or upon 
any matter of purely textual criticism, or upon any matter that 
is purely an exegetical one, and which falls within the range of 
biblical scholarship. I have never yet heard of a Church 
undertaking to discipline a man in regard to matters such as 
those. 

But it is a most serious question for the Presbyterian Church, 
one which it seems to me is in fact a life and death question for 
this Church — a Church, I take it, which throughout her whole 
history has been an eminently dogmatic body — whether we are 
to expect such progress in theology, that is, in dogma, as shall 
oblige us to reconsider the question whether it shall be com- 
pelled to discipline those who go far astray as to dogma. My 
conviction is, that the province of literature, as distinct from the 
province of dogma, is not the province of the Church. It is the 
duty of eminent members of the Church, of eminent teachers in 
it such as Professor Flint and others, to deal with these ques- 
tions, and to counteract Agnosticism and other forms of specula- 
tive literature. A man is bound, if he understands the truth, if 
he loves it, if he has good opportunities of defending it, to 
defend it in every way ; but when we speak of the Church, we 
speak of a body under an adopted constitution that has a deposit 
of truth given to it. I am prepared to assert that, just as firmly 
as would any Roman Catholic, while I differ with him in toto as 
to the inspiration of the Church. I hold just as decidedly as he 
does that there was a faith once for all delivered to the saints ; 
that men appointed to the ministry are to be sound in that faith; 
and that the Church has no more right to retain in the ministry 
a man who substantially departs from the faith of the Church, 
than she would have in the first instance to* lay her hands upon 
an untrained man. 

The Rev. D. J. Macdonnell, B. D., of Toronto, Canada. — 
There is no manner of doubt that the Church has the right, and 
uses it, to exercise discipline. The question really is, whether, 
in this time of changing, growing, unsettled opinion, the Church 
should be always exercising that right. What are the limits 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


305 

within which the Church should resort to its right ? We are all 
agreed upon what Principal Caven has said to us, that the 
Church is to guard the faith, and is not to continue in the 
Church as a teacher, a man who has departed from the faith. 
But what is the faith ? That is really the question that lies 
back of all. 

Two answers have been given us this morning. When men 
get into difficulties in regard to matters that are set down defi- 
nitely enough in their respective creeds (and these are generally 
young men), we are told that the creeds are not imposed upon 
them, but that they are accepted by them. That does not help 
us out of our difficulty. What, then, are we told ? We are told 
that they may stay out of the ministry ; that they need not 
accept the creed ; that they may be private members of the 
Church, and need not trouble themselves much about the creed. 
Look at the result of that. Here is a man who is called to the 
ministry. He wants to be a minister, and believes himself called 
to preach. He feels that he is called to minister to the souls of 
men, and loves to throw himself into the work. After he has 
gone through his theological training, in a large and compre- 
hensive and very decidedly expressed creed, we say to him, 
“You need not accept the creed unless you like.” He answers, 
“ Has the Church the right to impose upon me, as a teacher, 
anything aside from that which is imposed upon a private mem- 
ber, anything beyond that which Christ has imposed?” Even 
if the Church is agreed on fifty or five hundred statements of 
doctrine, has the Church the right to demand of me subscription 
to those fifty or five hundred statements of doctrine (admitting, 
I say, that they are all thoroughly agreed about them), if they 
are not clearly what Christ has imposed on his ministers who 
are appointed to speak in his Church? 

The other answer we are given is this : “Well, if you are not 
satisfied with our creed, there are a dozen or fifty other churches 
— go into them.” F'irst of all, that implies that the Church is 
not meant to be one. We do not find anything in the New 
Testament about fifty or five hundred churches with different 
scriptural definitions of creeds. What, then, do you do practi- 


304 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

cally? You send a man off into the Congregational Church, 
into the Methodist Church, or into some other Church, and then 
you exchange pulpits with him ; after you have shut his mouth 
in the Church, you invite him to come in as your beloved 
brother. What do you admit in so doing ? You admit that 
you are more restricted than Christ, that you have imposed upon 
that man’s conscience burdens which Christ has not imposed. 
You admit that you have tried to shut the mouth of a man who 
might have been a useful and trusted minister in the Church. 

Now, what is proposed to be done? For myself, I would 
propose to do what Dr. Van Zandt proposes not to do, that is, 
to reduce to a few well-defined articles the things which are to 
be absolutely assented to. That is something that can be 
attained. Dr. Van Zandt said that we were not to have a very 
few, general, ill-defined articles. Why, who proposes to have 
ill-defined articles ? I want to have them well defined, but want 
to have but few of them ; so that, with my whole heart, soul and 
conscience, I can say amen to them as the framework of my 
faith. When I look to my Master, what do I find from him as 
to faith and character ? As to faith : ‘ ‘ Who do men say that I, 
the Son of Man, am?” and the answer comes clear, distinct, 
well defined, ” Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 
And then, as to character: “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou 
me?” 

The Rev. John De Witt, D. D., of Philadelphia. — Any one 
who has had the pleasure of reading “ Theism,” or “Anti- 
theistic Theories,” must believe its author to be incapable of a 
sneer. I had intended to propose a theory in the way of an 
Irenicon on this subject ; though five minutes are a very short time 
in which to do it. We all can see there is some difficulty here. 
Every one is plagued by the spirit of inquiry, or by the prince 
of the power of the air, with doubts. Is there a place for a man 
who has assented or subscribed to a creed, to propound tenta- 
tively his dubitations ? I do not know that our Church provides 
any place for a man under such circumstances. But of this I 
am assured that, since I have asserted that I sincerely receive 
and adopt the Confession of Faith as containing the system of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


305 

doctrine taught in the sacred Scriptures, the place for me to pro- 
pound my doubts upon t*hat is not my place in the pulpit, or in 
any position in which I assume to be a teacher. When I am 
weak in the faith (and there are times when all of us may be 
weak in the faith), I am not to go into doubtful disputations. 

I do not know what is to come out of the discussions of this 
great Ecumenical Council, but I do wish that there might be 
some way in which our Church could be so broadened as to 
permit discussion upon the very points which we subscribe, pre- 
vious to its being brought into the judicatories in the way of 
discipline. But, on the other hand, I am clear that whenever 
any one, as a teacher, does propound theories on the subjects 
of the Confession, contrary to his subscription — our constitution 
being what it is — it is not only the privilege, but the duty, of the 
Church, to proceed to the exercise of discipline. 

This is what it has done ; and because it has done this, or 
although it has done this, there is no Church that is so rich in 
speculative literature upon the very points that we so distinctly 
subscribe. Though the theory of the Church would seem to- 
make us narrow, I do not think that historically it has narrowedi 
us, or limited the range of our discussion. 

There is a difficulty here ; and it cannot be settled by dogma-- 
tizing on the one side or upon the other. But I do wish sol- 
emnly to protest against a most vfcious illustration made use of 
by Principal Grant. The supposition that a judge of the 
Supreme Court of our Church may, in the exercise of his teach- 
ing gifts and in his official capacity, impugn or strike at the 
very constitution which he has received and adopted, is the most 
vicious supposition that I have ever had the infelicity of hearing 
from a Reformed Churchman. 

The appointed hour having arrived, the Council adjourned 
until 2.30 P. M. 

Monday, September 2^111 ^ 1880. 

The Council was called to order in the Academy of Music at 
2.30 o’clock, the Rev. William Roberts, D. D., of Utica, N. Y., 
President for the session. 


20 . 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


306 

After the usual devotional exercises had been engaged in, the 
Rev. Principal John Kinross, B. A., of Sydney, New South 
Wales, read the following paper on 

RELIGION AND EDUCATION IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 

It is always a difficult matter to give a satisfactory account of the 
state of religion in any country, especially in one so recently settled 
as New South Wales. The rapid increase of the population through 
immigration from different parts of the world, and the fact that the 
habits of this mixed people are only in process of formation, render it 
extremely difficult to form a correct estimate of their religious life. 
The internal feelings of the soul express themselves in external con- 
duct, and we can only draw our conclusions (uncertain at the best) as 
to the former from a careful observation of the latter. It is often no 
easy task to obtain accurate statistics regarding the manifestations of 
a country’s religious life ; and as I had no idea till after my arrival in 
this country that I should have the honor of reading a paper on this 
subject to the Council, I am not so well provided with documents as 
otherwise I should have been. 

At the present time the population of the colony is about 700,000 
— not so numerous as that of this great city of Philadelphia. To 
supply their spiritual wants, the liberality of the people has provided 
1,250 churches, containing sittings for 200,000 people, and the total 
average attendance on Sundays is given at 200,000. 

According to this return, not one-third of the population attends 
any place of worship. It is generally understood that church accom- 
modation ior half oi the people is an adequate provision even for cities, 
since, owing to sickness and other accidental causes, not more than 
that proportion can attend. If this holds good in the city, where 
every one has a church almost at his own door, how much greater 
allowance must be made for a country where, owing to the great dis- 
tances, it is utterly impossible for many to attend, and very difficult 
for a still larger number. When it is considered that a population of 
700, opo is scattered over a territory extending north and south 700 
miles, and east and west nearly 600, it will be admitted, I think, that 
one-third is equal to a half in a country where the people are very 
much iless scattered. 

With respect to the number of ministers of religion, there are regis- 
tered in all 631. Of these there belong to the Church of England, 
207; Roman Catholic, 164; Presbyterian, 83; Wesleyan, 89 ; and 
the remainder to other denominations. As regards the number be- 
longing to the Presbyterian Church, it does not amount to more than 
a tenth of the whole. 

Of Sunday-schools there are 1,200, with 86,000 children on the 
roll, an average attendance of 65,000, and 8,000 teachers. 

The work of the country or bush minister in Australia is laborious. 


SECOND GENEEAL COUNCIL. 


307 


and involves frequent absence from family and home. In many of 
these districts he will have three services every Sabbath, frequently at 
different places, along with two or three meetings during the week. 
The majority of the ministers belonging to the Presbyterian Church, 
whose spheres of labor are not in the city or suburbs, have three or 
four preaching-stations, some of them ten or more. 

Viewing the ministers of all the Christian denominations in the col- 
ony on the whole, they will, I humbly venture to affirm, be regarded 
as a body of men faithfully doing the work of our divine Master, 
and striving to advance his cause within their respective spheres. 

As I wish to confi-ne the few remarks I have to make to the relations 
of religion and education, I will only say on this part of the subject 
that, generally speaking, the relations of the different Protestant 
bodies to each other are friendly. Amongst all these denominations, 
with the exception of the Church of England, there are occasional 
exchanges of pulpits, and many of the ministers of that church co- 
operate in various works of Christian usefulness with those outside 
their own body. As regards the internal life of the churches, united 
prayer-meetings are often held in some townships; in most congrega- 
tions there is a weekly prayer-meeting, and, in our own church, meet- 
ings of Session, Presbytery, and General Assembly are regularly held. 
During our brief history as a colony, there has scarcely been a dis- 
cussion of a doctrinal character in any of the churches, with the ex- 
ception, perhaps, of the subject of union in our own branch of the 
Church of Christ. Young countries are proverbially given to boast- 
ing, but it is a matter of veritable history that in our small churches, 
after a few years’ anxiety and discussion, a union was effected, be- 
fore )^our great union in the United States of America, which was ap- 
proved by the three churches of Scotland, although they themselves 
are still in their former disunited condition, now after a struggle of 
many years’ duration to secure it. We have many obstacles to sur- 
mount, and difficulties to overcome, and blots to wipe out ; but, by 
the grace of God, we hope to overcome them all. 

With regard to Education, we have Public or Primary Schools, 
Grammar Schools, and a University. 

I. There are 1,189 public schools, 1,825 teachers, and 128,125 
scholars. In 1878 there was an increase of 72 schools, 160 teachers, 
and 10,873 scholars. The total cost in that year was ^^42 1,866, of 
which ;£’35 2,838 was paid from the colonial treasury, and 
from fees and other sources. 

Of private schools in 1878 there were 543, with 18,743 scholars 
and 1,047 teachers ; but these, unlike the public, are decreasing. 

These statistics clearly show that the colonists keenly appreciate 
the value of education, and have evinced a laudable zeal in carrying 
the system into effect. Matthew Arnold remarks that the Swiss and 
the Scotch have always set a high value on education, and we .should 
think this is about as high a compliment as any one could pay a peo- 
ple ; but the reason which he assigns for this high appreciation on 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


308 

their part is not quite so complimentary — viz. : that they perceive its 
advantages in the world — it enables one to get on. That the pure 
love of culture for its own sake plays a leading part in the formation 
and growth of educational systems in any country may be doubtful, 
though it is as high in these two countries as in any other ; but we 
do not claim any superiority for the colony in this respect. Perhaps 
the material advantages of an efficient system of education are inore 
keenly appreciated in young countries than elsewhere, and possibly 
the necessity of the highest culture is not so fully recognized as it 
ought to be. 

Without referring to the various phases through which it has passed, 
the present system of education is entirely under the control of gov- 
ernment. The buildings are erected by the government ; the salaries 
of the teachers are paid by government ; and the schools are examined 
by inspectors appointed by the government. Although education is 
not entirely gratuitous, there are two important provisions which ren- 
der it practically so— viz. : that no child is to be excluded from any 
public school through the inability of the parent to pay the fees, and 
that whatever may be the number from one family in attendance, fees 
shall not be charged for more than two. These admirable regulations 
bring the blessings of education within reach of the poorest family in 
the land. 

Being fully convinced of the dangers of popular ignorance, our col- 
onists have rendered it compulsory on all^ our children of a certain 
age to reach a given standard of knowledge ; but this regulation will 
be enforced only within some areas, as there are many parts of the 
country where there are no schools at all, or where the great distances 
render it impossible to attend. 

The system possesses most of the conditions necessary to secure 
efficiency. All teachers must be some time under training ; must 
submit to examination before being appointed to a school ; and are 
divided, according to the results of the examination, into three classes, 
their salaries depending upon the place they have reached. The 
schools are annually subjected to a thorough examination by the gov- 
ernment inspectors, and the results are published in the annual report 
of the Council of Education. Although our institutions are of dem- 
ocratic character, the appointment of the teacher is vested in the 
Council of Education, and not in the local board. Again, the latter 
is appointed by the government, and not elected by the people. 
Whatever other loss this arrangement may entail upon the colony, 
we certainly lose those lively scenes that are frequently witnessed at 
the election of school boards in the old country, where the various 
religious sects and political parties are struggling to secure the return 
of their own men. It is highly satisfactory to be able to testify that 
under the Council of Education (which has been abolished since I 
left home) no sectarian or political influence has been used in the ap' 
pointment of teachers or in the management of the schools. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 309 

With regard to the vitally important question of religion in educa- 
tion, I remark : 

1. The system of education in New South Wales is not purely 
secular. The provision for imparting religious instruction is two- 
fold — the one in which the teacher uses the Scripture lessons, and the 
other which assigns one hour each day to the ministers of religion, 
during which they can teach, in a separate class-room, the children 
of their own denomination. In our colony, as in every country, 
tliere are some who think such a system contains too much of the re- 
ligious element, and others that it contains too little. Of those who 
contend that the religious element ought to be entirely eliminated 
from the school, some believe in no religion at all, or are utterly in- 
different on the matter ; others, while devoutly believing in religious 
teaching in the family and Sunday-school, have no faith in the re- 
ligious teaching of any public school, but especially of one supported 
by the State. It affords me pleasure to say that the majority of our 
colonists are not of this way of thinking. By a purely secular sys- 
tem, secularism, and secularism only, is the gainer. We do not af- 
firm that education in secular branches only is worse than no educa- 
tion at all. Knowledge is a blessing in itself, just as health, and 
wealth, and mental vigor ; and on the other hand, ignorance and 
imbecility are always evils. That religion can be entirely excluded 
from the school, I very much question. As a subject of instruction, it 
may be easily excluded ; and in this respect, its omission will be only 
a loss, not a positive evil. Nevertheless, it will come in indirectly, 
even to the grammar and arithmetic classes. A class may be engaged 
with a sum of addition ; two boys copy from their neighbors, and 
deny the fact. They may be punished, but what of that? If in mat- 
ters of right and wrong, which the teacher cannot avoid, children, 
although for years at school, have never heard the name of God men- 
tioned, nor the love of Christ appealed to, nor a future life enforced, 
will they pass through such a course without injury to their faith? I 
should not like to pronounce it absolutely impossible that they should ; 
but I will say, without the slightest hesitation, that it would be 
highly culpable for us to run such a tremendous risk. Accordirigly 
we have the Scripture lessons used in all our schools with the neces- 
sary proviso — that no child whose parents object will be required to 
attend when these are read. 

2. Our system is national, not de7iominational. It is true we have 
not the whole Bible, but only Genesis, Luke, and the Acts of the 
Apostles for the teacher; but the minister in the class-room can use 
the Bible and Catechism if he wishes. These Scripture lesson books 
are those of Ireland, and were adopted for the same reasons as in 
that country. As Archbishop Murray had sanctioned them, the 
Roman Catholics had no reasonable ground for offence ; and for 
many years no objection was raised by them on that ground. But the 
Church of Rome is the same all the world over. She is at war with 
the state on the subject of education in Europe and America. She 


310 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


seems determined to have nothing to do with any institution over which 
she has not supreme control. About twelve months ago the Roman 
Catholic Archbishop of Sydney issued a pastoral, in which he denounced 
the public schools of the colony as “seed-plots of infidelity and im- 
morality,” and called upon all the faithful to withdraw their children 
without delay. The design of the pastoral was to abolish the present 
system, and introduce that of payment by results; but no man ever 
.shot wider of the mark. The country was roused from one end to the 
other ; the pastoral was sharply criticised by the public press, and 
meetings were held in different towns to protest against it. A bill 
was soon introduced into Parliament, which provides for the with- 
drawal of all aid to denominational schools after 1882. It passed 
with an overwhelming majority, and has, since I left, become the law 
of the land. The Bishop of the Church of England, as well as the 
clergy generally, advocated the denominational system, but they, for 
the most part, conducted their case with moderation. Our own body 
and the other Protestant Churches have upheld the public school 
system. We believe it secures an admirable training in all the usual 
branches, and makes adequate provision for the introduction of re- 
ligion. Primary education not under state control is apt to de- 
teriorate ; but what shall we say of religious teaching not under the 
authority of the Church? That there are dangers in this respect 
cannot be denied. Our teachers may belong to any Church or to no 
Church ; they may believe in the Confession of Faith or in the 
Thirty-nine Articles, or they need not believe even in the Apostle’s 
Creed. I do not believe, however, that any teacher could retain of- 
fice, who would openly attack the Bible or even any Christian Church. 
Some, because of this evident danger, think lightly of religious teach- 
ing, and would regard it as no great loss, were it entirely abolished 
in our schools. That there is much formality in school teaching can- 
not be denied ; that irreverence in modes of instruction is injurious 
may be freely admitted ; but these are by no means necessary attend- 
ants upon such a system. The abuse of a thing is no argument 
against its legitimate use. It would be well if we could affirm with , 
a clear conscience that the same evils have never been found in the 
Sunday-school or the pulpit. Scripture is Scri])ture by whomsoever 
taught; the Bible can speak for itself, even under very unfavorable 
circumstances. Let the facts and promises and verses of the Bible 
be lodged in the memory (the teacher can secure that better than any 
other), and the glorious fruit may appear in after life. Surely the 
agent that has greatest power in influencing the heart, and in forming 
our present civilization, as well as being the greatest literary treasure, is 
not to be denied to the teacher. The sceptical spirit that now pervades 
some classes of society, and the love of luxury which so extensively 
prevails, loudly call upon the Churches of the day to seize upon every 
opportunity that presents itself of influencing the rising generation 
on the side of Christ. It cannot be denied that the school con- 
tributes a most important part in the formation of human character. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


3 ” 


T’ue family, the Church, the Sunday-school and the public press, are 
all active agents in moulding the character of each generation ; and 
we do not advocate the slightest relaxation, but the contrary, in our 
efforts to secure that all these shall more effectively co-operate in the 
great work of creating a body of intelligent, upright and devoted 
citizens. The institution where our children spend the best part of 
the waking hours of the day, where the professed object is to draw 
out and develop the intellectual and moral powers of the pupils, and 
where the authority, maxims and character of the teacher insensibly 
influence all who are under him, must be regarded as one of the most 
important agencies in the community, so that if its influence on the 
side of religion (were that possible) were only negative, the country 
sustains a tremendous loss ; were it on the side of evil, an incalculable 
injury. 

II. As our gramrpar school system is in a state of transition, I need 
not refer to it. ’ There is only one as yet established by government. 
It is confined to secular subjects, and is conducted with great effi- 
ciency. There are some schools or colleges connected with religious 
denominations, although there is none connected with the Presbyte- 
rian Church. 

III. A university has been established for about thirty years, and 
has contributed to advance the higher education of the country, by 
its system of public examinations, which are open to all candidates 
who choose to offer themselves, as well as by its work in teaching its 
own students. There are, as yet, only four professors — of classics, 
mathematics, physics and geology. There is, I am sorry to say, no 
professor of logic, or metaphysics, or ethics; and a student can take 
the B. A. degree without a knowledge of any of these subjects. There 
is no faculty of law or of medicine established. The lectures of the 
professors are open to all students without restriction as to creed, but 
no student can matriculate till he passes the matriculation examina- 
tion, and no student can pass from one year to another without a 
searching examination. As regards the university itself, it is purely 
secular. There is no religious exercise of any description connected 
with it. But connected with the university are three affiliated col- 
leges belonging to the Church of England, the Roman Catholic 
Church, and the Presbyterian Church, in which students have afforded 
them residence, tutorial instruction, domestic supervision and reli- 
gious instruction. The connection of the colleges with the university 
is this : they cannot admit a student on their books or into residence 
who has not passed the entrance examination, and every college stu- 
dent must attend the university lectures ; but a student of the univer- 
sity is not bound to attend any college. The system is designed to 
combine the professorial and the tutorial, the secular and the reli- 
gious — the professorial and secular in the university, the tutorial and 
religious in the colleges. The government gave half of the cost for 
the buildings, grant the salary of the principals, but give no other 
endowment nor exercise any control. The colleges are religious, not 


312 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


theological institutions ; but the one to which I have the honor to 
belong will allow and invite the teachers appointed by the Church to 
lecture in the building. Properly speaking, there is not one theologi- 
cal college in the whole colony ; our body is the only one that de- 
mands a university education on the part of her ministers, and even 
this law has been suspended. In these circumstances we require 
three years at the university, and two at theology under the teachers 
or tutors appointed by the Church from year to year. 

The attention of the teachers of religion has been so much engrossed 
with practical work — the work of planting churches in destitute locali- 
ties — that little time has been left for the discussion of subjects that 
do not obviously bear upon the supply of present wants. It is not 
to be expected in churches newly formed and struggling with the diffi- 
culties incident to such a stage, that many will trouble themselves 
with the profound questions of speculative theoffigy, or with the re- 
condite topics of the higher criticism. But infidelity is increasing in 
the country, and there is more than one infidel lecturer attacking 
Christianity in the theatres of Sydney every Sunday evening. So far 
as I am aware, there is not one man, in any denomination, who can 
devote his whole time to the study of theology, still less is there one 
who could devote it all to one of its branches. This demands the 
serious consideration of our Church, and I trust that soon a satisfac- 
tory solution will be reached. 

The Rev. Sylvester F. Scovel, D. D. Pittsburgh, read the 
following paper on 

PRESBYTERIANISM IN RELATION TO CIVIL AND RELI- 
GIOUS LIBERTY. 

A just pride is a good thing; and Presbyterians have much to be 
proud of ; but of nothing are they prouder than of their identification 
with civil and religious liberty. Next to our loyalty to Christ is our 
loyalty to liberty — and the second is born of the first. It is the soul 
of our history, as it is the product of our principles. The blazonries 
about us at Horticultural Hall are magic mirrors in which we may 
see cabalistic lines and symbols into which we may read the suffer- 
ings and triumphs of Presbyterians for the noblest idea that ever kin- 
dled human enthusiasm — liberty for men for sake of loyalty to Christ. 

Definitions are almost unnecessary. Civil liberty means freedom 
to do whatever is right to be done between man and man ; and reli- 
gious liberty means freedom to do whatever is right to be done be- 
tween man and God. Civil liberty is the right to property, life and 
the pursuit of happiness in any way which does not injure others. 
Religious liberty is freedom to have, enjoy and obey any qr no 
religion, with the right to utter our religious convictions, and propa- 
gate our religious sentiments, and to abstain from everything which our 
religion forbids, of course subject to like limitation by the freedom 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


313 

and well-being of our neighbor. The two are essentially one. Real 
civil liberty is always religious liberty, and religious liberty must 
always create civil liberty. They are two chestnuts in one burr — 
rough to the man who handles them roughly, but smooth-cheeked 
and close-lying to each other. 

In order of fact, religious liberty has come first, and brought civil 
liberty after it — which is incidentally a good reason for studying, at 
such a time as this, the relation between Presbyterianism and liberty. 

I. Presbyterianism makes for liberty, by the necessity of its own 
nature. The p7'inciple5 of the one have an affinity for the other. 
'I'heir combination is not mechanical but chemical, i. In these princi- 
ples we begin with God, including here the headship of Christ, which 
is but a form of God’s ruling in the world— the rtag reaches the mast- 
head in the simple declaration of the confession, ^*‘God alone is Lord 
of the conscience and hath left it free.'' He who believes this must 
demand room for his religion — and that means religious liberty. 
“God alone” means that slavish and blind obedience is not to be 
rendered to man. God is the soul of Calvinism, and at a “glance ” 
of. God, kingdoms and men vanish. Presbyterianism makes much of 
God, and thus makes heroes of men, for no man will always bear in- 
justice who consciously has God at his back. An absolute God 
makes laws that must be obeyed. His will dwarfs human opinions 
and enactments too. To the believer in God there can be but one 
King who can “do no wrong ; ” and that King never delegates to 
man a power which can contravene or eclipse his own. John Stuart 
Mill counts Calvinism a foe to freedom, because it commands obedi- 
ence as a supreme virtue. How can he forget that “ obedience to 
God” and “resistance to tyrants” are inseparable, both in fact and 
principle? Seneca might teach him, who said, “ Obey God : that is 
liberty;” or Count Agenor de Gasparin, who exclaims, “ God is the 
basis of liberty;” or Voltaire, who, blessing Franklin’s grandson, 
pronounced the two words, “ God and liberty.” The sense of God, 
his presence, immediate personal relation to him and final account- 
ability to him alone!— why; from Moses, who “ feared not the face 
of the king,” because he saw “ Him who was invisible,” to John Knox, 
who feared neither king, queen nor devil, that has made heroes. A 
whole people rose into it once. Fronde says of the Scotch com- 
mons: “The fear of God in them left no room for the fear of any 
other thing. The poor clay which, a generation earlier, the haughty 
baron would have trodden into slime, had been heated red-hot in the 
furnace of a new faith.” 

Liberty of “conscience” springs out of God, and flows into the 
liberty of “private judgment” in religion, and thence into liberty 
of opinion in all things; thence into liberty of the press; thence^ into 
liberty of action. This Eden-fountain becomes “ four heads,” and 
the “gold of that land” which it encloses is good. God, as an 
origin, is apt to give us even a freedom free from the nonsense of 
tinsels and titles, and a government acting directly on the people. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


3U 

“The spirit of the Lord,” says Warburton, “ will overturn the usur- 
y^ation of our unjust, desy)otic power, and bring into the state as well 
as into the Church a free and reasonable service.” Lamartine says: 
“ The republic of the men without God has quickly been stranded. 
An atheistic republic cannot be heroic.” Only theism can give liberty 
of conscience, for only theism has a conscience. Take away God, 
and you take away liberty, because there remains nothing to make 
liberty sacred. It is thenceforth, it can only be matter of opinion, 
and opinions are sy^ider-webs in times of trial. Liberty coming from 
God is therefore certain to come and certain to stay. 

There are countless revolutions shut up in the apostolic exclama- 
tion : “We ought to obey God rather than man.” And that which 
is true of God, emphasized by Calvinism, is true of the whole series 
of doctrines which cluster in harmony and beauty about him as their 
centre. Calvinism presents an absolute providence, inflexible laws 
and rigid morality. It makes men of moral fibre. It can be “ground 
to powder like flint rather than bend before violence, or melt under 
enervating temptation.” It attracted and attracts men who hate a 
lie. It is furthest removed from the pernicious poison of nature- 
worship. I was shown in a critical time of the country’s history our 
Congress, by one who knew it well. He pointed out here and there 
the Presbyterian elders, with the remark, “The fact is, sir, in such 
times as these they look out for the men who can believe the old blue 
book."' Henry Clay, coming late to conduct a trial for murder in the 
interior of Kentucky, and having sent instructions to be careful to 
challenge the jury, expressed suryndse that a certain gentleman, whose 
firm face disquieted him, had been admitted. Learning that he was 
a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian elder, he said, “Our case is lost!” and 
it was so. There is a sort of natural selection as well as an election by 
grace in this matter. A sincere belief of the system we hold is in- 
compatible with submission to oppression, and productive of the 
moral metal which is able to hold the fire of liberty. 

2. As much might be said of the second grace of the modern trip- 
let. If liberty comes from the theology of Presbyterianism, equality 
comes from its anthropology. That man, men, each man, and all 
men, are created alike by God, and in God’s image, dowered with 
immortality, weighted with accountability, given individual history by 
a divine scheme of redemption, and by inhabitation of the Holy 
Spirit, offered an approximation in holy character to God, and a final 
glory of unspeakable brilliancy — all this makes men essentially equal. 
And these evangelical doctrines are tipped with flame by the doctrine 
of divine love, in an election which is utterly regardless of external 
circumstances, and yet imparts a distinction which even the heavenly 
intelligences must admire. Dumoulin blamed the Presbyterian pastors 
of his time for wishing to make yeomanry equal to the nobles, as 
being all children of Adam, and equal by divine and natural right. 
And by the wonderful coincidences which prove a providence in 
history, a grandson of one of those pastors (a pastor himself) pre- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


315 


sided over the “Constitutional Assembly” of the Revolution, and 
first signed his name to the celebrated “ Declaration of the rights of 
man.” How can it be otherwise? If God dwarfs men, God digni- 
fies the man. The royal priesthood and the kingship of believers 
mean equality. The essential in man rises above the accidental. 
Man learns from God’s large dealings with him to deal largely with 
his fellow-man. Presbyterianism emphasizes the soul, and 2X\ souls are 
equal. In the great struggle in Scotland, nothing was plainer than 
that Presbytery was the child of the people, and Episcopacy the crea- 
ture of the State. Presbyterianism is the popular religion. Its only 
aristocracy is that of service. “He that will be great among you, let 
him be your servant.” 

3. As much should be said for the last of the three graces — Fra- 
ternity. This is the product of our Ghurch polity. In the struggle for 
liberty this has been the most effective of the things peculiar to Pres- 
byterianism. Our unit of authority is the Elder. But I shall not waste 
my time on the office of the Eldership. It has been magnified enough 
already. The first thing in the Acts of the Apostles, and the first 
thing in forming a Presbyterian Church, is an election. That is the 
pulse-beat in our system, which has lived out in its fruits into consti- 
tutional monarchies and republics. Franklin was not altogether or- 
thodox, but he was sagacious, and especially so in saying, “He who 
shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Chris- 
tianity ” — we know him to have meant Presbyterian principles — “ will 
revolutionize the face of the world.” Presbyterianism is necessarily 
a popular religion. It springs from the people (in its administration 
of power), it legislates for the people, and appeals to the people. It 
instructs the people, elects the people, claims co-operation from the 
people, leans upon the people, will suffer neither learning nor worship 
to obscure Christ from the people, and holds its officers to be servants 
of the people. It has been sustained by the people wherever sustained 
at all, and it trusts the people — without whom it cannot live -for the 
future. Such a religion must be a friend to fraternity. And it com- 
])letes its relation to this side of freedom by its catholicity. Its 
Waldenses taught in 1508, that any congregation, be it great or small, 
is not the holy, universal Church, but only a part and member there- 
of; and its modern confessions say, “ Communion is to be extended, 
as God offereth opportunity, to all, who, in every place, call upon the 
name of the Lord JeSus.” I believe the only known instance of 
Scotchmen receding from anything is that Assembly’s of 1842, which 
rescinds the “ Schisrnatical act of 1799/’ and recognizes the Church 
as one body. That is proof positive that a Church so fraternal as the 
Presbyterian must be a friend to the “ fraternity ” of liberty. The 
interest that extends over chasms of dividing opinion, and clasps 
hands for common interests, while non-essentials wait, is an essential 
to popular liberty. The want of such a unifying bond has been fatal 
to many a well-meant struggle for freedom. 

4. Add, now, Presbyterianism’s emphasis upon the Bible— the whole 


3i6 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


word, only the word, and nothing but the word. This makes 
it the friend of freedom. The Bible, the source of England’s great- 
ness, the ^‘cannon to liberate Italy,” the palladium of American lib- 
erties ; the truth — the truth about God, the world, and man, and the 
world to come — must make men free. Whether the initial L of lib- 
erty, or the big P of Presbyterianism, as in the monogram of this 
Council, it matters not. Both may lie on an open Bible because 
both spring from it. The bounds of the Bible and freedom are co- 
terminous. Nay, the very shades of liberty are determined by the 
relative biblicism of the populations. 

5. In our determined adherence to creed, there may be discerned 
the conservative force so necessary to liberty. A building cannot 
take in all out-of-doors — a body must have a spinal column. And 
yet we hold creed and liberty so well together as to secure unity in 
essentials and liberty in details. The positiveness of Presbyterianism 
is the model of cousiitutional liberty. 

6. It is the modern commonplace that free institutions are impos- 
sible without education. So is Presbyterianism ; and caring there- 
fore for its own things it has cared nobly, from Geneva to Scotland, 
and from Prussia to the United States, for the interests of learning. 

7. Out of the Bible and through its uniform testimony, by confe.s- 
sions and conduct, Presbyterianism teaches the doctrine of loyalty, 
patriotism, and obedience to magistrates. Behold the statics of 
liberty, as the dynamics are provided for in liberty of conscience. 

8. Liberty must have its checks and balances, and Presbyterianism 
has its gradation of courts and rights of appeal. But Presbyterianism 
is not absolutely republican in form, having no two houses in legisla- 
tion. It is liberty we want, not necessarily republican liberty. Our 
early tendency was well poised here. Both Knox and the Continental 
Divines could separate the essential principles” of liberty from all 
accidentals. The magic tent of our Moderator’s sermon will cover 
any form of government, except a despotism. 

9. Just in the same way Presbyterianism makes for a condition of 
the Church unshackled by any connection with the State. It demands 
such a relation, at least, as leaves the Church free to follow her sole 
Head in all her interior life and discipline. Its ideal is not Rome — 
Pagan— with State over Church, nor Rome— Papal— with Church 
overtopping the State ; nor Arnold’s dream of a Church— penetrated 
and consecrated State, blending the two ; but two separate institutions 
(though possibly with edges contiguous), each essentially independent 
of the other, and both under law to God. Ah ! how that feature of 
Presbyterianism has wrought for liberty ! All the way down the centu- 
ries the heavy hand of State power, now moved by ecclesiastical 
hate, and now by its own rapacity, has been laid upon the saints 
of the Most High through the blending of the two kingdoms which 
Presbytery has done so much to rend apart. From our standpoint it 
is the feather of our Presbyterian American cap, that having no wrestle 
here with papal minions, we, before some other denominations and 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


317 


against some, made the dissolution of Church and State in this land 
total and perpetual. The error clung to Puritan New England, and 
was an ugly burr in Ejnscopalian Virginia, but Presbyterian Philadel- 
])hia and New York, together with the constraint of providential cir- 
cumstances, were too much for them. And God has added the seal 
of his favor. There are no such marvellous statistics in modern 
Cdiristendom, as those of voluntaryism’s first century in America. 

So much for Presbyterian principles. In our exalted God there is 
“liberty” of conscience; in our common gospel crowned with the 
electing grace of God, there is “ equality ; ” in our polity and catho- 
licity there is “fraternity; ” in our Bible there is the spiritual force 
of freedom ; in our creed there is the free conservativis7n of freedom ; 
in our educational fervor there is the mtellcctual prerequisite to free- 
dom ; in our obedience to magistrates there is the statical balance of 
freedom ; in our affinity for republicanism there is room for any form 
of free institutions ; in our jealousy of the Holy of Holies for the 
visits of the Shechinah (ready to die rather than to admit the statue 
of Caligula to the precincts of Jehovah) there is the repellant force 
against exterior interference, which is the final condition of perma- 
nent freedom. There is, therefore, a- normal and necessary connec- 
tion between Presbyterianism and liberty. A priori, Presbyterians 
must be free ! Such a religion, as large as it is strong, as deep as it 
is broad ; like the cedars clinging to the rocky sides of Lebanon, will 
find the elements of liberty in the atmosphere of the sternest despot- 
ism, and bring them into life. Here are the constituents of liberty, 
and there is only needed the mortar and pestle of circumstances, and 
the never-failing alchemy of God to finish the compounding. 

II. And this brings us, in the second place, to history. A posteriori, 
Presbyterians have been free. As we have seen, they had to be. But 
what shall I do with that marvellous history ? Only characterize it ; 
not trace it, much less exhibit it. As a development of the principles 
now mentioned, it was not always in absolutely right lines (the 
fences of progress are always zig-zag). It was not always unassisted 
by other concurrent influences, nor ever was its fruitage flawlessly 
complete and perfect. But it was always in the same general direc- 
tion, coming irregularly as June comes, but never missing the way. 
It came with continuity enough to be traced, as the western bound- 
ary-lines are marked in blazed trees; and it came with ever fresh im- 
])ulses, bounding out from the interior truth, and fed by the God of 
the truth ; bounding over obstacle after obstacle ; swinging its great 
tides over lands and seas alike, until it buried the old world of des- 
potism out of sight ; nay, until we have reached the deposit stage, 
and historical geologists are studying the niegatheria of oppression as 
amazing curiosities. Never for a 'moment in all this advance has the 
force of Presbyterianism failed to be an active agent somewhere. The 
two liberties were sought together because the state of things in Europe 
on the morning of the Reformation 'made that inevitable. The two 
despotisms were so united that one could not be smitten without the 


3 i8 the PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

other. The party of absolutism in the state gave its mailed hand to 
the feline paw of the priest in solemn compact to prevent liberty of 
conscience in the Church, for fear of liberty of thought in the empire. 
Theoretically, the duty of passive obedience iji the state (on every- 
body but the pope) was as fully developed as the duty of blind obedi- 
ence in the Church. Ah ! it was of God, that in one day both ot^ 
them might be slain. “The Reformation frightened the rulers,” 
says Bigo't, “ because they said that those who dared to dispute with 
Rome would soon reach the point of disputing with their despotic 
and vicious rulers.” To be sure they would, and did. And Minister 
Ferry was right when he said, “ Protestantism has been, in modern 
history, the first form of liberty.” Look at Period 1 . (i 5 i 7 “^ 55 ^> 
according to Heeren and pisher), with its rivalry between Francis 1 . 
and Charles V., which gave Protestantism liberty to be; at Period II. 
(1556-1603), which gave the world the heroic struggle of the Nether- 
lands, the E iglish help against Philip II., and the rise of the Protest- 
ant Republic of Holland; at Period III. (1603—1648), which sees 
English influence wane on account of the Stuart tyranny, and gives 
room to Sweden— a new example of Protestant liberty and heroism ; 
at Period IV. (1648-1702), which terminates the struggle in England, 
leaving political and religious liberty triumphant and secure under 
William III., and brings Prussia into power— out of which period, as 
a slide out of the telescope, is drawn the American experience, which 
carries the progress to its highest single point. And it seems to me 
that, roughly oudining, two more periods may now, in view of our 
special theme, be added to Heeren’s programme. Period V. (1702- 
1815) will then embrace the first full and final triumph of Protestant- 
ism (almost unemburrassed with traditions of old governments) in the 
establishment of a Christian Republic, and the definitive settlement 
of its relations to the old world by the war of 1812, contrasted with 
the failure to establish liberty in the French Revolution, for want of 
the Huguenots so cruelly smothered and expelled ; and Period VI. 
(1815-1878), from the Treaty of Paris to that of Berlin, which interval 
has witnessed the most astonishing development of constitutional gov- 
ernment, and of liberal ideas in governments already constitutional, 
with the definitive establishment of religious liberty in France, and 
the first instance of the combined Christian civilization of Europe 
exerting its moral power to establish religious liberty and confirm 
civil liberty in the unchristian East. 

It is a glorious record, and within it there runs a thread of blue 
which it is deligluful to recognize. The way was prepared for us ; and 
the office of Presbyterianism was that proper to the section of Prot- 
estantism which the stress of providence made most hardy and adven- 
turous — the role of applying the truth in difficult circumstances. 
Presbyterianism was always great on applications. So Carlyle says, 
“ Protestantism was a revolt against spiritual sovereignties, popes, 
and much else. Presbyterianism carried out the revolt against earthly 
sovereignties and despotisms.^' Archdeacon Blackburn says, “ The 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


319 

truth is, these very controversies (about the Genevan discipline) first 
struck out, and in due time perfected, those noble and generous prin- 
ciples of civil and religious liberty which too probably, without these 
struggles, would hardly have been well understood to this very hour.” 
As Presbyterianism clasped hands with the primitive Church, whose 
order was republican and free, it was foreordained that Presbyterian- 
ism must oppose the hierarchical (to wit, the oppressive) spirit and 
organization which had been interjected. And as that spirit and its 
accompanying organization had advanced to claim and wield the 
sword of temporal power, it was equally written down that Presby- 
terianism must contend with the same power for liberty in civil things. 
And as civil rulers followed the bad example of the religious, and 
leaned back upon the hierarchical principles as the point d' appm of 
their claims o rule as they liked and yet “do no wrong,” it was 
just as certain again, as that alkali will effervesce under an arid, that 
Presbyterian right arms would follow Presbyterian convictions of 
right into a conflict with the civil rulers for civil liberty. Moreover, 
as the taste of liberty is sweeter to the freeman than that of blood to 
the tyrant, it \vas morally certain that Presbyterianism, w'hich cast off 
popery, would cast off everything else which let or hindered its lib- 
erty. And yet, again, it is but a certainty of development that Pres- 
byterianism, having fought so long and hard, would not only have 
scars and be proud of them, but would also preserve unconsciously a 
somewhat pugilistic attitude, and would have its position of ready self- 
defence mistaken sometimes for the challenging chip on the boy s shoul- 
der, or the quills on the fretful porcupine. But those who come nearer 
are sure to discover that this attitude is only a mark of development. 
We are soldiers’ children, and must stand straight up. But, you re- 
member, that it is General Sherman who dislikes and dreads war. 

In all this history behind us we have our place in universal history, 
and no man can read the records of the world and fail to find Pres- 
byterianism. Popery and prelacy are sure to find it, at any rate, for 
they bear our scars. Historians of liberty are sure to find the grafts 
which Presbyterian swords have stuck into the liberty tree. His- 
torians of heroism will never be able to leave out the names which 
star our records. Historians of the noble in womanhood will linger 
over the modest fragrance which the simple courage of some, and the 
cultivated devotion of others, and the maiden-martyrdom of more, 
have left between the pages of our records. Historians of the liter- 
ature of liberty whll always be busy with the line of Presbyterian 
authors, from John Calvin to John Milton, who were captains of 
thousands in the conflicts of thought. Historians of. the great con- 
structive forces will follow the shining thread from Piedmont to the 
valleys of the Vaudois, with their un(|nenchable endurance; thence to 
Geneva, with its model political arrangements; its realized public 
morality ; thence to Germany, with the noble and nobly rewarded 
stand of its nobles ; thence to the Netherlands, to read and mark the 
moving story of its indomitable perseverance ; thence through sunny 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


320 

France to the war of culture against ignorance, of industry against 
stupidity, of unflinching truth against the most damnable treachery 
which stains the record of Christendom ; thence to England, to the 
great struggle that bui?t the commonwealth which has never ceased to 
exist in the common weal ; thence to bonnie Scotland, to the ‘‘Great 
Heart” of the Presbyterian jiilgrimage, and its Mecca — Edinburgh and 
Gmy friars ; thence to the wilds of America, where the free-hearted 
came, finding what here they sought — “freedom to worship God.” 
Here they must rest, finding a freedom for religion so free, that to 
limit it is our only concern ; finding the heritage of good of all ages 
so richly expanding in these vast vistas that hence back again to the 
old world and far away to the East, by way of the West, the light 
now shines, and men say, ^^The develop77ie7it of liberty is complete; now 
for its direction a7id conservation T' No names, or epochs, or par- 
ticulars are needed in this review. The mind stitches together almost 
the whole civilized and Christian world to make the ma^ for the area 
of Presbyterianism’s influence. You marvel to see how mutually 
helpful it has been at every point, how reactive in its own course ; as, 
e. on the continent between Switzerland and France, between 
Germany and the Netherlands, even between Piedmont and Bohemia; 
how across the channel influences passed which wove together and 
endeared the whole body then and forever since ; how. Scotland 
blessed England, and both laid joint hands in Puritan and Presby- 
terian (differing only as two hands may) upon America. The history 
only needs to be known. Eyes moisten and lips quiver under the 
touching recitals of martyrdoms innumerable; the blood tingles at 
injustices so mean and oppressions so cruel ; the soul exults in hero- 
isms so lofty;, the heart learns to trust from faith so implicit ; and the 
courage rises to any possible demand at the sight of the quiet sufferers 
or the crested warriors. These were the thoughts of God that ennobled 
our fathers. The growth of civilization and intelligence will never 
carry us beyond, but only nearer to the height of their conception of 
the good and the true. And amid the evidences of abounding 
spiritual life which are found inside of these rough integuments, we 
shall be always learning how the struggle for liberty may not weaken 
but strengthen our grasp on the great central truths of salvation by a 
crucified Redeemer. Away with the sickly aversion to controversy 
for the faith once delivered to the saints when we stand in presence 
of the passionate earnestness with which a Henderson preached upon 
the moors of Scotland, or the tenderness of a Clement Marot, as he 
})iit the heart of Christ’s truth into sweetest song (uniting forever 
art and worship), or the deep experience of a Calvin while fighting 
the Libertines in Geneva and the whole Catholic world without. 
No, no, no ! Blood earnestness is good anywhere and always for the 
things of God. We need never fear what shall come in the conflict 
for the crown-rights of King Jesus. If we fight for him, we shall 
always rest in him. 

Fair deductions all made, honor to whom honor is due, and sorrow 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


321 


felt for whatever is to be lamented, still the history of the Presbyte- 
rian struggle for liberty is an imperishable record of all that honors 
God and benefits man. In that history every principle which God 
has entrusted to us has been broidered in red lines into the records 
of the choicest life of the race. It shall remain our heritage and our 
pride ! Shall it be also our inspiration ? 

III. To this we turn. What Presbyterianism ought to do, a priori, 
we saw ; what Presbyterianism has done we have hinted at. What shall 
Presbyterianism dp? What is its present duty and future mission ? — 
Shall it be put in a museum like John Knox’s pulpit in Stirling Castle? 
— or encased in a mummy-literature ? or forgotten in the lispings 
of an effeminate worship, or dandled away in a hammock swung 
between pulpit and pew ? Ah ! what ! how ! in this time of the world ; 
when to be living is sublime ! No ! a thousand times ! The time 
for a living, breathing, energetic, liberty-loving, liberty-keeping, stal- 
wart Presbyterfanism is now, just now ! I am sorry I had not given 
your whole thirty minutes to this end of the theme. See what work 
there yet is for Presbyterianism in relation to civil and religious liberty ! 

(I.) Liberty has come only in a part of the world. It must be 
made to come everywhere. 

I. Liberty for missionary propaganda of all descriptions. 2. Ful- 
filment of treaties in the interest of religious liberty. 3. Liberty of 
dissent from established churches, and of changing religions. 4. 
Liberty from every vestige of the Church and State combinations 
which oppress; or hamper, or dampen the life of the Church of Christ. 
5. Liberty from cruel race-prejudice toward Jew, Indian, African and 
Chinaman. A blazing pulpit, and platform, and press for our despised 
races. 6. Liberty for Romanists against all Church spoliation, and 
all interference with their interior economy, and all expulsions. 7. 
Such liberty, even for atheists, as that they may not either sneer at 
the fear, or complain of the unfairnps of Christian governments. 

(II.) This liberty is to be maintained— 

1. Against all the encroachments of the modern State, which may 
yet prove the true antichrist in its extravagant claims and oppressive 
measures. 

2. Liberty is to be maintained against its first, oldest, and yet most 
active foe— the Church of Rome. There is no need to prove Rome 
the same — persecuting principles and all. Sonper Idem is her boast. 
There is no need to emphasize the much that is Christian and philan- 
thropic in her doctrine, her worship, or her career. But just to say 
that with love for all within her pale who love Jesus, with heart throb- 
bing before the Christ of her crucifix, and hearts ascending in her 
Te Deums, and minds quickened by the logic of her Augustines and 
Anselms, with reverence for her antiquity, and sympathy for all that 
is noble in her art and architecture, with admiration for all that is 
touching in her consecration to the poor and helpless; still, with 
firm finger on St. Bartholomew, and face o’ercast as we hear the 
wail of the Lowlands, and heart quivering to the song of the martyred 


21 


322 


THE FEESEYTERIAH ALLIANCE. 


Latimers, and Ridleys, and suspicions a little roused by the Syllabus 
and the Vatican Council, and the sweeping victory of Ultrainontanism, 
we will watch with keen eye the jnternal struggle through which she 
must pass, ready to clasp hands with the broken fragments which we 
hope will form about the cross after the crisis ; and not less ready 
— though sorrowfully — to meet her shrewd diplomacy (should it con- 
tinue) with the astute simplicity of a clear purpose to serve Christ and 
conserve liberty, or even to stand in serried rank, and strike hard and 
fast, at her first motion toward the usurpation of temporal dominion, 
or her first gesture to seize the thumb-screw and the torch. Nay ! it 
is our office to apply her blistering past to every sensitive spot we can 
discover on her wide extended surface, until the tortures of memory 
are transmuted into the throes of repentance, and the red currents of 
martyr-blood are reflected in the sense of heavy shame crimsoning her- 
cheeks. Until Rome can say, “ We were wrong” — as the Protestant 
world long ago said in view of its comparatively insignifit:ant record of 
violent persecution — the whole world (secular and religious) must 
maintain a posture of armed suspicion, and Presbyterianism must be 
its sleepless sentinel. 

(III.) And then, most difficult of all, liberty is to be defined, and 
thus guarded against the whole class of internal foes that are now 
more dangerous than all others combined. Defined, I say : 

1. As against liberty misinterpreted into a false individualism. 

2. As against liberty perverted into the crushing despotism of com- 
munism. 

3. As against laissez-fau'e and indifference to morals, prostituting 
liberty into license, and eating the heart out of the State as surely as 
stealthily. 

4. As against the secularism that disarms the State morally by 
cutting the nerves that bind it to God and religion — a subtler danger 
than almost any other because it is Satan disguised as an “angel of ' 
light.” 

The great issue now before our united forces is, whether Presbyte- 
rianism, having helped signally to give birth to freedom, will as sig- 
nally help to make effective the limitations which must obtain, unless 
liberty is to play the blind Samson, and pull down alike upon itself 
and its enemies the crushing weight of the political structures under 
which all might happily live. 

The Christip social philosophers of our day agree that Romanism 
has shown its incapacity to be the regulator, and balance, and ballast, 
which freedom needs for free peoples. Will Protestantism succeed ? 

It will, I answer, in proportion as the things essential to Presbyte- 
rianism remain uppermost in Protestantism, viz. : i. Firmness to prin- 
ciple. 2. Flexibility and freedom in methods. 3. Fidelity to the 
past record of civil and religious liberty, which have never been 
stable except as they have been Christian. 4. Inseparable identifica- 
tion with the rights, the wants, the needs, and the sympathies of the 
people:; and, 5, an earnest and watchful care for an education which 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


323 

shall not be obligatory, secular, and free, but obligatory, Christian, 
and free. 

To close. There was never greater need for heroism in regard to 
our principles, our history, and our mission, than to-day. To die in 
reformation struggles was no more indispensable, and no more diffi- 
cult, than to live properly for the reformation peoples, some of whom 
are well-nigh drunk with reformation liberties. The ^‘enthusiasm of 
humanity,” founded on God, and fed at the cross, must now be dis- 
played in preventing liberty from becoming self-destructive. There 
are not many “hurrah” elements in such work, and few thanks to be 
won in opposing men’s doing what they like to do. It is the physi- 
cian and malaria, rather than the trumpet and the tournament. It 
is a work easily forgotten even by those who cry “ Thy kingdom 
come.” 

But certain it is, that liberty must be based upon the Bible, or 
washed away from the shifting sands of human opinion. Its forces 
must be held and driven, or they will wreck the chariot. Liberty 
must acknowledge God and the Decalogue. It must recognize its 
highest claims as satisfied in the principles of that matchless Declara- 
tion of Independence, which is shot through and through with the 
blue thread of Mecklenburg, itself spun out of Scotch tissue, and is 
at once Christian and free. 

The Rev. Prof. Lyman H. Atwater, D. D., LL. D., of Prince- 
ton, N. J., read a paper as follows, on 

RELIGION AND POLITICS. 

Religion includes all forms in which man evinces allegiance and 
devotion to the Being or Beings whom he recognizes as supreme, 
wfiiether Christian, Jewish, or Pagan. Politics refers to organized 
states, either with respect to the scientific unfolding of the theoretical 
and practical principles of civil government, or the means and meth- 
ods of uplifting particular persons, parties, and policies to the ascen- 
dency in any given state. These two departments, though quite dis- 
tinct, nevertheless overlap and largely interpenetrate. The question 
is, how far has religion a place in politics in each of these senses? 

Between the Vatican claim that the Church, through its supreme 
pontiff, is the infallible and authoritative guide of the civil magistrate 
in all matters affecting faith and .morals, as also the supreme judge of 
what matters come under this category; and the counter-maxim of 
Hobbes that the statutes of the state are the ultimate source, standard 
and rule of moral obligation — a sentiment wfid^ch agrees with much 
utilitarian and materialistic speculation in undermining intrinsic and 
scriptural morality — all varieties of doctrine on this subject may be 
found, down to that formula of demagogic diabolism, “all is fair in 
politics.” Omitting all attempts to specify all of these, I may pre- 
mise that the composition and constitution of this body, as I suppose, 


324 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


preclude all discussion of State-Church establishments ; that, for vari 
ous reasons, I can only touch a few sides of the subject, such as per- 
tain to all states as such, whether possessing religious establishments 
or not ; and that my concrete references and illustrations will largely 
refer to my own country, in which some of the chief problems in- 
volved are finding their solution. 

It is only a truism to say, at the threshold, that the state is bound 
to protect all in the peaceable exercise of their religion and use of 
property dedicated to religious purposes up to the point at which the 
abuse of such liberty becomes licentiousness. It is not bound to pro- 
tect-immoralities or breaches of the public peace committed in the name 
of religion, or in obedience to alleged conscientious convictions, how- 
ever sincere. To tolerate polygamy, incest, free-love, or other adul- 
terous crimes; to allow offences against life and health; to permit 
theft, fraud, pauper idleness and vagrancy, false witnessing, perjury, 
calumny and the like, on the pretext of religious liberty, is absurd. 
A right to the protection of society is not a right to undermine it. 
The state, too, can and should protect men against the wrongful 
deprivation of their civil rights by acts of religious bodies to which 
they belong — acts done under color of discipline or otherwise — in a 
manner contrary to their own fundamental covenants and constitu- 
tions. 

The state also may be obliged to inquire into the doctrines of any 
religious body, at least for the purpose of identifying rights, franchises, 
and ownerships of property, conditioned upon adherence to certain 
doctrines. Yet, as respects disputed interpretations of doctrine, the 
decisions of the highest tribunals of the Church to which the litigants 
belong are, pritjia facie, and, in ordinary cases, conclusive. So our 
courts hold. 

But whatever may be maintained in respect to the right of the state 
to exact from its subjects an unwilling support of any particular form 
of religion, neither it, nor the rulers who are its organs and representa- 
tives, can be exempt from the obligations of religion. No state, no 
rulers can wage war against God with innocence or impunity. We 
do not here inquire whether a state transcends its function and com- 
mission indeed when it attempts to impose the support of any form 
of religion upon its subjects. However this may be, the state is not 
without obligation to obey God in all that it is warranted or under- 
takes to do. It is not at liberty to violate any principle of morality, 
or of the decalogue, the divinely articulated summation of morality. 
The manward part of the decalogue touching obedience to parents 
and superiors, and their reciprocal duties to inferiors, the protection 
of life, chastity, property, truth — every rightful privilege and posses- 
sion of man — underlies all legislation pertaining to social life, and the 
relations of men to each other. This, directly or indirectly, includes 
the great mass of legislation. No lawgiver can set these aside without 
treason to the state, to conscience, and to God. None can fail in 
all legitimate ways to promote the outward observance of them without 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


325 


recreancy to a sacred trust. No ruler of a state, moreover, can 
positively set at naught the first, or Godward part of the decalogue, 
without defiance of God. It is vain to claim otherwise from whatever 
side we view the subject. Does a man acquire a right to deny or 
insult God, when acting as a ruler or magistrate, which would be 
impious if done by him as a private citizen ? 

As no man in any sphere, or on any occasion, can be free from the 
obligations of morality, so, be it remembered, morality and religion 
interpenetrate. Not that man by abjuring religion can rid himself of 
his conscience, or sense of right and wrong. The atheist cannot do 
this, even if he profess or attempt to do it. But morality severed 
from the light and sanctions of religion is greatly maimed and para- 
lyzed, while religion torn from morality is a monstrosity and a mis- 
nomer. Either without the other is a fleshless skeleton. But as 
conscience must always and everywhere dominate the man, it must 
itself in every sphere, private, public, personal, official, political, be 
guided by the oracles of God. In every capacity man is bound, 
‘‘whether he eat, or drink, or whatsoever he does, to do all to the 
glory of God.” He can no more escape this obligation by being a 
statesman or politician than he can get out of himself. To eliminate 
the moral, and so far forth, the religious element from the state, is to 
strike out its life. It is no proof to the contrary to say, as is often 
said, that the state deals alone with the temporal and earthly, the 
Church with the divine and heavenly. For the very aim and founda- 
tion of any proper state is moral ; it is the securing to all their rights 
relatively to each other and itself. And what is a right but the fact 
that it is right that a given privilege, opportunity or faculty be secured 
to us? And is it not the function of the state to secure such rights, 
and prevent their infringement by others? The very aim of the 
state is to promote justice between its subjects, and between them and 
itself, and, on the international side, between itself and other nations. 

The state itself indeed cannot enforce inward rectitude, or all its 
fit outward manifestations ; but it can and ought itself to refrain from 
all unrighteousness. It can raise the appreciation of morality among 
the people, and educate them to higher moral standards by its own 
scrupulous adherence to them ; by its own protection of the innocent, 
and manifestation of a due abhorrence of abominable crimes in its 
treatment of their perpetrators; so that, while tempering justice with 
mercy, it should not turn it into a farce by a sickly and overstrained 
philanthropy. It is only another aspect of the same thing to say, 
that the end of the state is to secure to the citizen the power of being 
and doing morally, right. His rights, whether of free speaking, inter- 
course, locomotion, or whatever else, are rights to do right. So far 
as the state falls short of this moral ideal, like all organisms, she and 
all her members or citizens must strive to lift her up to her normal 
standard. 

With those who accept the Bible as the true standard of life and 
manners, this view of the moral constitution and end of the state is 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


326 

past all doubt. ‘‘The powers that be are ordained of God,” as to 
their rightful origin and authority, if not as to the manner of their 
appointment and investiture with office. They are to be obeyed not 
merely “for wrath” or terror of punishment, but “ for conscience’ 
sake.” They are to be for “the punishment of evil-doers and the 
praise of them that do well.” They are not to be “a terror to 
good works, but to the evil.” “Whosoever, therefore, resisteth 
the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. Further proof that 
neither morality nor religion can be disowned or discarded by the 
state is superfluous. In all this the Scriptures only reaffirm, in an 
unperverted form, what is rooted in the intuitive convictions of the 
race. Atheism and infidelity are alone equal to extirpating all 
religion from the state. 

How far, and in what ways then, may the religion of the Bible 
manifest itself in the public or political acts of a people that discards 
all state religious establishments, all union of Church and State? 

It is clear that this will largely depend on the kind and degree of 
religious convictions and sensibilities that master the people, and 
those in control of the government. The effect of these will appear 
in legislation. Men will put themselves into their action, private and 
public. No theories of the absolutely non-religious character of the 
state can drive out of their political action their moral and religious 
sentiments — observe I do not say their sectarianism. This has been 
conspicuous in the whole history of the United States, both in respect 
to the national and local State governments. These have very largely 
given expression and effect to the moral sense of the people, as that 
is inspired and moulded by a dominant Christianity. For notwith- 
standing technical objections to the contrary, the United States are 
essentially a Christian nation. 

It is not necessary to this that an explicit or formal profession of 
Christianity should be made in the constitution or written ground-law 
of the nation, desirable as that may be. There are institutions which 
are mightier than written constitutions, though their charters are un- 
written in any scroll of parchment. The Constitution of Great 
Britain has its life in such institutions which live and reign in the 
minds and hearts, the manners, habits, social usages and laws of the 
nation — her institutions of education, learning, religion and charity. 
An individual Christian does not lose his Christianity by omitting the 
phrase, “In the name of God; amen,” from his last will and testa- 
ment ; nor does a nation lose its religion by not making a formal 
profession of it in its written constitution. The admission into our 
United States Constitution of the day and year of. our Lord is not as 
meaningless as some would have it. At this point neutrality is im- 
possible to a nation and its rulers in respect to revealed religion. 
Man is not, as we have seen, at liberty, in his private or public 
capacity, to break or defy the law of God. But not to rest on the 
Lord’s day from labors other than those of necessity and mercy is thus 
to violate that law. To stop secular labor and recreation on that day 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


327 


is so far forth to recognize it as the Lord’s day, instituted in his 
revealed word. Although it would be quite right for the state to set 
apart by law one day in seven, on account of the ascertained benefits 
of such rest to man’s physical and spiritual being, yet this is not the 
sole or supreme ground of the obligation. It is imperative because 
the Lord commands it, whether men can discern sanitary, hygienic 
or other worldly advantages resulting from it or not. 

Now, this observance of the Lord’s day is established, not only in 
the customs and habits of the people of the United States, but by 
legislation ; and in the practice of our National and State Legislatures 
and other officers, at least so far as the discharge of their official func- 
tions is concerned. Herein we have the most visible and unquestion- 
able manifestation of a nation’s attitude towards divine revelation. 
So in requiring the oath, confirmed by kissing the Bible, with due 
provision for relief of conscientious scruples, the religion of the nation 
is evinced. So also in the rites which the vast majority of the people 
observe on the most solemn occasions, such as weddings and funerals, 
whether they are in visible connection with any Church or not, they 
are on the side of Christianity. This is far from saying or intimating 
that the majority of these are real Christians, even by profession, or 
that they all believe, or profess belief, in the Christian religion ; but 
they are nominal, and to a great extent real, believers in Christianity, 
as against any opposing system. It is not meant surely that there is 
not a deplorable amount of Sabbath-breaking, intemperance and pro- 
faneness, scepticism and flagrant iniquity. But it is meant that in the 
predominating belief, usages and sentiments of the people, and in the 
manifestation thereof, this is eminently a Christian, as distinguished 
from an atheistic, infidel, pagan or Mohammedan country. 

The United States are a Christian nation also, as the recognized 
test of the legislation of the country is its conformity to the moral 
law, and this, roo, as interpreted and applied by the Christian senti- 
ment of the country. Not that immoral measures are not sometimes 
proposed or even adopted by our National or State l^egislatures. But 
they are always urged on some pretext of right. They are opposed 
and denounced on the ground of their moral obliquity, whatever else 
may be urged against them. And once they are proved and conceded 
to be morally wrong or anti-Christian, they are hopelessly defeated. 

The Christian sentiment of the country opposes and often prevents 
unrighteous wars. It demands that its sons, who serve it in the army 
and navy, as also its prisoners, be not left in the condition of heathen, 
but shall be ministered to, nay that the sessions of Congress shall be 
opened with prayer, by Christian chaplains, with due provision for 
religious liberty, whether this can be smoothly reconciled with some 
abstract theory or not. It finds expression in laws for the prevention 
of intemperance. Sabbath desecration, profaneness and sacrilege; in 
the summons by our chief magistrates. State and national, to observe 
annual days of thanksgiving, and special days of fasting, in great 
national crises, which are accepted with scarce a whisper of opposition 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


328 

from any quarter, and hearty, positive observance by multitudes. It 
also appears in the explicit and thankful recognition of God and his 
providence as the source of all national blessings, in the annual mes- 
sages of our governors and presidents to their respective legislatures. 

Coming now to politics, in that looser popular sense which obtains 
in countries where rulers are chosen by popular election, and which 
refers to the means employed to secure the triumph of particular pp- 
sons, parties, or policies at the polls, we must content ourselves with 
the fewest words. Religion touches politics here as it forbids us to 
further unrighteous measures by any means, or the best policies by 
unrighteous means. It rules out all lying, slander, fraudulent or 
venal voting ; all procuring votes, or support for men, parties, or 
measures by bribery. It demands the support in the main of that 
political party, which, on the whole, in the conscientious view of the 
voter, makes most for righteousness and the public good. But here 
perplexity often emerges because the best political parties are apt to 
be mounted by political leaders, who consider them as a personal pos- 
session to be used chiefly for the honor or emolument of themselves 
or their friends. They look at the sacred convictions which command 
votes for the party very much as the speculator looks upon the views 
abroad which determine the prices of the commodities in which he 
speculates. At length corrupt men, with corrupt party machinery, 
become a fungous growth upon the party, of which it must rid itself, 
or die, certainly as to its usefulness. How shall the right-principled 
members of the party free it of these deadly incumbrances? Their 
bare protests are apt to be unavailing. How shall they make them 
more than briitum fulmen ? 

First, they can attend the primary meetings of parties at which 
candidates are nominated, and seek by their influence and votes to 
promote the nomination of good men. Sometimes this sufiflces to 
correct the evil. Oftener it fails, because it is so eas^ for the selfish 
and unscrupulous to pack such conventions with ignorant and un- 
principled voters who outnumber them. Failing here, they can form 
an independent body at the polls, who, when no great party issues are 
at stake, can defeat unworthy nominees. Here they can make them- 
selves felt to good purpose; for party managers will not generally 
court defeat by setting up candidates so unworthy as to repel the 
independent voter. All Christians, all good men, should become a 
force in politics, and make themselves efficient in elevating the moral 
standard of parties, politics and legislation. 

It is a question of much gravity and delicacy, how far the Church, 
by its teachings as an organic body, or through its pulpits, should 
touch the subjects connected with politics. It should not plunge into 
the mire of mere partisan conflicts. It cannot mingle in the details 
of mere party strife without fleshly contamination, so losing its savor 
as the salt of the earth. This, so far from eternizing the temporal, 
secularizes the eternal, and carnalizes the spiritual. None the less, 
however, should the pulpit no wise be dumb on great public issues 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


329 


and policies for or against righteousness, mercy and truth. The 
ambassador of God may not seal his lips in regard to great abomina- 
tions, because these happen to be espoused by some political party, 
or made planks in its platform. When a Church becomes so subject 
to the “ throne of iniquity,” pillared on wealth, rank, social prestige, 
or the tyranny of political parties that it dare not “ cry aloud and 
spare not” against lawless violence, drunkenness and its guilty 
causes and promoters ; culpable neglect of the public health and 
safety, or traitorous hindrance to the government when it bears not 
the sword in vain against evil-doers, rebellion, anarchy, unjust foreign 
aggression ; refusal to submit international differences to arbitration 
rather than the sword; unscriptural divorces; the tolerance of polyg- 
amy, and the circulation of obscene and polluting literature ; fraud, 
oppression, extortion, the violation of national faith ; against the 
abominations connected with such trades as make merchandise of the 
souls and bodies of men ; against adulterating food and drink into poi- 
sons ; against expulsion of industrious foreigners by blatant sluggards 
and more blatant demagogues ; it may well ask itself, what is its mis- 
sion? why cumbereth it the ground? 

When nations and their governments have tolerated or winked at 
unrighteousness, the Church has too often lacked courage to protest 
against it. But, when the conscience of the Church and ministry has 
been awakened from such deadly torpor, and borne due witness against 
great abominations, it has aroused the nations from their self-indulgent 
iniquities, and that lethargy of conscience which reposed on that 
doctrine of the pit that gain is godliness, or godliness is only gain.” 
It scarcely needs to be added, that religion enters politics, as it is the 
province of the Church to instruct rulers, that they rule in righteous- 
ness ; and to pray for them, that they may bear rule so wisely and 
well, that all may lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and 
honesty. 

The Rev. Dr. Blaikie. — It was the understanding, in the 
Business Committee, that if we could spare ten minutes at this 
meeting an opportunity should be given to the Rev. Mr. Duff, 
from Tasmania, to say a few words about his Church. Mr. 
Duff has come, I suppose, as far as any man, to be present at 
this meeting ; and I move that ten minutes may be allowed him 
now to make a brief statement. 

The motion was agreed to, and the Rev. Robert S. Duff, 
M. A., read the following paper on 

TASMANIA. 

Moderator^ Fathers, and Brethren : As Tasmania holds a compara- 
tively lowly place among the Australian colonies, being overshadowed 
by such powerful neighbors as Victoria, New South Wales, and New 


330 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Zealand, it is well to state a few particulars respecting the country 
itself before speaking of the Church. . Looking at a map of the 
Southern Hemisphere, you will observe a triangular-shaped island, one 
hundred and twenty miles south of the great Australian continent. 
That is the land we live in — an insignificant speck on the map of the 
world, but a very beautiful land, and possessing considerable possi- 
bilities for the future. It is situated between 40° and 44° south lati- 
tude, and 144° and 149° east longitude. In extent it is one hundred 
and seventy miles from north to south and one hundred and sixty 
from east to west, with an area of over fifteen millions of acres. It is 
nearly the size of Ireland. The climate is proverbially one of the 
most healthy and delightful in the world. The annual rainfall aver- 
ages twenty-four inches, being higher than on the Australian conti- 
nent, and lower than in Britain and in America. The mean mid- 
winter temperature is about 46° F., and that of mid-summer 63° F. 
We have no extremes of heat or cold ; the winter is scarcely severe 
enough to merit the name ; cattle are turned out in all seasons ; and 
life in the open air may be enjoyed all the year round. Brilliant 
sunshine without oppressive glare and heat; long stretches of fair 
weather which from day to day may be counted on ; clear, starry 
nights always deliciously .cool even in the hottest seasons: these are 
the prevailing features. The scenery is in harmony with the climate. 
Lofty mountains lifting blue summits to the sky, magnificent forests 
with inexhaustible supply of timber, spacious park-like landscape with 
green pasture and smiling streams, rivers everywhere with unfailing 
flow of pure water, rich agricultural lands, pleasant homesteads, sweet 
villages, and the two beautiful though small cities of Hobart Town 
and Launceston — such are the scenes that meet the eye and linger after- 
ward in the mind. It is not surprising that Tasmania is a favorite 
resort for people from neighboring colonies and travellers from a dis- 
tance, and that it is a sanatorium for Indian officers. 

The island was discovered by the Dutch navigator, Abel Tasman, 
in 1642, who named it Van Diemen’s Land, in honor of Anthony 
Van Diemen, Governor of Batavia, who had fitted out the expedition. 
From that summer day on which Tasman and his crew peacefully an- 
chored in the silent bay, the island does not seem to have been again 
visited for one hundred and thirty years, the native savage the while 
holding undisturbed possession. The work of the first discoverer 
remained as he left it till the closing years of the eighteenth century, 
^yhen Captain Cook and others gradually opened up what had so long 
been as a sealed book. 

The settlement of the colony took place in 1803, when the convict 
establishment at Botany Bay, near Sydney, which had existed for 
twelve years, being overcrowded, a number of the most dangerous 
felons had* to be dispersed and were brought to Tasmania. In this 
moral eclipse our history began. Transportation ceased a quarter of 
a century ago, and in 1856 the event was signalized by changing the 
name from “Van Diemen’s Land” to “Tasmania,” in honor of the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


331 


rightful discoverer. It is a mistake to suppose that society retains 
appreciable marks of moral degradation in consequence of the early 
convict element. Few of the felons have left any progeny, nearly all 
having been unmarried ; then, a large proportion were sent out for 
comparatively trifling offences, who, on regaining liberty, became 
respectable citizens, honestly endeavoring to live down former dis- 
grace. The statistics of crime, the security of person and property, 
the moral tone of domestic and public life, and the virtue and intel- 
ligence of the people generally compare favorably with average Anglo- 
Saxon society anywhere. Practically there is nothing to remind one 
that he lives in a land that was once a convict settlement. 

The aborigines, who presented probably almost the lowest type of 
savage tribes, numbered somewhere from 5,000 to 10,000 in the early 
part of the century. So rapidly did they fade before the pale faces 
that Queen Truganinni, the last of her race, died four years ago. 

Tasmania, like the other colonies, has a governor of her own, ap- 
pointed by the British cabinet, who holds office for six years. The 
Parliament consists of two chambers, the Legislative Council with six- 
teen members, and the House of Assembly with thirty-two members, 
both elective. The business capacity, debating power, and fairness 
of the representatives, and the high character of judges and magis- 
trates, are a source of satisfaction and guarantee of liberty and justice. 
The governors have been for the most part distinguished alike by 
public efficiency and private virtue. 

We have no more remarkable or pleasing feature than is presented 
by our system of education. In the public schools, numbering about 
170, instruction is compulsory, secular and free. Perhaps instead of 
“secular” one should say “unsectarian,” for Scripture extracts are 
used ; in some cases the Bible itself is in the hands of the children, 
and clergymen may at certain hours visit the schools for the purpose 
of imparting religious teaching. “ By a system of exhibitions from 
these schools a certain number of pupils of both sexes are enabled 
annually, even in the absence of private resources, to proceed to the 
best private schools, and thus qualify themselves eventually for exami- 
nation for the local degree of associate of arts. Two Tasmanian 
scholarships of £,200 a year each, tenable for four years at a British 
university, are awarded annually to associates of arts (male) who pass 
a prescribed examination.” There is no lack of mechanics’ insti- 
tutes, public libraries, and scientific societies. New books and all 
leading British and some American periodicals and journals, arrive 
regularly, exercising their usual influence on the thought and tastes 
of the people. The local press is conducted with enterprise and 
ability. With these advantages, and with the evident desire to make 
the most of them, it is not too much to say that the people are fairly 
enlightened. 

Next to New South Wales, Tasmania is the oldest colony of the 
Australian group ; but it has fallen behind the others in the race of 
prosperity, and has, in consequence, been called “Sleepy Hollow.” 


332 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


The population is now only 110,000, and composed proportionately 
of English, Irish and Scotch, without almost any admixture of foreign 
nationalities. But there are signs of awakening activity and enter- 
prise, giving hope of a successful future. Mineral and other re- 
sources are being vigorously developed, and by liberal land laws and 
other advantages, such encouragement is given to immigration as af- 
fords a reasonable prospect of a steady, though it may not be rapid, 
increase of population. We have railways, roads, and telegraph 
lines connecting the different centres ; a submarine cable unites us to 
Australia and New Zealand, with which we have also almost daily steam 
communication. The chief exports are wool, tin, timber, gold, jam, 
fruit, hops, grain, bark, stud-sheep, etc., amounting to somewhat less 
than a million and a half pounds sterling annually. The imports are 
of similar value. The yearly revenue and expenditure are respectively 
slightly under ;^4oo,ooo. Not to be behind others, we have a na- 
tional debt of our own, which, however, is less than two millions 
sterling. We have not many colonists of great wealth, such as 
abound in Victoria and New South Wales; some of our merchants 
and sheep-farmers are in affluent circumstances ; the majority of the 
people are comfortable ; extreme poverty is almost unknown. 

To Tasmania belongs the distinction of having had the first Pres- 
byterian minister in Australasia. He was settled as early as 1823. A 
Presbytery was formed a few years later. No proper connection has 
been sustained with any particular Church in the old country ; our 
door has ever been open to all duly accredited Presbyterian ministers, 
and at present our pulpits are filled by representatives of the Estab- 
lished, Free, and United Presbyterian Churches of Scotland, and of the 
Irish and Victorian Churches. Australia, as a whole, has practically 
solved the question of union. Each of the other colonies finds one 
Presbyterian Church enough, and strong because it is one. We un- 
fortunately present the anomaly of a very small section of our number 
standing apart from the rest without sufficient cause; but, with pa- 
tience and forbearance, division will speedily be healed, and the 
process will doubtless be helped by the magnificent spectacle of 
brotherly unity in this great Council. 

It must be admitted the Presbyterian cause has been less successful 
in Tasmania than in the other colonies. We have only thirteen fully 
equipped charges and two mission stations. The number of adherents 
does not exceed 10,000, while census returns show that Episcopalians 
are over 50,000, and Roman Catholics over 20,000. Obstacles to 
our progress have been largely removed ; we now stand with our 
faces to the future, eager by the divine blessing to do for our 
adopted land, what she has a right to expect from a Church with a 
great name and history like those of Presbyterianism. Fresh zeal in 
home and foreign missions, and increased attention to the various de- 
partments of Church organization, are hopeful signs; so, too, the 
training of students for the ministry for the first time in our history, 
renewed ardor in working among the young, the cultivation of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


'y ^ 

oo3 

Christian union, and a magazine which is an important aid in all our 
work. In all these things, and above all, we hope increasingly to re- 
alize the presence of Him who alone can give the success worth 
having in the labor of his vineyard. 

Four years ago Philadelphia gathered together ‘‘under all the flags 
of all the world ” the representatives and the specimens of every de- 
partment of human activity. Tasmania came from far, and rejoiced 
to be present. You then did something in this great land to “ weave 
a web of concord among the nations.” You are seeking to-day to 
help in the same service for the Churches whose representatives assem- 
ble here under the one glorious banner of the Captain of our salvation. 
In the name of the Church in Tasmania, I respectfully thank the 
General Council for receiving us into alliance, offer you the assurance 
of our profound veneration, and pray that God may be pleased to 
grant that our meetings may promote his glory in those exalted ends 
for which men live and Churches labor. 

THE CUMBERLAND CASE. 

Henry Day, Esq., of New York. — I desire, with the consent 
of the Committee on Credentials, who.se report was made last 
week, and about which we had something to say on Saturday 
last, to move that the report be referred back to that com- 
mittee for their action again. I think there has been some 
misunderstanding, and the committee so understands, about 
the Cumberland Church and its application for admission. 
This committee has only the right and jurisdiction over 
applications from a body or church in connection with this 
Alliance. They have nothing to do with an application, from a 
church or body not in connection with us, to become members 
of this body. The misunderstanding has come out of that. 
Allow me to say that the committee received a certificate or a 
credential from one of the members of the Cumberland Church 
certified by himself merely, stating that he was appointed as a 
delegate from the Cumberland Church. The other delegate 
brought a paper better certified from the Cumberland Church ; 
but the difficulty was that the Cumberland Church is not now 
in connection with us, and there was no proof that the Cumber- 
land Church had requested to become members of this body or 
that they had acknowledged and. consented to the constitutional 
obligations, which, of course, they must do before they can ask 
to become members. Now when the committee made their re- 


334 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


port it intended merely to say that this body is not in connec- 
tion with us, and therefore we cannot admit them. As there was 
some misunderstanding as to what that report meant, and as this 
may be a precedent to influence other applications, and may 
affect our good name and our standing in regard to other 
churches and bodies that are not members, it is proper that 
the matter should be carefully reconsidered. Therefore, with 
consent of this committee, who I think have done their duty 
(and I acknowledge that I have been somewhat mistaken in the 
premises), and in justice to them, I make the motion. 

The motion was agreed to, and the report was referred. 

The Council adjourned with devotional services until 7.30 p. m. 

September 2lth, 1880. 7.30 p. m. 

The Council was called to order in the Academy of Music at 
7.30 o’clock, Francis “Brown Douglas, Esq., of Edinburgh, 
President for the session. 

After devotional exercises the Rev. George C. Hutton, D. D., 
of Paisley, Scotland, read the following paper on 

PRESBYTERIAN ORGANIZATION ON THE MISSION 
FIELD. 

The subject of this brief paper may be described as Presbyterian 
Organization on the Mission Field. 

It falls in suitably under the head of Presbyterian Catholicity.” 

Presbyterianism is denominational by the necessity of witness- 
bearing for truth, and the conditions of ecclesiastical work which can 
be executed only by the co-operation of those who agree in doctrine 
and, polity. Denominationalism is not schism, but division of labor 
and responsibility — the separation which liberates conscience and 
unites for the service of the Church all who are agreed in what should 
be done and taught. 

Presbyterianism, as denominational in justice to truth and Chris- 
tian order, is not less catholic in its universal adaptations, and in the 
spirit of charity and fraternity which it cherishes towards other sec- 
tions of the Christian Church. Presbyterianism unchurches none who 
accept and worship Jesus as both Lord and Christ ; and it has a right- 
hand of welcome and co-operation for all in every place who own his 
sovereignty. Presbyterianism on the mission field is Presbyterianism 
in its place. It hears the ‘‘marching orders: ” “Go ye into all the 
world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” The Presbyterian- 
ism of a former period may have been unable to do more than contend 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


335 

for existence ;'but Presbyterianism worthy of its name and inheritance 
must be missionary. Only thus can it be Christian and catholic. 

Mission work is the work of the Church and of the time. Without 
it Christianity gives no sign. The missionary enterprise is Christian- 
ity in motion — Christianity aggressive — going forth conquering and 
to conquer. 

The missions of the Church are the offshoot of the mission of the 
Son of God. They are its publication and continuation in the 
action of the Church. “As the Father hath sent me into the world, 
so have I also sent them into the world.” 

Whatever, therefore, in our measures increases efficiency, or is fitted 
to facilitate missionary enterprise in the general field, deserves the 
serious attention of the churches, and of such a Council of Presby- 
terians. 

The Synod of the United Presbyterian Church at its meeting in 
May last, instructed its delegates to the General Presbyterian Coun- 
cil to bring before that Council, in connection with the considera- 
tion of Missionary Questions, the question as to the mode in which 
missionaries of different churches laboring in the same or contiguous 
fields may be associated with each other, so as most efficiently to 
secure in harmonious co-operation the ends contemplated in mis- 
sionary work.” 

All that is intended or can be done in the space allotted to this 
paper, is to offer some general views of the subject which may serve 
to start suitable discussion. 

The question as limited is that of the association of missionaries of 
different churches, working in the same or contiguous fields: How 
are the principles of Presbyterian organization to be applied, and 
turned to the best account for the common purposes of the mission 
field, among the laborers of different churches? 

The answer to this question is not to be found in any single 
method or line of policy, but will fall to be modified by the very 
various circumstances and stages of progress of the several mission 
fields. 

In some of these the rudimentary features of Church life alone 
exist. Organization is unknown. There are a missionary and a few 
converts, perhaps, scattered over a wide district, and that is all. In 
others, several missionaries occupy the field; a church and a school, 
or churches and schools, have been planted ; a native eldership is at 
work, though native pastors have not been tried ; but there is no Mis- 
sion Presbytery; only a Conference of Missionaries, and a power of 
reference to the parent Church or Board. In other cases, native 
agency has begun to bear its fruit, and native churches with native 
pastorates, more or less supported from within, partially or wholly 
superintended by missionaries, show considerable strength. 

Mission Presbyteries have been formed in most of the Presbyterian 
mission fields, these being, in some instances, constituent parts of the 
Supreme Court, with final powers in cases of discipline ; and the 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


33 ^ 

members of Mission Presbyteries enjoying the rights of ordinary mem- 
bers of Synods and Assemblies when present at the meetings of these 
courts. To this there is an exception in the Established Church of 
Scotland, the constituent parts of whose Assembly have a legal defini- 
tion which excludes such arrangements. There is probably also an 
exception to the general recognition of Mission Presbyteries, and of 
their members, in the Supreme Courts of the Presbyterian Church of 
America (South), which regards' it as not constitutional for the As- 
sembly to form any Presbytery in a foreign country. This, however, 
may not prevent the reception of such representatives of the mission 
field as corresponding members. 

To these and such varieties in circumstances and development of 
Church life on the mission field is to be added an actual or possible 
separation of the jurisdictions of the mission and the parent 
Churches, besides the variations emerging from distinctions of race, 
language, nationality, progress in civilization among the people, and 
differences of culture, and of ecclesiastical position and training 
among missionaries. 

To unify counsel and effort under these various conditions in har- 
mony with Presbyterian polity is not less desirable than difficult, but 
it ought to be steadily aimed at, and it has already been approximated. 
Presbyterianism has its variations and denominational unities at home, 
whether in Europe or America. These are unavoidably, more or less, 
preserved and reproduced in the mission field amid variations peculiar 
to itself. But it has no less its ideal catholic unity, and its incor- 
porating aspirations at home, and short of these it has its tentative 
approximations, and limited co-operations in various Christian works. 
These aspirations, approximations, and co-operations are no less legit- 
imate on the mission field. 

They are in one sense more imperative and more easily realizable in 
that field where essentials define and vindicate their necessity and 
paramount character by the urgency which has no law. Our fellow- 
workers in the mission field are ‘accustomed to remind us amid the 
more theoretical controversies which spring up in the advanced life of 
the home Churches, of the superiority of the point of view of the 
missionary to the heathen, who, in his conflict with the primary forms 
of error and wickedness, has neither time nor heart for questions 
which seem the fruit of an over-fine ecclesiasticism, or of an over- 
nice theology, if not sometimes also of party warfare. Without 
admitting that the missionary has all the advantage sometimes claimed 
— it is due to him, speaking to us from the high places of the field, 
to receive with brotherly love and deference the implied appeal, and 
to examine our ways in the controversies of Christendom. It is not 
to be admitted that the educated thought of home Christianity is ex- 
pending itself in barren causes, or that questions the growth of 
history, entering into first principles, forcing themselves on the times, 
in Church and State, are to be suppressed as futile or secondary. 
But it may well be allowed that the missionary is in a position to be 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


337 


profoundly impressed with the gigantic nature of the work before the 
Church, and the force of the simple elements of Christianity, and to 
appreciate as others cannot the allowances to be made for the human 
nature with which he deals. He is to be pardoned if he is impatient 
of counsels and instructions proceeding from ill-informed or mis- 
judging authority, or of mere technical debates, or of party issues, 
or the jangle of unspiritual minds, or even of what he regards as 
minor questions of doctrine or polity. 

It is unnecessary, however, to seek even on the mission field for 
latitude of experiment by relaxing a proper Presbyterian polity. 
Within its New Testament limits it provides every needful facility for 
conference and co-operation with brethren of non-Presbyterian bodies, 
and for drawing close the bonds of counsel and common work 
amongst the denominations of Presbyterianism itself. 

The Pan-Presbyterian organization with its councils, by which it is 
sought to advance the common ends of Presbyterianism among the 
parent churches, suggests a principle and methods that might be 
adapted to the circumstances of the mission churches. Here we 
confer or may confer on the interests of the Church, in all their 
common aspects, and on the best means for prosecuting its enterprises 
at home and abroad. We bring no jurisdiction to bear on each other, 
but only the influence of opinion, and the action of our several 
Supreme Courts is free, and what is done at these councils may or 
may not commend itself to their wisdom ; but the interchange of mind 
and experience, conducted with mutual regard and disinterested 
spirit, is fitted to be helpful to all. The leading problems of the 
mission field might fall here to be discussed. 

Such councils, larger or smaller, in the various mission fields, more 
or less frequent, occasional, or stated, and local or district confer- 
ences of missionaries, assembling as the circumstances dictate, would 
serve invaluable purposes if systematically adopted, as they have done 
where they have been anticipated by the action of missionaries. 

There is no reason why such conferences or councils should not 
embrace the missionaries of all evangelical churches in a district or 
field. Congregational and other brethren would contribute and 
receive common benefit from regular or occasional comparison of 
views and experience in dealing with the problems of evangelism and 
Church life. Such wider or more catholic unions and councils 
tending to fuller co-operation, ought to be encouraged by all churches. 
Between an unexaggerated Congregationalism and an unaffected Pres- 
byterianism, there are many points of practical harmony which will 
and which do show themselves to advantage on the mission field. 

Since the Union Missionary Convention met in New York, in • 
1854, and the Liverpool Conference on Missions, held in i860, and 
subsequent conferences, an important impulse has been given to the 
union of missionaries in conference on the several fields both in de- 
nominational and general counsel. The history of the more private 
conferences in such fields as India and Ceylon, Syria and elsewhere, 


22 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


338 

as well as that of the large general conventions, show the numerous; 
and important topics which can be handled, and the many ways in 
which co-operation is practicable, without encroachment on the special 
responsibilities of the several churches, or on the claims of denomi- 
national independence. 

In such conferences, questions, on which experience throws increas- 
ing light as well as others more nearly settled, are healthfully stirred : 
the qualifications of missionaries in the various foreign fields ; ver- 
nacular preaching and literature; itineracies; medical missions; 
concentration or diffusion of effort; interpreters; schools; the 
training of native agents; native churches; orphanages; native 
female education ; female agencies ; financial relations of mission 
churches; liberality, self-support and systematic giving; the Sab- 
bath, marriage laws and caste ; translations of Scripture ; secular 
labor, church and school building; Christian villages ; property of 
missions; relations to chiefs and governments; denominationalism, 
how far to be reproduced ; national character and customs, and how 
to deal with them ; with many others of universal interest. 

It may be too early to expect, but is it to be set aside as visionary, 
that a large and catholic union of mission-sending Churches and 
bodies should map out the world between them into mission districts, 
unite in securing in home centres missionary training institutes, and, 
on fields where they contiguously labor, such common educational 
agencies, as would equally serve the literary and school purposes of 
all ? Might there not also be some standard of attainment and disci- 
pline recognized in common that should stamp the Christianity of the 
mission fields of all evangelical bodies with a visible unity? 

Whatever may be expected or desired in the more miscellaneous 
sphere of co-operation, Presbyterianism, free and orthodox, ought to 
be able to reach a closer approximation among its sections. 

By local Presbyterian councils or conferences, in which matters of 
more strictly Presbyterian interest could be discussed and settled, 
without jurisdiction-as the terms of communion ; the formula suitable 
for native ministers and elders, reserving denominational articles or 
clauses; the general principles of discipline as applicable to local or 
native circumstances, with the power or limits of appeal ; provision 
and translation of Scriptures and other books or writings; native 
education ; mission schools ; preparation of questions of salaries and 
finance for the courts of the Church ; and such like. 

Where Mission Presbyteries of different Churches exist, without 
trenching on their proper jurisdiction, there might be Associate Pres- 
byteries, in which proposals might be initiated — overtures so to speak — 
.that might go with the force of collective judgment to the denomi- 
national Presbyteries for consideration or approval ; or these Associate 
Presbyteries might be a kind of appellant judicatory to which ques- 
tions might go for reference or decision from the sectional courts. 

These Associate Presbyteries would of course have defined duties, 
and powers, which might vary with place and circumstances, according. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


339 


to the judgment of the delegating authority. In some cases their 
province might be limited to matters connected with discipline, or 
general administrative policy ; in others it might extend to doctrine 
or finance, as in preparing or approving a formula for native ordina- 
tions, or making final suggestions regarding salaries and expenditure, 
the extension of the missions, new fields, or taking measures for raising 
funds for the defined common purposes of the missions, whether in 
regard to schools, training institutes, literature, or what else. 

Where Mission Presbyteries do not exist, the missionaries of different 
Churches might associate themselves into a Presbytery, as those of the 
Presbyterian Church of England and of the Reformed Church of 
North America have done in China for the oversight of the con- 
gregations belonging to both missions. 

In other cases the existing Mission Presbyteries of the several 
Churches might recognize each other, as does the Reformed 
Church of America the missionaries of other Presbyterian Churches, 
as corresponding or advising members. In one, or other, or in 
all of these ways might unity of counsel and effort be promoted, 
as the several cases might warrant, and a sense of Presbyterian 
brotherhood and homogeneity be confirmed throughout wide mission 
regions. The influence would react on the parent Churches and 
thence again upon the fields, and pave the way for incorporations, or 
the sisterly federations of Churches separate in jurisdiction from 
necessary causes, but identical in doctrine, aim and polity, and ever 
extending the sweep of their co-operative enterprises throughout the 
world. Economy would combine with larger efficiency, local and 
individual responsibility with collective and central resource and 
obligation. The missionary hosts would cease to appear to the 
critical eye a series of jealous camps, and would be seen, with what- 
ever local coloring and variety, as but the subdivisions of one Pres- 
byterian army — as but the stars and stripes of a common national 
banner, or the rose, thistle and shamrock of a United kingdom. 

We might then conceive as nearer the still more comprehensive- 
unities of a millennial time, when the Church in its catholic march 
shall go abroad “ fair as the moon, clear as, the sun, and terrible as 
an army with banners,” and the last shout of the reapers go up, amid 
better than the wealth of a thousand harvests, The kingdoms of 
this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.” 

To secure or hasten such results some precautions and rnuch single- 
ness of mind with the spirit of grace, and supplications and patient 
endeavor and waiting, are indispensable. 

On no account must denominational or private self-seeking shape 
or taint any measures or counsels at home or abroad. This will be as 
the dead fly in the ointment of Presbyterian catholicity. 

As in this Pan-Presbyterian experiment, so in all Conferences, 
Councils or Associate Presbyteries on the mission fields, or held 
among parent churches, the limits of co-operation or counsel con- 
sented to as a basis of union, or of a step towards it, must be scrupulously 


340 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

regarded. The engine of majorities ought not to be brought into 
play to produce roughly what is morally potent only, as the fruit of 
conviction and consent. 

Few things have ever more retarded unions and co-operations in 
Church life than “ hurry and hard driving.” It is a proverb that 
children must creep before they walk, and it is true that large bodies 
must do so, and not less churches. We must not disdain the law of 
growth, or forget the duty of mutual respect in our ardors. We must 
be content to await the ripening of thought and habit at home and 
abroad, the results of the slower stages of movements, and then we 
shall be rewarded by the advance of “leaps and bounds. 

With regard to converts, native agencies and native churches, care 
must be taken not to expect too much, and, at the same time, not to 
require too little. 

«The fostering of the parent Church must not be too suddenly with- 
drawn ; and, as of individuals, so of certain mission churches imma- 
ture in experience and civilization — of some we must have compassion, 
making a difference. But it cannot be doubted that greatly pro- 
tracted leading-strings and financial dependence is harmful. It is not 
the purpose of these remarks to suggest illustrations which would be 
invidious, but only to emphasize the principle. Christianity more 
quickly ripens the faculties than all wisdom besides. It more quickly 
rises to its feet in self-support, self-government and self-propagation 
than any institution of man. We may sometimes, even in our mis- 
sionary zeal, overlook the great differential of its growth : the law and 
promise of the Spirit ; the presence of its Head, with whom is neither 
Greek -nor Jew, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free — who is not 
only “all,” but “ in all.” We are not, therefore, to think of Chris- 
tians and Christian Churches as subject only to the laws of common 
development, and to indulge the fears which worldly wisdom inspires. 

The Christian Church is a hardy plant, not to be reared only in 
hot-house conditions, but to wrestle with the winds. It may not, if 
so left, always shape itself to our ideals. There may not come of 
it the “ minimum stipend ” or “ the equal dividend ” of home finance, 
the precise check of the “Barrier Act,” or the refinements of a scho- 
lastic creed ; but there will be the laborer thought worthy of his hire ; 
a “fellowship in the gospel;” the taught in the word communicating 
to him that teacheth us all good things ; a holding fast and a holding 
forth the word of life ; an eldership ruling well, accounted worthy of 
double honor, especially they that labor in word and doctrine ; there 
will be all the elements of the life of churches such as overthrew the 
paganisms of the first ages, and rose amid the civilizations of a Greek 
and Roman world; the “foolish” and “weak” and “base” things 
of their time in the esteem of society and its oracles, but “ the power 
of God and the wisdom of God.” For “the foolishness of God is 
wiser than men ; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” 

Christianity to-day is not less mighty through God than then it 
was ; and, if allowed to organize its own simple forms, “ it will send 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


341 


out its boughs,” as indeed we see it now, ‘‘ to the sea, and its branches 
unto the river.” 

The Christian flock are to be trained to responsible participation in 
the affairs of the house of God. They are not to be passive recipients 
of privilege or subjects of church rule, but factors in the support and 
extension of the gospel, exercising their high franchise in the calling 
of ministers and elders. They cannot grow up to this manhood if 
not trusted with early freedom and relieved from simple dependence 
and pupilage. The help which the strong gives to the weak is com- 
patible with the obligations and self-respect of the latter, and must be 
maintained while needful, but parental excess of aid or government 
enfeebles and delays maturity. 

In all associations, even Presbyterian, for the advance of missions 
and for consolidation of missionary efforts at home or abroad, it is 
essential that there be union in the faith, and that not merely based 
in the acceptance of common standards but in mutual confidence. 
The first question of all is. What is the truth which we unite to pro- 
claim? While vital divergence exists here, or suspicion of it, asso- 
ciation loses its motive and its power, and catholicity of form alone 
remains: Pan-Presbyterianism becomes a sounding brass or a tinkling 
cymbal. Better, healthier, that denominations go their several ways 
independently, at home and abroad, until they reach fundamental 
concurrence in the doctrines of grace, of Christ crucified, ‘^who died 
for our sins according to the Scriptures,” and who ‘‘ was buried' and 
rose again the third day according to the Scriptures : ” Jesus Christ,, 
the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.” We are not, therefore,, 
to cast the girdle of organization around the forms of miscellaneous 
Christianity, even if Presbyterian in its order, and call it union.. 
It is evangelical truth and life we seek to extend in the mission field. 
It is this that has won Christianity its conquests from apostolic times,, 
and it is the union and offices of an evangelical Presbyterianism we 
seek to secure for Christendom and the world. 

We have assumed the duty of Presbyterianism to reproduce Presby- 
terianism on the mission field. This we have done, holding it to be 
an elementary scriptural provision combining order and liberty. This 
is consistent with the sisterly recognition of other churches, and sys- 
tematic conference and co-operation in general, and local schemes of 
common interest and necessity. Presbyterianism, while reproducing 
the elements of its polity, will guard against intrusion on sufficiently 
occupied fields, and know the respect due to evangelical bodies in 
possession. “ Life is more than meat and the body than raiment,” 
and Christianity is more than polity. Polity is an instrument and 
vehicle of church life, and however imperfect some of its forms, if 
they but respect the first liberties of Christians, they are better left in- 
their fields to make churches of their fashion than to be competed 
with in the face of heathenism by something more perfect, while there 
is room and need for the labors of Presbyterianism in untouched 
regio’.is beyond. 


342 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Yet no fear of censure ought to prevent Presbyterianism planting 
itself where evangelical truth and liberty are jeoparded. While 
Presbyterianism ought to reproduce its simple New Testament ele- 
ments, it is not to aim at reproducing mere local features or color, 
accidents and technicalities of purely national or denominational 
history. 

It is extraordinary,” says the late John Coleridge Patteson, Mis- 
sionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands, one of the most consecrated 
of recent laborers, whose name stands bright on the martyr roll, 
^‘that some colonial bishops should seek to reproduce the state of 
things which is peculiar to England, the produce of certain historical 
events which can have no resemblance whatever in the circumstances 
of our colonies.” He gently ridicules the conception of the conven- 
tional bishop “ in white tie and black tail-coat,” only, with Bible in 
hand, preaching to natives. My costume,” he adds, when I go 
ashore is an old Crimean shirt, a very ancient wide-awake,” while it 
was, at times, his office “to keep the crowd in good humor by a few 
simple presents of fish-hooks, beads, etc.” Neither the white tie nor 
the Crimean shirt is anything to a Bishop of Christ — that is, to a mis- 
sionary Presbyter — among the heathen ; but fidelity, common-sense, 
the grace of his office, love to the souls of men, and zeal for the glory 
of God. 

In so far as vital principles are anywhere involved, these should be 
taught in their catholic form with the application demanded by time 
and place. Should a mission church or any of its members spontane- 
ously grow into a more distinctive type, or should a Presbyterian 
mission church find itself resolved into distinctive sections by 
sympathy with divisions in a parent church, the position should be 
regarded as transient. But to reproduce or perpetuate gratuitously 
North and South, Free and Established, Old Light and New Light 
and such like, anachronisms and foreign features of detail, is Presby- 
terianism zealous but not wise. 

It is generally agreed that Christian Churches in heathen lands 
■ought not to be established by law. It is of the utmost importance 
that this be clearly apprehended in its full bearing. Presbyterianism 
must go to the mission field and work there absolutely free and on 
her own resources. “ Taking nothing of the Gentiles,” must be her 
motto. However in the abstract any Presbyterians may think the 
gifts of states and governments legitimate in Christian countries, or 
to be accepted in mission fields, in Pan-Presbyterian concert, the 
policy is negatived. What Presbyterians do in common in the organi- 
zation of missions must practically exclude the authority and support 
of civil powers. And nothing can legitimately be imported into their 
counsels or efforts which has this origin. In so far as particular 
Churches or missions are involved to any extent in this policy, the 
responsibility is their own ; Pan-Presbyterianism does not share it. 

At the same time it is obvious that until Presbyterianism has 
eliminated from its counsels and methods all such external influences. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 343 

it cannot put forth its strength or enjoy its native freedom. Hopes 
built on sources of power without itself, and counsels affected by the 
policy of looking beyond the Church, do not well combine with hopes 
and counsels inspired by other views of the Church’s design and suffi- 
ciency under its head. Pan-Presbyterianism needs simplicity of 
method and inspiration to guide its missions. Christianity cannot 
sit on two stools in any field, and Pan-Presbyterianism must elect to 
rest its missionary policy on the sole basis of the sufficiency of the 
Church, cleaving to the promise given to its head, Thy people shall 
be willing in the day of thy power.” 

To this, the Church’s great world-wide work, let the Churches go, 
laying aside every weight in the race of enterprise, and the sin that 
doth easily beset us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of 
our faith. 

Let the Church be well assured of two things : Forgetting the 
world, the Church forgets itself. It is from the world she draws 
accessions. It is the world she is set up to convert, to absorb, to 
assimilate, on pain of being herself perverted, absorbed, assimilated. 

It was by additions from without that the little one” of the earliest 
time became “a thousand.” It is by similar additions that the 
“ small one ” of to-day is to become a strong nation.” 

The missionary enterprise is essential not only to the well-being, 
but to the being of Christianity. This also is the article of a standing 
or a falling Church. 

And let the Church go forth to her work assured of success. There 
is no wisdom, no faith in perpetually trembling for the ark of God. 
That state of mind has its place in piety, but it is not the whole of it. 
We are to be strong and of a good .courage. The shout of a king is 
among us. The spirit of efficacy is with us. The purpose of eternity 
works for us. The stars in their courses fight for the Church. Provi- 
dence is on our side. The earth itself shall help the woman. 

Science and art and literature, philosophy and industry shall bring 
their best to Christ. Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob 
nor divination against Israel ; according to this time it shall be said 
of Jacob and of Israel : What hath God wrought ? ’ ’ 

The word has gone forth to Christ; it cannot be recalled: '‘Ask 
of me and I will give thee the heathen for thy heritage, the uttermost 
parts of the earth for thy possession.” 

Let us work therefore, let us pray, as those who shall win at length, 
hearing with serene superiority the outcries of the foe or the Babel 
voices of the hour ; knowing that there is no wisdom, nor under- 
standing, nor counsel against the Lord, and remembering the words 
of him we serve, instinct with conscious power : “ I, if I be lifted up 
from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”< 

In the confidence thus inspired, tainted with no misgiving, let each 
Christian combatant quit himself on the field, warring a good war- 
fare — 


‘All-bearing, all-attempting, till he falls, 

And when he falls write Vici on his shield.’ 


34 ^ 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


The Rev. Principal D. H. McVicar, LL. D., of Montreal, 
Canada, next read the following : 

PRESBYTERIAN CATHOLICITY. 

On this subject I propose to ask and answer three questions: First, 
what is Catholicity, and what does the true exercise of it demand ? 
Negatively, it stands opposed to sectarianism, religious bigotry, and 
intolerance ; positively, it is the exhibition of that Christian liberality 
with which we should regard the different sections of the Church of 
God. It may be said in general that its proper manifestation does 
not require us to indorse all that passes in our day by the name of 
liberality and advanced thought. Specifically, we may allege that 
to be truly catholic in spirit and conduct we do not require : 

1. To ignore the Church of God— the branch of it to which we 
belong or any other — as a thoroughly organized body. On the con- 
trary we must learn to say, and to realize the full meaning of our 
words, ‘‘I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.” Yet strange and 
self-contradictory as it may seem, there are devout people breaking 
off chiefly from the great mass of Protestant Episcopacy, where this 
credo is constantly repeated, who think that they can reach catho- 
licity only through the disintegration of all the Churches. To their 
minds the great hindrance to the immediate dawn of millennial glory 
is the existence of strongly organized Christian communities. If 
bishops, deans, canons, elders, and ordained officers of all grades 
could be set aside, if a universal disestablishment could be effected, 
and the ecclesiastical machinery of the whole world could be pulver- 
ized, out of this general ruin, they venture to think would emerge 
spiritual purity and a higher Christian life. But, since in the mean- 
time such a sweeping revolution seems hopeless, they are content to 
urge the saints to secure their own safety by coming out from among 
all the Churches. 

Now, we have no hesitation in saying that this is utter folly and 
intense sectarianism instead of liberality. It is not by depreciating 
and despising any branch of the Church of God, however imperfect, 
and seeking its downfall, but rather by discovering and fostering the 
good that may be found in them all, that true catholicity is to be 
displayed. 

2. This catholicity, however, does not require us to indorse indis- 
criminately all forms of religion or of Church government as equally 
true. I know that this statement is apt to be met in some quarters 
with a cry for toleration, and I am in favor of such by all means and 
to the fullest extent, but not at the expense of the truth. 

As Presbyterians we are bound by our history, by our doctrines, 
and by every principle of our polity to rejoice in the progress of the 
spirit of toleration in our day. This is one of the distinguishing 
glories of our age as compared with the past. We cannot be too 
grateful that the time has gone by forever when good men believed in 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


345 


conscientiously opposing and denouncing the discoveries of science^ 
inflicting untold miseries on Baptists, Quakers, Jews, and others on 
account of their creeds, burning witches, and punishing heretics by 
death, whether in Europe or on this continent. 

But while we see the faults and indefensible errors of our fathers, 
even in the Reformation period, we refuse to be carried away with 
the vulgar ignorance that presumes to say that all their work was nar- 
row and bigoted and wrong. No. It was far otherwise. We hold, 
on the contrary, that they set up anew the framework of the apostolic 
Church ; that they fought great battles for the truth and for humanity ; 
that they settled permanently certain fundamental things touching the 
inspiration of God’s word, God’s sovereignty, Christ’s divinity and 
sacrifice, man’s freedom and responsibility, man’s helplessness, and 
the efficacy of saving grace ; that they feared not to draw deep and 
broad lines of demarcation in every case between truth and error, as 
they understood them, and that their vigorous and lucid definitions 
in not a few instances have ever since guided the thought and activity 
of the Christian world ; and that we, while keeping in living sym- 
pathy with our own age, do not require so to depart from their spirit 
and method as to place Buddhism, Mohammedanism, the traditions 
of Romanism, the ravings of Rationalism, or the erratic and unveri- 
fied speculations of science, on a level with the gospel of Jesus Christ, 
in order to establish our claim to true catholicity. 

3. We are not for this purpose required to abandon definite theo- 
logical opinions or to cease to formulate such. 

There is a rising school of theologians who seem to delight in un- 
certainty. They hint that many things in our theology are wrong, 
but they abstain from formulating them precisely. They deem it 
almost a crime to express themselves clearly on any subject, or hold 
any position with firmness and tenacity of purpose. Creeds, confes- 
sions, and all crystallized forms of thought are their abhorrence. 
They regard them as belonging to the darkness and the tyranny of the 
past ; and those who believe in them are freely branded as utterly 
lacking in breadth of thought and catholicity of spirit. Uncertainty, 
doubt, this is the proof of true greatness and the highway to progress 
and harmony in the Christian world. 

Now so far from yielding to those apostles of vagueness and uncer- 
tainty, we cannot help thinking that their mission is totally inoppor- 
tune and useless at the present moment, because there is far too much 
scientific fog and theological mist already in the world. We need no 
zealous advocates of darkness rather than light. Agnosticism can 
make its way by spontaneous generation. And after all that has been 
said in praise of ‘^honest doubt,” and the nobility of mind which is. 
implied in doubting, it would be far easier to prove in the case of 
multitudes, their finiteness, their smallness, and moral perversity from 
their doubts than their greatness and far-reaching grasp of truth. 
And we feel quite sure that doubt and theological obscurity can never 
become the bond of catholic union among the scattered members of 


346 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

Christ’s flock, and that what is required for a grand realization of 
Christian unity and action is the speedy removal of this formidable 
obstacle of uncertainty by a fuller examination of the truth and more 
severely accurate definitions in certain departments than have yet 
been reached. 

4. True catholicity forbids the attempt at forcible fusion of all 
Churches into one visible mass, but binds us to seek the union of all 
on the terms revealed in God’s word. 

It is plain that no Church can now arrogate to itself the title of 
actual, absolute, acknowledged universality, without either using words 
without meaning, or ignoring a part of the body of Christ. The ag- 
gregation into one great body under one system of Church govern- 
ment of all the teachers and disciples of Jesus Christ throughout the 
whole world has hitherto been found impracticable. It has been the 
cherished dream of Romanism, but one which has never been realized. 
The Eastern and Western Churches, in spite of all such notions, 
stand to-day mutually excommunicated ; and all attempts to secure 
uniformity or outward union, whether by legislation, by force of 
arms, or by inquisitorial cruelties, have only resulted in disgracing 
the Christian name, in suppressing progress of thought, and crushing 
human liberty. The error in the^e cases was not in the end aimed at, 
so far as this was Christian unity, but in the methods and means used to 
secure it; and it does not follow that there is not “a more excellent 
way.” History compels us to say that both Romish and Anglican 
Episcopacy have signally failed 'to gather all Christendom into their 
fold, and we believe that they are never destined to do so. This may 
be easily accounted for. In addition to the unwise methods some- 
times heretofore pursued in seeking universal sway, the mighty fact 
cannot be overlooked, and is being frankly acknowledged by the most 
candid and enlightened persons in these bodies thernselves, viz. that 
their system very largely rests on a human foundation, and that for 
many of its essential features no scriptural authority can be claimed. 
This alone conclusively settles its destiny, for the truth of God in the 
end is sure to prevail. We are also unable to see how the opposite 
extreme, Congregationalism, with its want of organized unity and in- 
adequate executive power for purposes of discipline, can hope to be- 
come universal. But it is otherwise with Presbyterianism. We rest 
it solely upon divine truth. We have no wish and no need to go be- 
yond this in any particular. If other elements are introduced, they 
are foreign to it, and should be eliminated. This being the case, 
seeing we defend nothing more in our system than what is clearly 
contained in the Bible, and are prepared to reject and forego every- 
thing else, why should we hesitate to believe that it is destined to be- 
come universal ? and why should we be timid or dilatory in pressing 
forward in a wise and judicious way to this glorious consummation ? 

5. True catholicity must be regulated by a supreme regard to the 
honor and glory of our Divine Saviour, as .well as a tender concern 
for the members of his body. The Headship of the Lord Jesus 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


347 


•Christ over the Church and over the nations has always oeen sacred 
and dear to the hearts of Presbyterians, and the controlling principle 
of their polity. In the grand fact of the covenant and vital union 
with him of all belieyers they recognize the correlative truth that they 
are members one of another, and bound to treat each other accord- 
ingly, however widely scattered over his footstool. With them love 
and loyalty to the Head stand first, and then come love and fidelity 
to the members of the Church, and to all men, however diversified 
their spiritual condition may be. And there can be no doubt that 
the nearer we get to our divine Master in spirit, in fellowship, in con- 
duct, the nearer we are sure to be drawn to one another, and the 
broader and deeper our sympathies with humanity will become. We 
are bound to be as catholic as the Lord Jesus Christ, and as broad in 
our views and practices as the word of God, but no more so ; and 
if in any respect we are narrower than this, our position is indefen- 
sible. It will not do for us in the name of the Friend of publicans 
and sinners, in the name of him who came to seek and to save the 
lost, to excommunicate any, however feeble and foolish they may be, 
whom he welcomes to his fellowship. By so doing, we forfeit our 
claim to catholicity, as well as to full subordination to our one 
glorious King and Head. We are bound to acknowledge and receive 
all that he receives, whatever name or nickname they may be pleased 
to assume. There may be things about many of them, in their creeds 
and conduct, in their modes of worshipping God and doing his work, 
which we cannot approve ; but their very imperfections give fuller 
scope for the exercise of catholicity. But for these blemishes 
where would there be room for the exercise of generous feeling on 
our part ? Every one knows that we need but a very small measure 
of the charity that “is not easily provoked, and that thinketh no 
evil ” to enable us to embrace those who agree with ourselves in all 
respects. But when men differ from us in religious matters widely 
and conscientiously, it is then our catholicity is put to the test, not 
in searching out and reprobating their eccentricities or even moral 
deformities, but in discovering a basis of truth which we hold in com- 
mon, and upon which, in the judgment of charity, we may be able to 
recognize them as followers of the Redeemer. And, ^ generally 
speaking, it will be found that the weakest part of a man’s creed is 
that which he holds alone or aside from all Christendom ; and the 
strongest part that which he holds in common with all true servants 
of the Lord. And hence we are bound to aim at nothing less than 
the full realization of the grand catholic and apostolic thought that 
there is “ one body and one Spirit, even as we are all called in one 
hope of our calling ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and 
Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” 

I have thus answered my first question as to what true catholicity 
is, and what the exercise of it demands. j j td 

I now ask my second question. On what specific grounds do Fres- 
byterians feel bound to hold and teach such catholicity? I answer, 
their catholicity is the legitimate outcome : 


348 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


1. Of their views of the plan of redemption. They believe that God 
the Father, in his great redemptive plan, contemplated the Church from 
all eternity in her full catholicity, stretching down from the beginning 
of our race to the end of it. They do not look to the example of the 
Ante-Nicene fathers, or even to the apostles and prophets, and the 
writers of the Hagiographa and the Pentateuch for the origin of the 
Church, but they go back to the glorious ideal in the divine mind, 
as revealed in the whole word, to determine her nature and inception. 
And from that ideal they exclude all ignorance, imperfection and 
partiality. It was in no sense sectarian. It was framed not in the 
interests of a favored few, or of a large number, but of the whole 
innumerable company of God’s people irrespective of time and place, 
culture, rank, or social standing and other environments in which 
they may be found. Hence, in so far as we take in the meaning and 
force of our own historic dogma as to God’s sovereign and eternal 
purpose touching the Church, we are bound to renounce sectarianism 
and all narrow views of her nature and constitution. Calvinism has 
never been hostile to catholicity. And Presbyterianism as a form of 
Church government, we should bear in mind, cannot be dissociated 
from the doctrinal system which has gone along with it for centuries, 
and, therefore, our catholicity is not on the surface, put on for effect, 
as a sort of external polish, but springs out of the heart of our most 
cherished beliefs, and is inwoven with the very life of the Church. 
It is not simply got ready for grand parade occasions when we meet 
brethren of different names and views and wish to please them, or 
made to fit into the stately insincerities of modern civilizations, but 
it enters into the very warp and woof of our whole creed. This 
becomes still more apparent : 

2. From our view of Christ’s great redemptive work. We hold 
that in his substitutionary obedience and sacrifice he acted neither at 
haphazard nor with partiality, but in pursuance of a definite purpose 
in which' he had regard to the Church as a whole, as one flock, one 
kingdom, one catholic body in the fullest sense of the term. Indeed, 
it is difficult to understand how any who regard the words of the 
Saviour can think otherwise. And yet we cannot say that even 
Presbyterians have not sometimes grievously overlooked the Saviour’s 
prayer: '‘That they all may be one: as thou. Father, art in me, 
and I in thee, that they also may be one in us ; that the world may 
believe that thou has sent me.” We must confess that in their keen 
debates as to the meaning and application of certain truths, in their 
strifes and contentions as to the relation, for example, between Church 
and State, and in their outward divisions and separations, they have 
sometimes compromised themselves and their Master. But still their 
doctrine, from first to last, was that which we have just stated ; and 
who will venture to say that it is untrue? Who, in his denominational 
zeal, will have the temerity to declare, I had almost said will be guilty 
of the blasphemy of asserting, that Christ loved Presbyterians, or 
Episcopalians, or Congregationalists, or Baptists, or Methodists, or 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


349 


any other body, and gave himself for them to the exclusion of the 
rest ? The very enunciation of the thought refutes it. Nothing seems 
more audacious than to attempt to make the Redeemer a party to our 
little divisions. The glorious truth commends itself to the heart and 
conscience of all, that Christ loved the Church, and redeemed her as a 
whole, and not any one sect or denomination. This is the historical 
doctrine of Presbyterians, and out of this by logical necessity springs 
their catholicity. 

3. They have arrived at the same result from their view of the office 
of the Holy Ghost in salvation. Their doctrine in this respect is in 
striking contrast, or rather direct opposition, to that of certain others. 
Roman Catholics and Protestant Ritualists have presumed to teach 
that the efficacy of grace is tied to their own ordinances. They have 
attached such superstitious and unscriptural value to the supposed 
sacerdotal functions of ministers, to their apostolical succession and 
proper episcopal ordination, as to make rites performed by their hands 
the only channel through which the Spirit of God can operate. They 
therefore narrow down the organization and life of the Church of 
God to their own sect, and do not hesitate theoretically and prac- 
tically to unchurch and excommunicate all others because they lack 
this imaginary succession. And inasmuch as the Holy Ghost resides 
•exclusively with them, and cannot regenerate, sanctify, comfort, or 
guide any beyond their visible fold, they consign to eternal ruin all, 
whether adults or infants, who do not receive their sacraments through 
which alone saving grace can be enjoyed. 

Against this bigotry Presbyterians have uniformly protested. With 
becoming caution and reverence they have defined in general terms 
the nature and extent of the Spirit’s work, and have not ventured to 
fix any limitation or to draw any ecclesiastical boundary line by 
which it is restricted. They have persistently, and with a clearness 
and fulness which belong to no other denomination, proclaimed the 
doctrine of common as well as efficacious grace, and have refused to 
limit the operations of the Spirit of God in any way. They have 
held that as a divine person he is always present everywhere, and that 
he is the author of truth and holiness and life in all its forms, and that 
he exerts upon the minds of all men, whether Christian or Pagan, an 
influence in harmony with his own character and functions. And 
even with respect to what is not common, but special and efficacious, 
with respect to his kindling and perfecting spiritual or eternal life in 
dead souls, their broad and liberal declaration is that he “ worketh 
when, and where, and how he pleaseth.” 

Inasmuch, therefore, as they do not pretend to tell with anything 
approaching arithmetical certainty the number of those in whose hearts 
the Spirit of God may work effectually, and inasmuch as it is not 
their prerogative to exclude from Christ’s fold any who are temples of 
the Holy Ghost, they have always ascribed to the Church that com- 
prehensiveness and catholicity to which these views of grace neces- 
sarily lead. Accordingly the Westminster Assembly decreed that 


350 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


‘‘saints, by profession, are bound to maintain an holy fellowship and 
communion in the worship of God, and performing such other spiritual 
services as tend to their mutual edification : as also in relieving each 
other in outward things, according to their several abilities and neces- 
sities, which communion is to be extended unto all those who in every 
place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus.” (Con. chapter xxvi. ii.) 

Having thus shown what true catholicity is, and what the exercise 
of it demands ; and having indicated, in part at least, the strong doc- 
trinal basis on which it rests with us, viz. : our views of the work of 
the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost in redemption, I now 
ask my third and last question. What practical course should we, as 
Presbyterians, pursue in order to extend this catholicity throughout 
Christendom? It seems to me that we should, on all suitable occa- 
sions and by every legitimate method, bring forward the general 
features of our polity. We need not expect that these are to gain 
influence and control among men by our silence and inactivity. 
They require to be stated and reiterated a thousand times before the 
world. It was thus that they made progress in the past, and being 
among the things most surely revealed to us in God’s word, they 
deserve to be treated in this manner. To acknowledge the truth of 
our principles, and yet to abandon them, or to refuse to plead them 
judiciously, is to be guilty of baseness and moral cowardice. Hence,, 
we should insist upon : 

1. The unity of the Church under Christ, her only King and Head.. 
This is the corner-stone of our polity. It is the central principle of 
Protestantism, and opposes eflectually Roman Catholicism, which 
rests, from top to bottom, upon the dogma of the supremacy of the 
Pope. We may safely press our position as one in which the honor 
of our Lord is involved, and for which we have the fullest Scripture 
warrant ; and this alone is a tower of strength. It is also a position 
upon which Christendom is very largely agreed. Presbyterians, Con- 
gregationalists, and all non-episcopal evangelical denominations, unite 
in maintaining it. And still more. A large number of devout 
Episcopalians see that a secular head over the Church is quite super- 
fluous. It is in no way essential to their polity. This has been 
placed beyond doubt by the successful growth of Episcopacy on this 
continent without any alliance with the state. Living churches all 
over the world are feeling more and more the necessity of casting off 
the incubus of secular control in spiritual matters, and are likely to 
continue to do so. They are thus being prepared for closer alliance 
under their rightful Sovereign ; and surely all these facts should spur 
us on to greater fidelity in testifying of his sovereignty, and should 
encourage us to believe that this great central principle of our polity 
is destined to be universally accepted. 

2. We should be careful to vindicate our system of Church courts, 
as rising naturally out of this principle of unity. We should show 
how a.dmirably they are fitted to give it practical expression. It is- 
not difficult to establish this view. The New Testament furnishes in. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


351 


abundance incontrovertible material for the purpose ; and surely there 
should be no timidity in making use of it. There we read frequently 
of the Church in the house. For example, in the house of Priscilla 
and Aquila, in the house of Nymphas, and in the house of Philemon. 
Then we find the term Church used in a more extended sense to 
embrace what we designate as congregations. But these groups of 
believers, whether in households or in congregations were not isolated 
from, or independent of, the whole household of faith. Accordingly, 
this same term Church is employed to signify an aggregation of as- 
semblies of God’s people, without any limit as to number or extent, 
held together under one spiritual jurisdiction. Not that local govern- 
ment was ignored ; for we read that they ordained elders in every 
Church, that there was a plurality of bishops or elders in each con- 
gregation, and that these were “not only apt to teach,” but also 
exercised rule over the people. Thus we discover the origin of our 
primary court or Kirk session, with its two-fold functions of instruc- 
tion and discipline. We read also of ordination to office by the 
“ hands of the Presbytery,” and of that same court sending out certain 
persons to do the work to which the Holy Ghost had called them. 
In the Acts of the Apostles, too, we have the record of the doings of 
a council held at Jerusalem, in which a case came up which brought 
out the principle of the subordination of local or congregational in- 
terests to the general voice of the Church. The apostles and elders, 
after full deliberation, made their authoritative decree touching cer- 
tain matters which had. been referred to them, and sent it down to be 
obeyed by the churches in Antioch, and Syria, and Cilicia. Have 
we not in these facts the distinct outline of the very system of spiritual 
administration which we follow from our Kirk sessions up to our Gen- 
eral Assemblies, and even to this Council, working out with beautiful 
simplicity, harmony and clearness the unity of the whole Church? 

I cannot but regard these grand General Councils as the culmina- 
tion of our system, and destined to accomplish great things in favor 
of the truth and of our polity. They may obviously strengthen weak, 
and struggling branches of the Church by sympathy, by advice, and 
by financial assistance ; they may unite the scattered forces of Presby- 
terianism in grand aggressive missionary enterprises among the 
heathen ; and they may consider and determine great fundamental 
principles of doctrine and polity. The gathering together in this 
way, and the stamping with unanimous approval the truth which is 
already accepted by Christendom, would serve many useful purposes. 
It would in no small degree stop the mouth of sceptics ; it would 
enable the army of the Lord to present a united front to the enemy ; 
it would greatly weaken the argument by which Romanism holds its 
millions in bondage ; it would teach godly men to minimize their 
differences, instead of magnifying them, and to dwell on their points 
of agreement as of infinitely more value, and thus true catholicity 
would be greatly promoted. 

3. We should insist upon the official equality of all the ordained 


352 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


teachers and rulers of the Church as clearly revealed in the Bible. 
Hence we cannot consistently with fidelity to our God and Saviour 
and to the interests of the Church, offer any compromise to the advo- 
cates of the sacrament of holy orders and of a man-made sacerdotal 
caste. We are bound to do our utmost to bring all to acknowledge 
the truth that it is God, and God alone, who makes ministers of the 
New Covenant. He calls and qualifies them by his Spirit. They are 
his gift to the Church, but not constituted a powerful hierarchy to 
domineer over her. It is her business to train and equip them with 
proper learning for their work. It is with her through the proper 
courts to designate them to office, and to clothe them with authority 
from her Head to exercise their functions ; and this she does in ordi- 
nation, which is simply a form of publicly expressing her recognition 
of what God has already done for the persons ordained. The official 
equality of presbyters and bishops has always been maintained by 
non-episcopal churches, and now scholarly and candid ministers of 
the Anglican body concede that this is the doctrine of Scripture. 
Only Romanists and Romanizing Protestants deny this. But we 
resolutely take our stand upon Scripture, and Scripture alone. As 
already hinted, we refuse to insert in the constitution and polity of 
the Church anything, outside of the word of God, beyond what it states 
directly or fairly implies. It is a great mistake, in this connection, 
to launch out upon the mare magnum of ecclesiastical history. I have 
no doubt that, rightly understood, it furnishes testimony to the word 
of God ; but it is equally certain that, as the Church became corrupt, 
her history can be made to support what is directly opposed to his 
truth. And hence, were a thousand arguments against Presbyterian- 
ism forthcoming from the domain of ecclesiastical history, they would 
not disturb my confidence in what I know to be the clear teachings 
of God’s truth ; they would only prove to me that the Church had 
gone most lamentably astray. 

4. We should give prominence to the facts that the purity of the 
Church is secured, and that the rights and liberties of the people are 
guaranteed by Presbyterianism. 

No one can deny that through our Church courts, while every safe- 
guard against tyranny is afforded, we possess a power of discipline 
over members and office-bearers which is thoroughly effective. We 
can, without undue precipitancy or delay, without being impeded 
by ecclesiastical canons, secular laws or other obstructions, suspend or 
excommunicate for sufficient cause either public teachers or private 
members of the Church. But it is well known that this is more than 
can be said of the other two forms of government — Congregationalism 
and Episcopacy. And the preservation of the purity of the Church, 
let it be remembered, is the conservation of her spiritual life and 
power for good in the world. For it is only in proportion as she is 
pure that she will hold fast and hold forth the word of life in its ful- 
ness, and be acknowledged of Jesus Christ as the instrument of his 
mercy and love to our fallen race. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


353 


Then as to the rights and liberties of the people, these are most 
fully maintained. With us, as in apostolic days, the people elect all 
office-bearers, and thus express the mind, the spiritual life and activity 
of the Church ; they are represented in all ecclesiastical courts, and 
are free to carry any cause, as they may think the interests of freedom 
and justice may demand, from the lowest to the highest of these 
courts. In the round of daily religious activity they enjoy the fullest 
liberty to edify one another in word and doctrine, and the right of 
private judgment even as to what is taught by the accredited messen- 
gers of the Church. And probably it would be to the advantage of 
all concerned were they required to take a more prominent and iictive 
part than heretofore in the public services of the sanctuary. 

Finally, without entering into further details, as we would reach 
the grand consummation so devoutly wished for, let us not hide our 
light, on polity or doctrine, under a bushel. Let us with increased 
fervor and power seek to advance general education and Biblical 
knowledge. We have nothing to lose but everything to gain by this 
course. Let us use the sword of the Spirit skilfully and fearlessly, and 
strike with the edge and not with the side of it. This was the method 
of the Presbyterian Church in the past when she made great and 
memorable advances, and it must continue to be her method in the 
future if she is to be crowned with success. Controversy for its owm 
sake is undesirable ; but to abandon the truth for fear of stating It and 
being held responsible for it is cowardly and criminal. Love before 
logic is a good enough sort of maxim for some purposes ; but that love 
degenerates into weakness which sacrifices truth through an affected 
horror of the coldness and harshness of logical definition and argu- 
mentation. We thrive net in a calm, or pietistic fog, but by frank 
and manly discussion of all questions such as the spirit of our age 
demands. We need this to stir up our own energies and to promote 
our growth, as well as for the benefit of others. We have no reason 
to fear truth from any quarter. The unrest,^ the searching activity 
of the age, the discoveries of science, the wider diffusion of the 
advantages of a higher education, the imperious demands for a rational 
basis to all the beliefs and practices of the Church — all these, rightiy 
taken advantage of, must promote the spread of our creed and polity. 
And if there are little bigotries among ourselves, little superstitions 
which we have carried down with us from the distant past, if to our 
Presbyterianism we attach any small national peculiarities which 
make it Scottish, American, or anything but Biblical, let us not fear 
to sweep them aw'ay. In those terrible, crucial, last days, God’s truth 
and that alone can stand ; and it is only as we can get men to accept 
this that they will be lifted out of their narrowness and made ready 
to join us in the bonds of broad and scriptural catholicity. 

23 


354 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


The Rev. William H. Campbell, D. D., of New Brunswick, 
N. J., delivered the following address on the same subject: 

Christian unity is the unity of the Spirit The Holy Spirit makes it. 
and then they, unto whom it is given, inust keep it in 

And the first step in keejiing unity is to recognize the °t tl e 

Sjiirit, as fully and as fast as he reveals it, and then thankfully to 

and acknowledgment lies here before us 
to-dav. The Presbyterian family, for ages substantially one in laith, 
discipline and worship, has now for the first, m this Alliance, a his- 
loricil oneness, a visible Presbyterian Catholic Church. Ihe repor 
of the proceedings of the first General Presbyterian Council, convened 
at Edinburgh, July, 1877, calls forth the grateful acknowdedgmeUc : 
T!^e Lord hath done great thugs fonts, whereof we ere g.ad. And t lie 
conviction is firmly fixed in the minds of Presbyterians, that the Holy 
Spirit has, in this Presbyterian catholicity, greater tnings in stoie lor 
Christ’s cause and kingdom, than the heart of man has yet conceived. 

And now after this preparedness of heart for the habitual exercise • 
of expectancy and thankfulness, this Council stands ready, with feet 
shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, to accept whatever 
the Holy Spirit reveals, and by his grace to act in accordance with it. 

And just here the question arises, whether tnis Second General 
Council, taking in more fully than ever before the moral authority 
is in this Presbyterian unity, should not declare itself to the wnole 
world as being what it is— the Presbyterian Catholic Church ? Surely 
a form of discipline set up by the apostles, who were endued with 
power from on high to legislate for the Church of God on carth-a 
form of discipline which runs uninterruptedly through the whole 
New Testament— a form of discipline which- reason approves and history 
upholds with its many and strong commendations, will continue and 
be excelling down to the times of the restitution of all things. And 
if this be so, should not this Council of the Presbyterian Catholic 
Church humbly, thankfully, and yet finnly, declare itself? Such a 
declaration will express, on the authority of Scripture, the teaching 
of history and the plain leadings of the Holy Spirit, that there is 
a great work for Presbytery to do in building up the kingdom of 
Christ, and that the Prince and Saviour will not set aside his own 
divinely appointed servants, either in the day of the coming battles, 
or of the final triumph. Presbyterian Catholicity means little, if it 
does not mean all this. And, thanks be to God, it can mean and 
say all this without, one thought of bigotry or exclusiveness against 
any branch of the kingdom of the Lord. ^ ^ • r 

Thus are we prepared to enter the wide door which is opening for 
us. And the work that awaits us is fivefold. (i.) Po keep the 
Church fully informed about every branch of the Presbyterian family. 
(2.) Sympathy, counsel and help are to be always and promptly 
given, "wherever and whenever the need of the family demands. (3.) 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


355 


Counsel and co-operation against the enemies of the kingdom of 
Christ. (4.) Preaching the gospel to every creature on earth. (5.) 
Ever watchful care lest we sin against the unity of the Spirit, by en- 
tering into fields of labor, either in Cliristian or heathen lands, 
already fully occupied by some branch of the Presbyterian family, or 
by any evangelical Church. Presbyterian Catholicity, taught by the 
Spirit, will have for its maxim, Helpful to all God's people in doing 
Gods work, and a hindrance to none. 

And now that we may thus keep up a genuine Presbyterian one- 
ness in our manifoldness, we need the baptism of love from on high. 
This will enable us to make much of our agreement in the essential 
points of faith, discipline and worship, and little of our points of dif- 
ference relatively to the great matters of our agreement. With love 
in our hearts, the great points will draw and keep us together, while 
differences will lose their power of driving us apart. 

Thus keeping the unity of the Spirit, the blessing of God will con- 
stantly shine and with an ever-increasing brightness on our catholicity, 
opening not only wider doors of usefulness, but giving to every 
branch of the Presbyterian family a growth and a blessing of which 
we knew nothing in our days of segregation. 

But our Lord has other sheep which are not of our fold, and with 
these we must keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. All who 
bear the image of Christ belong to the one flock of the one She])herd. 
There are many folds, and we in ours must be drawn to all the flock in 
all the folds. And here, as in our own Presbyterian family, love is 
all in all. This will draw together all who love Christ, calling out broth- 
erly kindness into lively exercise, and causing us to feel with all God’s 
people, and to give prompt and plenteous help in the time of need. 

And here, too, we trust, it will be seen that our clcser union as 
Presbyterians does not diminish but increase love and labor, prayer, 
faith and gifts for the Bible Society, the Tract Society, the Evan- 
gelical Alliance, and every good cause which calls for the united 
efforts of all God’s people. 

The Council then adjourned, with the usual devotional exer- 
cises, until the following morning at 9.30 o’clock. 


FIFTPI DAY’S SESSION. 

Tuesday, September 2%th, 1880. 
The Council was opened at 9.30 o’clock A. m., in Horticultu- 
ral Hall, the Rev. J. M. Lang, D. D., of Glasgow, Scotland, 
President. 

After devotional services the minutes of the previous day’s 
sessions were read. On the question of their approval, the Rev. 
John Jenkins, D. D., LL. D., of Montreal, said : 


356 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

I think it desirable that there should be an insertion in the 
minutes, in connection with the resolution on the subject, of the 
reason why the Council will meet not in 1883 but in 1884* 
According to the constitution we should meet in 1883; and it 
occurs to me it would be proper that the minutes should show 
the reason for the postponement to the follow ing year. 

The President. — The chair does not see that there could be 
any harm in making the insertion ; and that perhaps it would be 
well to have it made. The question is before the Council for its 
decision. 

Hon. Wm. Strong, of Washington.— I apprehend that our 
minutes should contain simply a statement of what has been 
done, not of the reasons for which we have adopted any par- 
ticular resolution. We have selected the year 1884 ns the year 
for the meeting of the next General Council. Our action in 
selecting that date is a thing to go upon the minutes, for it is a 
part of what we have done ; but the reasons which have induced 
us thus to act are no part of our action, and therefore they could 
not belong to the minutes. 

The Rev. Robert Rainy, D. D., of Edinburgh, Scotland. — 
It occurs to me that we could not certainly know what the reason 
or reasons were unless they were expressed in the resolution 
which was adopted. There may be different reasons in differ- 
ent minds for the same action. 

The Rev. Wm. Reid, D. D., of Toronto, Canada. — The constitu- 
tion does not bind the Council to hold a meeting every three 
years ; and if you give a reason for holding the meeting in the 
fourth, instead of in the third year, you take it for granted that the 
Council ought to meet every three years. The fact is that the 
constitution does not necessarily require a meeting every three 
years. 

The Rev. George C. Hutton, D. D., of Paisley, Scotland. — 
Another reason against the insertion is that some of us might 
hot approve of the reason given for the postponement of the 
meeting. 

The motion to insert the reason was not agreed to ; and the 
miautes as read were approved. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


357 


The Business Committee recommended, and the recom- 
mendations were adopted, that the evening meetings of the 
Council be continued until ten o’clock each evening, to 
allow of consideration of the subjects then presented, and 
that those speaking on such occasions be restricted to five 
minutes ; 

That the adjourned discussion on creeds be resumed, 
as the order of the day, after the reading of this morning’s 
papers ; 

That a committee be appointed to prepare a friendly letter to 
all the Churches of the Alliance, calling their attention to some 
of the important practical matters that have come or may yet 
come before the Council ; and 

That a committee be appointed to arrange for a series of 
Sabbath- school meetings in this city next Sabbath afternoon. 

The Rev. Principal John Cairns, D. D., of Edinburgh, Scot- 
land, read the following paper : 


THE VICARIOUS SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. 

Having been requested to read a paper on this important subject, 1 
have considered that what was wanted, within the limits, was neither 
an elaborate examination of Scripture teaching on the one hand, nor 
a critical review of divergent theories on the other ; but rather a re- 
sume of the general bearings of this great article of our creed and a 
statement of how a world-wide Alliance like this may best^ hold it 
forth as one of the “ things most surely believed among us.” I shalt 
therefore briefly state the doctrine which we hold, and then iHustmte 
its harmony with the facts of natural religion, with the data of Old 
Testament revelation, with the rest of Christianity as a system, and 
with the conclusions and results of Christian experience. r n r 

The atonement of Christ comes in as connected with the fall of 
man, and the gracious purpose of redemption. It presupposes on 
the one hand justice, and on the other mercy. There is a moral char- 
acter and government of God to be dealt with, and a righteous sen- 
tence of law binding over the transgressor to penalty. Any scheme 
which does not recognize and proceed upon this moral order ot the 
universe, is not in any proper sense atonement, but displacement of 
law ; and in like manner any scheme which does not start with a mer- 
ciful design and purpose in God, but brings in the atonement first to 
create this in the Divine mind, equally misconceives the question by 
attempting, and necessarily in vain, to produce that which, if it did 
not already exist in God, would preclude the whole saving process. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


358 

How these aspects of the divine character, and these relations of the 
divine government, equally real and equally necessary to be upheld, 
are to be harmonized, is the ])roblem with which atonement is occu- 
: pied. That problem the Presbyterian Church, with the whole Church 
of Christ, believes to have been solved by the voluntary substitution 
of the God-man Mediator in the room of sinners, and his endurance 
of their legal liabilities in his suffering life and death upon the cross. 
The sufferings and death of the Redeemer thus constitute a sacrifice 
. whereby not only is the vastness of divine love manifested, but the 
rigor of divine justice is satisfied ; and thus sin is truly atoned for, 
and the pardon of all who accept it on this— the sole meritorious 
ground on which it can be offered — is secured. Though in the sense 
of ultimate salvation, none are “redeemed by Christ ” (to use the 
language of the Westminster Confession) “ but the elect only; ” yet it 
has been generally held in Presbyterian Churches, with whatever con- 
troversyanddebate,thattheatonement is, in a true sense, “sufficient for 
all, and adapted to all, and that its benefits are freely offered to all 
to whom the gospel comes;” or, in the words of the second set of 
articles of the Synod of Dort — till our own days, the largest oecu- 
menical representation of Calvinism — “men do not perish in unbelief 
through any defect or insufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ offered 
on the cross, but through their own fault” — quod muHi in mfidelitaie 
pereunt non fit hostice Chrisii in cruce oblatcB defectu vcl msiifficicntia, 
sed propria ip s or am culpa. 

I. Waiving further discussion respecting the nature of the atone- 
ment, and regarding it not as a mere proclamation of mercy, but as 
a real and effectual harmonizing of mercy with justice, adequate 
through the divine love manifested in it, and the infinite preciousness 
of the ransom paid in it to meet the case of a guilty world, I now 
proceed to illustrate the confirmation which this great and glorious 
^ foundation-truth of our holy faith finds in the different quarters to 
which 1 have already referred. And first, of its harmony with the 
facts of natural religion. There are two extremes into which we may 
• fall in judging of a Christian doctrine like that of atonement. The 
one tendency which in our day is in the ascendant, is to square Chris- 
tianity with the other moral facts of human experience, and so-called 
religions of the world, and to make it, so to speak, the gravitating 
centre 01 human history to which everything else converges. The 
other is to rest in the superiority of Christianity to all other systems, 
and to pile up divergence on divergence as an argument of divinity. 
It will be found that the deepest witness to the gospel lies in the union 
of these two processes — in the vindication for Christianity of what is 
truly human, while stamped with a jmrity and a greatness beyond unas- 
sisted reason. If, then, the workings of conscience, and the traditions, 
rites, and usages of religion be consulted, as to whether the doctrine 
? of atonement be or be not repugnant to the deepest human beliefs, 
longings, and cravings, it will unquestionably be found that Scripture 
here finds in nature a wide and striking testimony to its necessity and 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


359 


reasonableness. And this is independent of the question how far the 
gropings of nature have laid hold of and preserved the relics of 
earlier revelation ; for truth retained, even in distortion, is so far seen 
to be natural. Here, then, the advocates of atonement can appeal to 
the broad fact, that all religions have prescribed conditions, inorc or 
less difncult, for the pardon of sin, and the recovery of the sinner to 
the divine favor. There is a sense of estrangement and separation 
from God ; and whether it be by working or suffering, by penance or 
pilgrimage, by meditation or by transmigration, the task is the high- 
est which the religion enjoins. The system of sacrifice especially, 
found in all religions, not only in the classic and western paganism, 
but in the pantheistic schemes of the east, where it seems out of its 
native context, is a constant witness to the Bible doctrine ; and how- 
ever gross and unspiritual, and even barbarous and sanguinary in its 
corruptions, has attested the radical idea of pardon and reconciliation 
by mediatio.n and substitution, by the mysterious virtues of depreca- 
tions, penalties, and rites more or less associated with suffering. It is 
beyond all question that wherever these sentiments and usages have 
existed (and they have existed everywhere), they have been appealed 
to, and not ineffectually, by the Christian teacher and missionary to 
urge home his own lessons as to expiation and propitiation by the sac- 
rihcc of Christ, and to point the truth as rooted in the human con- 
science, not less than in Scripture, that “without shedding of blood 
is no remission.” Can that doctrine then be a corruption of Chris- 
tianity, which meets in so many and so unlikely quarters a desidera- 
tum of natural guilt and fear, which touches not man’s self-flattery 
and fond illusions, but his deepest sense of worthlessness and con- 
demnation, and which proves able to heal the conscience as well as to 
soothe it, and to restore it to its healthful action by enforcing in har- 
mony the evil of sin, and the certainty of deliverance? It sin were 
not the terrible and infinite evil which the word of God declares it, oi 
if it were so hopeless as to be utterly unpardonable, or if it were par- 
donable in any other way— as for example, by mere prerogative, or by 
repentance alone, or by any magical rite— how could the Bible doctrine,, 
which .sets all these views aside and holds forth its own of jiardomby 
Christ’s satisfaction and sacrifice, so commend itself, as under the 
shadow of every heathen system to gather in its converts, and to 
make them all feel that what these had been trying to do and could 
not, Christ had finished once for all, and by his own offering had for- 
ever perfected them that are sanctified ? 

II The doctrine of proper and vicarious atonement rests on the data 
of Old Testament Revelatdon. We make an unspeakable advance 
when we iiass over from the vague, dim, fluctuating, and often de- 
graded and perverted conceptions of atonement found in other relig- 
ions, to the Mosaic economy. Here we have a divine institute in 
the proper sense of the term, and an institute which is both fulfilled 
and explained in Christianity. Many points, indeed, in the Leviti- 
cal system have been long and earnestly debated ; but so long as wc 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


360 

have an inspired commentary on it in the Epistle to the Hebrews, its 
witness as a type to the reality, efficacy, and finality of the sacrifice 
of Christ cannot be shaken. 

It is impossible, for. example, to deny the strictly propitiatory char- 
ac:ter of the Old Testament sacrifices, or that they were means for the 
taking away of sin ; for it is expressly said of the blood which the 
high priest offered, that he “ offered [it] for himself and for the errors 
of° the people ” (ix. 7); and again, that “ by the law almost all things 
are purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remis* 
Sion” (ix. 22) — plainly teaching that, in some true sense, sins were 
remitted by Old Testament sacrifice ; and again, it is said, that in 
these sacrifices there is a remembrance of sins again made “every 
year,” which would have no meaning, unless the sacrifices had ])ro- 
fessed to deal to some extent with the remission of sin, though they 
merely attained to the keeping of it in remembrance. The truth 
which the whole scope of the Epistle to the Hebrews supports is, that 
they were vicarious and expiatory, but only to the limited extent of 
remitting ceremonial uncleanness; t. e.y they “sanctified to the puri- 
fying of the flesh,” and if so, how can there be any correspondence 
of these offerings with Christ’s sacrifice, according to their typical 
nature, unless the efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice, which effects the re- 
mission of moral penalties (or “purges the conscience from dead 
works”), rest upon the same vicarious principle, and be thus a real 
expiation or satisfaction? There is no meaning in types, unless the 
blood of Christ were as truly that of an exjiiatory victim as “ the 
blood of bulls and of goats; ” and the parallel goes farther than even 
this general idea of expiation, so as to refute some of the most plau- 
sible errors of our time: for as it was the animals offered that were 
the types of Christ, and not the offerers of the animals; and, as the 
animals offered were not capable of self-sacrifice while really sacrificed, 
it follows that the essence of Christ’s atonement does not lie in its 
being self-sacrifice, but in its being a satisfaction to justice made in 
the sinner’s room. From the same parallel on another side follows 
the impossibility of Christ’s sacrifice being mainly self sacrifice ; for 
the antitype has fulfilled and ended the type, so that it is no longer 
capable of repetition. But if Christ’s sacrifice were essentially self- 
sacrifice, it would be capable of repetition by all his people ; whereas, 
according to the Epistle to the Hebrews, the sacrifice of Christ is 
peculiar to Christ, and offered, as the making of atonement, “ once for 
all.” These are samples (and there are many others) of the corrobo- 
ration which Old Testament sacrifices lend to New 'festament hopes, 
a:s even shadows give the outline of realities, and the law, though 
given by Moses, defines, as in a drawing without color, the grace and 
truth which came by Jesus Christ. 

III. The third point to be touched on is the harmony between the 
doctrine of vicarious atonement and the rest of the Christian system. 
The manifold evidence of an express and decisive .character in the 
New' Testament I here pass over. I look only to the coherence of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 361 

doctrines and the general bent of Christianity as a system. Now, 
there is one doctrine which above every other is correlative to atone- 
ment, and which seems to lose its place in the grand structure when 
this in the proper sense is denied. It is the doctrine of the divinity 
of Christ, or what indeed is but a deeper and wider foundation of 
the same doctrine — the Trinity. These doctrines, setting forth the 
necessity of so great a work and of so great a person to do it, disap- 
pear alike from modern Judaism, from Mohammedanism, and from a 
Socinianized Christianity. But can Christianity survive the extinc- 
tion^of mediation and the loss of a divine Mediator? And if any- 
thing like the early creeds be retained, or the Te Deum, or any other 
assertion of the Saviour’s deity, how does this great and stupendous 
postulate when admitted comport with the exclusion of a true and 
proper satisfaction for sin? It has always been felt that there was 
nothing adequate to the provision of a divine incarnation in the 
heralding on the part of a divine Christ of the free love of God, or in 
the acquisition of human sympathy; and that some more awful mys- 
tery required such a sacrifice. Nor can the effort of Maurice or Bush- 
nell to make sacrifice an eternal law and necessity of the divine nature, 
be held to explain the incarnation ; for it is a mere play, however 
interesting, of human thought without basis in Scri])ture, and seems 
rather brought in by the exigency of theory to evade the evidence of 
Scripture as to another necessity — a necessity connected with the 
magnitude of the evil of sin, which only a divine person in our nature 
could, by bearing its penalty, confront and overcome. The doctrines 
of atonement and incarnation thus, as Bishop Horsley says, recipro- 
cate: the one supports and demands the other; nor was there ever a 
more beautiful congruity than in the parts of the sublime Scripture- 
sentence: “Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of 
the world ! ” While this doctrine alone, with any sense of inward 
satisfaction, accounts for the appearance of- divinity in the field, it 
also explains the severe and all but overwhelming strain laid on our 
Lord’s humanity. The noblest and most glorious life has to be cov- 
ered with the darkest shadow. For the only pure and loving One 
there is the bitterest cup and the most terrible baptism, and the nearest 
to God is the most forsaken. On the common theory this is expli- 
cable and profoundly impressive ; but on what other? If judicial 
infliction, if doom, if curse be not here, why has the Church been 
awed, and even the world solemnized, by the bearing of such a 
burden ? and why does the Man of Sorrows stand alone and unap- 
proachable? With profoundest reverence also do we see here why, if 
this sacrifice is rejected, there remains no other, and how the urgent 
appeal should rise from the whole of Scripture in the light of issues 
which no other rem.edy could have averted, or can avert, “ how 
shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation ! ” Much else in 
Scripture witnesses to this central truth, indeed every doctrine, pre- 
cept and ordinance; but it is impossible, as it is not required, to 
follow the illustration farther; and, as those who have lately striven, 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

without professedly renouncing orthodoxy, to recast and re-adnpt tlie 
doctrine of the atonement, have not been able to recast Christianity, 
it is not wonderful that at so many points the sense of disturbance 
and dislocation should arise, and “ the effectual working m the 
measure of every part ” should be greatly weakened, it not destroyed. 

IV. It only remains to test and illustrate this doctrine by the con- 
cluiions and results of Christian experience. We are far enough from 
a^reein^ with those who make Christian consciousness the lountain- 
h?ad ofchristian truth, and the last measure of its purity and propor- 
tions But in subordination to Scripture the experience of Christians 
has an important place, and we could not discredit it without injury 
to the Spirit, by whom “ all are baptized into one body. Can it be 
said then, looking not to the Christian experience of lormer ages, the 
results of which are sufficiently known, but to the Christian experience 
of our own century, that there is any tendency on a wide scale to 
part with and disallow the hitherto received Christian doctrine of the 
atonement? I think that this question must be answered iinhesita- 
tin'j’ly in the negative. We speak of Christians, of those whose life 
bears the Chri.stian impress, and who have the confidence generally 
of the Christian Church— as so far worthy to be interpreters of dis- 
tinctively Christian sentiment. There no doubt are exceptional men, 
and there are exceptional parties, greater or less, in perhajis all Chris- 
tian churches, who indicate some kind of dissatisfaction with current 
phrases, and who may even tend to cast away that which is Scrijjtural 
and precious. But in many ca.ses, if not in most, where Christianity 
is really accepted as a salvation and Christ as the Saviour, these 
peculiarities may be charitably regarded as a recoil from exaggeration, 
as an effort to retrieve some neglected side of truth ; and hence, not 
unnaturally as an exaggeration in some opposite direction. Nor have 
the great body of those to whom Christ is all and in all apparently 
swerved by any real deviation from the faith of other days. They do 
not exalt Christ less as the sin-bearer, or decline from the -fervent 
confession that “in him we have redemption through his blood, the 
forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.” In the most 
active, zealous and flourishing congregations of every evangelical 
denomination, the great centre of life is still the cross; and the same 
banner floats above every successful revival and every advance in the 
mission field. Where laxer tendencies exist, they are not associated 
with separation from the world and with Christian enterprise ; nor has 
an amended doctrine of the atonement endeavored to make way either 
by the plea of higher sanctification or of use in missionary warfare. 
An excellent test of the acceptance of Christian doctrine is its place 
in hymnology ; and no one who has studied recent outbursts of sacred 
song, whether more classic or more popular, will have any difficulty 
in deciding that in all the living centres of Protestant Christianity, 
the deepest key-note struck continues to be that of Paul Gerhardt’s, 
“O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,” and Cowper’s, “There is a 
fountain filled with blood; ” of which, as examples in English liter- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


363 

ature only, may be cited : “ Just as I am, without one plea; ” “ I lay 
my sins on Jesus ; ” “ Free from the law, O hapi)y condition ! ” In 
all great gatherings of Christians, whether as at the Evangelical Alli- 
ance meetings in Bale, or as in this great assembly, no utterances 
thrill like these; and it cannot be supposed there is any change of 
doctrine while the old strains reach every heart. I am, therefore, not 
so much moved as some by the alarms of theological defection. I 
dread much more the stifling influence of worldli ness and religious 
torpor than the blasts of earnest theological debate ; and I would, 
therefore, have the churches represented in this Alliance, while 
watching over orthodoxy by every right means and discountenancing 
all visible error, still to hold on their j^ath in the confidence that their 
best work is to continue to j^reach Christ crucified, whether amidst 
calm or amidst the sounds of controversy, assured that this alone 
makes way, healing the wounded conscience, and cleansing the saint 
from all remaining sin ; and that the victory is to that Church in the 
old world and in the new, in the homes of our ripest Christianity 
and in the darkest outfields of our missions, which shall most ear- 
nestly, unswervingly, devoutly renew that ancient confession: “The 
Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all,” and shall .turn it most 
gratefully and jubilantly into song, — the song alike of earth and 
heaven : “Unto him tliat loved us, and washed us from our sins in 
his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his 
Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” 

The President [Taking Prof Hodge by the hand as he came 
forward]: Brethren, may 1 for a moment be allowed to depart 
from the reticence usually observed by the presiding officer? 
A Scotchman, by your favor, occupies the chair to-day; and I 
think I speak in the name of all my co-delegates from the other* 
side of the ocean, when I express the reverence, the admiration, 
the gratitude with which we receive, to enshrine in our heart 
of hearts, the honored name borne by the distinguished Pro- 
fessor whose hand I hold. 

Prof. A. A. Hodge, D. D., of Princeton, N. J., then read the 
following paper : 

THE VICARIOUS SACRIFICE OF CHRIST, AS UNDER- 
STOOD BY THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES REPRE- 
SENTED IN THIS COUNCIL. 

It would be impossible to set forth in the spare allotted to this 
essay all the evidence upon which the faith of the Church in this 
great corner-stone of human redemption rests. I propose, therefore, 
to treat it only in its character as a common principal article in the 


364 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

faith of those historical bodies known as the Presbyterian Churches 
represented in this Council. . 

ist. The ‘‘Vicarious Sacrifice of Christ” is a phrase having a 
definite meaning. It is not co-extensive with the word “ redemp- 
tion,” nor does it include the whole of “ soteriology,” nor ^embrace 
those provinces marked off by the great terms “justification, sanc- 
tification,” or “adoption.” It specifically designates the sufferings 
and death of Christ in their relation to the remission of sms, and to 
the satisfaction of the justice of God. 1 his “ vicarious sacrifice 
unquestionably has other aspects, but the question which is central to 
all others, and to which the only serious debate relates, is what rela- 
tion do the sufferings and death of Christ sustain to the forgiveness 
of human sins, and hence to the salvation of sinners? 

The doctrine of the Reformed or Presbyterian family of Churches 
is that tlie “ vicarious sacrifice ” of Christ was an endurance of the 
penal consequences of sin by the offended Lawgiver in the place of 
the offending subject; that it was the absolutely essential pre-condi- 
tion of the forgiveness of human sins ; and that this absolute neces- 
sity has its ground in the immutable moral perfections of the divine 
nature. • 

2 d. That this has been from the beginning the one unchanged, 
publicly declared and covenanted faith of the Reformed Churches 
there cannot be a shadow of doubt. As to this point the consensus 
of all the Reformed symbols has always been uniform and conspicu- 
ously clear. The First Helvetic Confession, the earliest and most 
simple of the Reformed symbols ; the Second Helvetic Confession and 
the Heidelberg Catechism, the most generally received and symbolicly 
authoritative among the Continental and American Churches, teach 
precisely the same doctrine as to the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, with 
precisely the same tone and shading as that taught at a later date in 
Confessions as highly develojied and marked by as specific characteristics 
as the Confession of the Westminster Assembly and the Formula 
Consensus Helvetica of Heidegger.* There have been wide di- 
versities exhibited in the religious life, in the modes of worship, and 
in the theological speculations of the various branches of the Reformed 
Churches and of their conspicuous teachers and writers. Infra- and 
Supra-lapsarian views as to predestination are alike represented by 
high authorities. Differences as to the design of the atonement, as to our 
relation to Adam, and the extent to which and the manner in which his 
apostacy has affected us, have divided our schools of theology, and 
all claim to be embraced within the limits of our recognized orthodoxy. 
But with strictly provincial and temporary exceptions, which have 
secured the adherence of not a single one of our historical Presbyte- 
rian bodies, the substitutionary and penal character of the vicarious 

* Oinfessio Helvetica Prior, XI. Confessio Helvetica Posterior, Cap. XV. § 3. 
The Heidelberg Catechism, Ques. 11-40. Formula Consensus Helvetica, cans 
Xlll-XVI. The Westminster Confession of Faith, Caps. VIII. and XI. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 3(^5 

sacrifice of Christ remains the professed and covenanted faith of all 
our Churches. 

This determines the sense in which this doctrine is professed by 
this Council, the fundamental principle of its constitution being 
that the members of such Churches only are admitted, whose creed 
is in harmony with the consensus of the Reformed Confessions.” 

3d. This uniform consensus of the Churches represented in this Coun- 
cil extends not only to the doctrine itself, but also to its relative posi- 
tion in that whole system of truths which is most surely believed among 
us. This doctrine of vicarious sacrifice is not only essential in itself, 
but it is fundamental to the whole system ; it is an architectonic 
principle which will always configure the entire fabric of rational be- 
lief to its own law. All experience proves that a true doctrine of the 
incarnation carries with it a corresponding view of the vicarious suf- 
fering of Christ. The Humanitarian, Arian and low Arminian Sub- 
ordination views as to the trinity and person of Christ have always 
been connected as cause or effect with correspondingly modified views 
as to the significance of his suffering and death. As is a man’s theory 
of virtue, so will be his theory of the atonement. Systems of morals, 
whether spiritual or utilitarian, assimilate corresponding views as to 
the vicarious sacrifice of our Lord. The broad Biblical teaching as to 
the union of the Christian with Christ, as to the nature of faith and 
its office in the plan of salvation, and as to the relation of the work 
of Christ to the justification, sanctification, adoption, perseverance 
and glorification of his people, all demand the view maintained by 
our Churches as to vicarious sacrifice. Scriptural experience of sin, 
of its turpitude, of its guilt, and of its power as an indwelling prin- 
ciple in our nature, has never found moral equilibrium with any other 
view of the sacrificial work of Christ. With every revival of religion, 
and in constant proportion to the depth and power of the prevalent 
religious experience, this doctrine of a blood-bought salvation has 
always been the more sharply emphasized in the prayers, the hymns 
and the expressed thoughts of God’s people. The cross as the meet- 
ing-place of infinite justice and love, as the fountain of inexhaustible 
streams of life and righteousness effected by sacrificial blood, has been 
the inspiration of all the heroic living and doing of the distinctively 
Christian type which has appeared in the course of human history. 

This doctrine of the vicarious sacrifice of our Lord, as the Presby- 
terian Churches have always held it, carries with it our whole gospel 
and our entire rdigious and ecclesiastical life. Any attempt to 
modify this is, in effect, an attempt to discard the whole system of 
religion we have inherited from our fathers, and to substitute a dif- 
ferent one in its place. 

4th. In the fourth place we affirm that the doctrine common to the 
Presbyterian Churches is in the broadest sense catholic. T he con- 
scious grasp of the Church on this, as upon every other point of Chris- 
tian doctrine, has passed through a protracted process of development 


366 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

from the beginning, and has become clearer and more consistent with 
the advance of the ages. But this growth has been always uniformly 
in one direction. Different side views and complimentary aspects of 
the truth have been more or less prominently emphasized at different 
times. But stiil the central principle of a vicarious suffering of the 
penal consequences of sin has always been presupposed and more or 
less prominently set forth. It is undeniable that the ancient Jewish 
Rabbins and the early Christian Fathers interpreted the sin-offerings 
of the Mosaic ritual just as we do. In spite of all the fluctuation of 
])oint of view, and crudeness of statement which prevailed among the 
early Christians, the objective reference of the sacrifice of Christ to 
the justice of God never failed of a witness in the prayers, hymns, and 
religious writings of the Church. From the time of Anselm it has 
been more clearly discriminated and sharply defined and prominently 
emphasized, and with the related doctrines of the Incarnation and 
the supernatural work of the Holy Ghost has taken its permanent 
place at the heart of the Christian system, the common principle of 
all creeds. At the Reformation, while the divergencies between the 
Catholic and Protestant views of justification or the personal applica- 
tion of redemption were so great as to preclude comparison, all 
recognized the fact that as to the underlying doctrine of the vicarious 
sacrifice of Christ the parties were perfectly agreed. Since that date 
to the present moment all the various speculative and partial theories, 
as to the nature and significance of that sacrifice, which have had cur- 
rency among the various Protestant schools of religious thought, have 
also had their day in the Catholic coteries. Yet all the while the 
juridical view remains with the Catholics as with the Protestants, the 
only one which has general prevalence or permanence or symbolical 
authority.* The same perfect agreement holds between the Lutheran 
and the Reformed Churches, and between the several symbolical 
books of each confe.ssion. 

5th. In the fifth place, we affirm, the interpretation given by our 
great historical symbols to the vicarious sacrifice of Christ is central, 
and comprehensive of all other rational views of the same ever enter- 
tained in the Church, and the essential precondition of each of them. 
These subsidiary views have been exceedingly numerous, and continue 
to be issued as novelties and improvements up to the present time. 
They are frequently set forth with the most pretentious assumptions 
of originality, of spiritual insight, or of elevation and breadth of view. 
Yet every instance affords new illustrations of the general principle, 
that the great doctrines which are maintained by the consensus of all 
the Church creeds are great whole. , which embrace and integrate in 
a common principle all the elements and subordinate relations of the 
truth revealed. The originators of new and special views have often 
been men of original genius and of profound religious experience, and 
the controversies they excite have often been of use in recalling to 


* Cone. Trident, sess. 6, chap. vii. Cat, Rom., 2, 5, 63. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


367 


the consciousness of the Church some hitherto neglected aspect or 
relation of the truth she loves. Nevertheless, their pet theories have 
always been impossible factions of the truth, incapable of independent 
life, needing the support of the great integrating principle emphasized 
in the old formulas of the fathers. 

The truth and wide-reaching significance of this allegation will 
appear when we examine in detail the various theories which have 
been presented as substitutes for the great scriptural and symbolical 
doctrine of the poefia vicaria, the vicarious suffering of the penalty of 
sin in the stead of sinners. In each case it will be found that the 
proposed substitute, while it presents an important • element of the 
whole truth, is absurd when represented as an independent whole in 
itself, and that it derives its entire significance from the underlying 
principle of the p^na vicaria presupposed i.i it. 

For example: (ist.) The theory that Christ came into the world 
for the purpose of undergoing predetermined and deliberately pre- 
arranged sufferings and death simply in order to exhibit the love of 
God to men, or to produce upon the souls of men a subduing, or a 
hope-inspiring moral impression is self-evidently absurd. Such a 
gratuitous sacrifice would have been no exhibition of love, and such a 
studious effort at effect would have defeated its own design by means 
of its transparent affectation. On the other hand, when the fact that 
the death of Christ was really a vicarious suffering of the jienalty of sin, 
and as such was absolutely necessary to render the forgiveness of sin 
consistent with the essential righteousness of God, then it is seen at 
once and by all to be a transcendent exhibition of divine love, and a 
most efficient means of subduing the enmity and of reassuring the 
fearful hearts of sinful men. ^ 

(2d.) The doctrine that the sufferings and death of Christ were 
simply designed “to illustrate the principle of self-sacrifice, as due 
from all God’s intelligent creatures to him who made them, and as 
constituting their true dignity and excellence as moral beings, is, 
when taken by itself, no less evidently baseless and irrational. Self- 
sacrifice, in the sense of the mortification of inherent sin, was im- 
possible for Christ. And self-sacrifice in the sense of the gratuitous 
rejection and refusal to enjoy, and put to the best possible account all 
the endowments of God of every kind, and all the means and ( ondi- 
tions of blessedness, was never demanded by God, and fs not consistent 
with healthy, rational piety. On the other hand, when once the 
true character of the vicarious sacrifice of Christ and its absolute 
necessity in order to reconcile justice and mercy is recognized ; then 
it is at once and by all seen to be indeed a transcendent examjile 
of the purest and holiest self-sacrifice for the attainment of a worthy 
end otherwise unattainable. And as such it has proved, wffien so un- 
derstood, to be to men the most inspiring example of self-sacrifice 

conceivable. r • 

(3d.) The doctrine that the vicarious sacrifice of Christ consists 
simply in his sentimental identification with human sinners through 
the combined power of his sympathy with them and his hatred of 


368- THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

their sin, so that in the sufferings growing out of that sympathetic 
self-identification he has made “a perfect confession of those sins, a 
confession which must, in its own nature, have been z. perfect ameii to 
the judgment of God on the sin of man,” “which has all the elements 
of contrition and repentance,” belongs to the same class. It has an 
apparent coherence and verisimilitude simply because it so trans- 
parent! v presupposes the truth of the catholic doctrine which we 
Presbyterians maintain. Obviously vicarious repentance and vicari- 
ous confession imply legal substitution, and legal substitution requires 
the vicarious sacrifice of the penalty to complete it. No possible 
amen to the “judgment of God on the sin of man ” is so “ perfect ” 
as that of the voluntary suffering of the poena vicaria. Besides the 
Scriptures, and the consciousness of all Christians uniformly ascribe 
our salvation not to the spiritual experiences, but to the blood and 
death of Christ, as of a “sin-offering,” as of one “ made a curse for 
us.” Undoubtedly his vicarious sacrifice presupposes his substitution, 
and his legal substitution presupposes his moral identification through 
sympathy and love at once with the offending sinner and with the 
offended Judge. This moral identification is doubtless the prerequisite 
of his substitution in the place of sinners and of his sufferings being 
accepted in the stead of theirs. But the scriptural fact remains that 
he saves us by his death, and his death avails for that end because he 
has so identified himself with us that as he so regards our sin his ovyn 
that he “repents of and confesses it,” so God regards his sufferings 
ours to the end of satisfying the penalty. 

(4th.) The theory first clearly set forth by Hugo Grotius, that the vi- 
carious sacrifice of Christ, instead of being a real poena vicaj'ia, designed 
to satisfy the just wrath of God against sin, was merely an exemplary 
exhibition of God’s displeasure against sin as a wise and benevolent 
ruler, is, like the others, conspicuously absurd, when made to stand bv 
itself, and is isolated from the Church doctrine which is presupposed 
in it. How can the infliction of suffering be an example of a pun- 
ishment, or of God’s determination to punish sin, except precisely in 
so far as it is itself a veritable instance of that punishment? Yet 
when taken in connection with the underlying truth of the Church 
doctrine it becomes an unquestionable truth, and one of the highest 
importance. If it does not satisfy the vindicatory justice of God, it 
cannot act as a sin-deterring example of the demands o'f such justice 
upon really intelligent subjects of moral law. On the other hand, if 
it be indeed, as our Church affirms, an instance of the vicarious as- 
sumption and endurance of penalty by the Holy Law-giver himself 
in the stead of sinners, then certainly this sacrifice of Christ is the 
most conspicuous and perfect example possible even to God of the 
fact that sin must, by an absolute necessity, be punished without any 
possible exception. And at the same time and for the same reason it 
becomes the most powerful sin-deterring motive which even God could 
present to the subjects of his moral government. 

(6th.) What are the tendencies at present prevalent among the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


369 

Presbyterian Churches controlling the treatment of this doctrine? 
If what has been said above is true ; if the juridical view of Christ’s 
vicarious sacrifice is the catholic doctrine of the historical Christian 
Churches of aH time ; if it is the doctrine emphasized in each Reformed 
Confession without exception ; and if it is essential and fundamental 
to the entire theological system held by those Churches; if these 
things be true, it is evident that no legitimate development of thought 
can ever change the fundamental principle. It is still emphasized in 
our prayers and hymns; it is still preached by all those preachers who 
remain faithful to their ordination vows; it still sounds the key-note 
of all revivals, of all the mission work, and really vital action of the 
Churches. As far as really living, the Churches hold this historical 
doctrine as of old. To change it would involve the revolution of the 
Church — not its development into a higher form, but the substitution 
0/ a different institution in its place. All tendencies of this sort are 
illegitimate, and should be corrected by adequate controversy, and 
prevented by the surgical knife of discipline. 

The legitimate tendency at present, therefore, while loyally con- 
serving the old juridical view, as essential and central, is to recog- 
nize more fully than before the real truth and importance of all the 
partial and subsidiary side views and aspects, which heretics have 
perverted by isolating and exalting out of their due secondary and 
relative position. The orthodox doctrine is more and more seen not 
only to be essential and radical, but also catholic and comprehensive, 
affording the necessary basis for all the side lights and secondary 
aspects of the great scriptural truth, which individuals have often seen 
disconnectedly, and have often unduly isolated and emjjhasized. 
The statement of this great truth at the hands of orthodox theologians 
is becoming less mechanical, less logically squared, and more after 
the manner of the word and works of God, where truth lies in broad 
surfaces and not in narrow lines, where it has breadth as well as 
length, and where the glory of the parts melts into the greater glory 
of the whole. 

The Rev. T. D. Witherspoon, D. D., of Petersburg, Va., next 
read the following paper on 

THE DURATION OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 

In approaching the subject of future retribution we find ourselves 
confronted with certain facts which seem worthy of a moment’s pre- 
liminary consideration. 

ist. In favor of what is commonly known as the orthodox doctrine, 
which postulates the absolute endlessness of the state of the lost, stands 
the almost unbroken testimony of the Church of God for eighteen 
centuries — a testimony borne with singular unanimity by this witness- 
ing Church, which is the pillar and ground of the truth,” through 
24 


370 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

all its successive stages— apostolic, primitive, catholic and reformed— 
a testimonv exi.resscd through official symbols, through versions of 
the Sacred Scriptures both ancient and modern, through commenta- 
ries, homilies and didactic treatises; in a word through the whole 
current of literature, exegctical, dogmatic, homiletic and devotional 
—a testimony at once so voluminous and so explicit, that, it it were 
now proposed to abandon the orthodox view, and give unambiguous 
expression to any other that has been suggested, every creed of 
Cnristendom would need to be altered, every version of the Scriptures 
amended, every commentary and treatise in theology in part re- 
written ; every lexicon, which treats of the original words under which 
the doctrine of future punishment is inculcated, would require to be 
revised, and the great mass of Christian poetry, oratory, history and • 
philosophy expurgated. A new system of ideas and ot words must be 
introduced, and the current phraseology of the Church for eighteen 

centuries be rendered obsolete. . 

2d. While such has been the attitude of Christ s witnessing Church 
in the past towards this doctrine, it is evident that at present a strong 
popular current is setting against it. Not only does this opposition 
appear in the' pulpit, in the professor’s chair, and in the stately 
columns of the theological review, but the secular literature of the 
day is laro^ely tinged with it. The orthodox doctrine is caricatured 
in prose “and travestied inverse. Its advocates are stigmatized as 
-pharisees,” -dogmatists,” -friends of everlasting punishment 
etc. The entire basis of the doctrine is declared to be “ fiendish 
vengeance.”* It is characterized as - what fear and superstition and 
ignorance and inveterate hate, and slavish letter-worship have taught 
and dreamed of hell.”t The effort is strenuously made- to represent 
the opposition as a healthful reaction. of Christian sentiment from the 
— coarse terrorism of the Puritan,” and of a sounder exegesis of 
Scripture, dispelling the - baleful meteors of anathematizing ortho- 
doxy.” And yet the very violence of declamation to v/hich the 
opponents of the orthodox doctrine resort, their substitution in such 
large measure of mere invective for argument, and of passionate 
appeals to human sympathy for critical and patient inquiry, leave it 
at least questionable if their opposition be not the offspring of passion 
rather than of reason, the outgrowth of a sentiment, rather tnan oi a 
conviction based upon exhaustive and impartial research. 

3d. The moral weight of this opposition is greatly lessened by certain 
facts which cannot be disguised, namely, that the few authorities in 
the early Church to which it appeals, including Origen and some of 
his disciples, were not only unsound upon many other points of 
Christian dogma, but were confessedly Neo-Platonists, seduced into 
a renunciation of the Christian doctrine of final retribution by the 
charms of the pagan doctrine of metempsychosis— that the present 
leaders of the opposition are almost without exception latitudinarian 


* Mamisley’s “ Phys.,” p. 415- 


•j- Farrar’s “ Eternal Hope,” p 201. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


371 


in doctrine, lax in their views of inspiration, and rationalistic in 
their theories of interpretation, and that the influence their writings 
have exerted has been due in great measure to their appeal to the 
maudlin sentimentalism of the day, which revolts at the thought of 
capital punishment, and in great measure at penal suffering of every 
kind ; which looks upon sin rather as a misfortune to be pitied, or at 
worst a disease to be healed, than as a crime to be visited with such 
condign punishment as shall be at once an expression of the divine 
holiness and a safeguard for righteousness throughout the universe of 
God. 

4th. The broken and discordant nature of the opposition also 
deserves a moment’s notice. Suppose we abandon the orthodox 
view, dispossess the word eter 7 ial of the sense of endlessness^ and 
engraft upon the word forever the idea of an end : what have we 
then ? What well-defined system can these declaimers against ortho- 
doxy present? Between the conflicting schools of universalism, and 
annihilationism, and restorationism, and that latest and most popular 
of all — shall I call it seonism? — which holds that “ to afiirm the end- 
ing of punishment is to fall short of Scripture, and to affirm its end- 
lessness is to go beyond Scripture,”* whose chief tenet in other 
words is to hold that it does not know what to hold, since the author 
of Scrii.>ture has left the whole matter in hopeless ambiguity between 
all these conflicting schools — I. say where is the Church of God to 
find solid ground upon which to rest the sole of her foot? 

5th. The only basis on which this whole question, can be safely 
rested is the direct testimony of the word of God. There is no sub- 
ject in which it is more perilous to draw conclusions from what are 
called “ intuitions of the Christian consciousness,” and “arguments 
Tipon moral grounds.” We cannot view the problems of sin and 
retribution in all their relations and with all their conditions, as these 
are present to the mind of God ; and even if we could, our own 
j)ersonal interests are too deeply involved. There is too much play 
for the sympathies which the anticipation of suffering evokes, and too 
much stupefaction of the moral sense by reason of indwelling sin, to 
render it possible for us to give an impartial decision. As well might 
a criminal in one of our courts be expected to fix impartially the term 
of his own imprisonment. Our appeal must be simply to the word of 
God. We must first ascertain what term it fixes, and then bring our 
own convictions as to the demerit of sin and the ends of justice up to 
this standard, so that our views of sin and penalty shall strictly con- 
form to the doctrine of God’s word. 

6th. In this appeal to Scripture the issue must rest in great measure 
u])on the interpretation of a few crucial texts, and the interpretation 
of these upon the signification of a few pivotal words. Nothing, 
therefore, can be more unreasonable than the outcry of our opponents 
against what they are pleased to call “ the ignorant tyranny of isolated 


* Clemanct-’> •* Kut. Pun.” p. 80. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 




texts.”* The doctrine for which we contend does not rest upon 
isolated texts, but, even if it did, one single text of Scripture, vvhose 
authenticity is beyond question, and whose teaching is unambiguous, 
is enough upon which to found a doctrine, constituting as it does a 
part of the everliving witness of Him who is the truth, wliose “ yea 
is yea,” and whose “word cannot be broken.” 

In coming before you to-day I have no purpose to attempt a com- 
pass of the whole range of this controversy, d'ime would not permit, 
t take my stand upon a single point in the line of defense — one that 
seems to me to be the key to the whole position. I shall ask your at- 
tention to a review, in the light of recent scholarship, of the signifi- 
cation of a single word — a commonplace word, I know, but one upon 
which the whole controversy is made to hinge. I refer to the word 
atwi/. Of the original signification of this word no better expression 
can be given than that found in the celebrated passage of Aristotle, 
in which he represents as being “the complete period either of 
each particular life or of all existence.”')* We do not here insist upon 
the etymology of aiCjv given by Aristotle, who makes it to be a com- 
pound of ail, forever, and Z^v, existing, so that it carries in its very 
structure the idea of eternity. Classical scholars all agree that it 
comes from that root whose simplest formation, and therefore the one 
most colorless, is the adverb ail, forever. They all agree that this 
.same root, passing into other languages of the Indo-European stock, 
appears in the German ewig and the English aye and ever ; that it 
lies at the basis of the Latin ceternus, ceterniias, and the English eter- 
nal and eternity. But that which we claim as of importance is the 
testimony of Aristotle as to the usage of the word to signify the com- 
plete period of existence. Taking this idea of the complete period, 
the all of exislence, as our clue, it is easy to trace the whole classic 
usage of the word ; for evidently the first measure of completed ex- 
istence which suggested itself to the mind was a human life. It was 
the man’s all oi existence to the eye of sense. Hence, in the earliest 
Greek literature a man’s life is his aiwv. And so, viewed by these 
same standards of sense, the nation has its atwv — its all of existence 
from its rise to its fall. The material world, in so far as it is viewed 
as temporal, has its aiC^v — its all of duration. But as the mind ad-, 
vances in thought beyond the temporal and finite, there comes into' 
view, first dimly shadowed forth, then more clearly revealed to cog- 
nition, a past in which there must have been existence of some kind 
that never began, a future in which there must be existence of some 
kind that shall never end. And thus aiZjv comes to signify the com- 
plete period of all existence, past and future, — eternity in its strictest 
sense — that unmeasured and measureless duration in which all con- 
ceivable time is but a brief parenthesis, a ripple upon the surface of 
an ocean without bottom and without shore. 


* Farrar’s “ Eternal Hope,” p. 75. 

f Aristotle, ” De Coelo,” i. 9, 15, Liddell & Scott, 6ih Eng. ed., sub.-verb altw. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


373 


That this is uniformly the sense of atwv, as used by the ethical 
writers of Greece, can hardly be a matter of doubt. Indeed, the 
very difference of its usage by Plato and Aristotle in reference to the 
] ititerial heavens is a conclusive proof. Plato, who believed the 
heavens (ovpavo^) to have been created, and therefore not eternal, con- 
trasts them with atCjv, saying that they, long enduring as they are, are 
the measures of time; but atwi/, eternity, is without measure, move- 
ment, or change.* Aristotle, who believed the heavens to be eternal, 
in the strict sense of without beginning or end, made them to be the 
measure of eternity, and atCjv to be the full period which includes the 
existence of the heavens, as it also includes infinite time and infinity, 
,or the infinite itself. Not only do the philosophers and ethical 
writers claim this as the only proper sense of the word aiCjv, but even 
iu more popular usage, where reference is to existence be)^ond the 
])resent sphere, this is the invariable sense of the word. Even in the 
Greek poets, where is so frequently used for the measure of human 
life, etc., whenever you rise to that which is beyond this present life, 
aiAv assumes the full sweep of its philosophic sense. Thus Jove is o 
aiCjv, “the eternal one ;”t not, indeed, eternal a parte ante, for he is 
immediately called x^ovov but eternal a parte post, o being 

I'.sed as the equivalent of u d^aharo?, as the gods are called ot dii ovn-^ 
interchangeably with ot d{?dvarot. And so, in the more popular class 
of prose writers, such as orators, rhetoricians, etc., whilst we find un- 
({uestionably the earlier and freer usage of the word in reference t(j 
the material and perishable about us, yet we find in reference to the 
future, the invisible, the spiritual, that the word is used in its strictest 
sense, 'd;t'a:d)m signifying from the period that is without beginning, 
n? to the period that is without end. When we come, therefore, 
to the Scriptures, we are prepared to expect that when atuv and its 
derivative are used-of anything pertaining to a future and in- 

visible state, they will signify a period absolutely without end. What 
then do we actually find ? 

I. When the Septuagint writers are to translate passages in vthe 
Hebrew Scriptures which conveyed, and were intended to convey 
with the utmost emphasis, the idea of a period without beginning and 
without end, expressions connected with the being of God, his king- 
dom, glory, mercy, etc., where the aim of the inspired writer was 
unquestionably to give distinct, unambiguous, emphatic expression to 
the absolute eternity of that of which he affirmed, these Septuagint 
translators invariably used the words aiwv and aiwvio^. 1 say nothing 
now of those cases in which oSlj? is used of a period less than eternal 
I shall come to them directly. I speak now of the pas.sages in which 
the whole power is lost unless this idea of eternity is conveyed. And 
I say that the fact that these words are used in these passages indicates 
that they were, in the minds of the translators, the strongest and least 
ambiguous words that could be found. If there had been terms to 


* Tim. 37, 38 . 


f “ Eurip. Her.ac.,” 900. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


374 

express more strongly and unambiguously the idea of eternity, they 
would certainly have been employed. 

2. Whilst we find the words aiujv and atwvtoj used in the Septuagint 
version to translate o'?!;* * * § , where it refers to a period less than eternal, 
as of the Jewish dispensation, the world-period preceding the coming 
of Christ, etc., yet in every such case the limitation arises out of the 
nature of the subject, as connected with the present _ material and 
tangible state; nor is there, in all the twelve* instances in which there 
is no such necessary dependence, a single one in which the words do 
not involve the idea of beginningless, if of the past, and endless, if 
of the future, unless the single exception be found in that one passage 
which refers to future punishment (Dan. xii. 2), and there the same 
word, aCivioi, which is used of the duration of the punishment, is used 
in the same verse to express the duration of the life of the blessed, 
which is confessedly eternal. The testimony of the Seventy is there- 
fore overwhelmingly for the endlessness of the period expressed by 
and it will not, I think, be regarded as unsafe if we take as our 
authority for the meaning of atwj/ and atiovtoj the Seventy rather than 
the interpreters of the modern “^2onian” school. 

‘ 3. When we come to the New Testament usage, the same principles 
appear and the same conclusions inevitably follow. There are twenty- 
five instances of the use of aiC^u to signify periods of duration which 
are not strictly eternal, | but in every case in which it is so used the 
subject is one that admits of only a limited duration, and the word 
aiCjv retains its original force, as expressing the totality of duration of 
that to which it refers. | In six instances it is used to contrast the 
jmesent visible aiCjv with the future invisible one, in none of whicli 
is there anything to intimate that this future complete period is any- 
thing less "than absolutely endless. § Then we have a few cases in 
which aiwv is used of the past in connection with d ^6 and t|.|| 

Bearing in mind the characteristic difference between dno and ix in 
time relations, the former signifying from the hither margin of, and 
the latter from out of the bosom of, there is no difficulty in under- 
standing the word atwv in its strict sense of eternity a parte ante, in 


* Deut. xxxiii. 40; Ivii. 15; Isa. liv. 8; Ps, xc. 2; Ps. cxlv. 13; Mic. v. 2, 

Ps. cxv. 13; Dan, iv. 3; Dan. ii. 44; Isa, xl. 28; Isa. ix. 20; P.s. cx. 4. 

f Matt. xii. 32; xiii. 22, 39, 40, 49 ; xxiv. 3; xxviii. 20; Mark iv. 19; Duke xvi. 
8;' XX. 34; Roni. xii. 2; i Cor. i. 20; ii. 6, 8; iii. 18; 2 Cor. iv. 4; Gal. i. 4; 
Eph. i. 21; ii. 2; vi. 12; I Tim. vi. 17; 2 Tim. iv. lo; Tit. ii. 12; lleb, i. 2; 
xi. 3 (the two last by metonymy for the world itself). 

J An apparent exception to this rule is found in Meb. ix. 26, where 'fKi gvvtOThi 
tC)v aid)vi.)v appears, and is translated “ in the end of the world,” But there is no 
reason why the rciv aiuvuv should not have its strict si^^nificance of eternity a pai te 
ante, for our Lord’s “putting away of sin by the sacrifice of himself” is certainly 
the consummation [awre/iela) of those eternal ages when the covenant was be- 
twixt them both, and the delights of the adorable Son of God were with the sons 
of men. 

§ Matt. xii. 32; Mark x. 30; Luke xviii. 30; xx. 35; Eph. i. 21 ; Heb. vi. 5. 

[j Luke i. 70; John ix. 32; Acts iii. 21 ; xv. 18; Eph. iii. 9. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


375 


all of these. A single instance with 7tp6 (i Cor. ii. 7 ) will be re- 
served for consideration further on. With this one apparent excep- 
tion, which as we will see is not a real one, the use of o.l^v in reference 
to the past is univocal and in strict accord with its original significa- 
tion. When we turn to the use of aiwv as to the future with ftj, that 
with which we are more nearly concerned, we find over fifty examples, 
in no one of which is tne period to which it refers conceived as having 
an end. It is true that in a few cases there is a manifest hyperbole in 
the ascription of eternity to that which is not eternal in its nature, 
but even in these cases the possibility of an end is purposely and 
definitely excluded by the form of the negation, and we are brought 
to the conclusion that there is not a single instance in which n? i ; 
used with in the New Testament, where the idea of endlessness 
was not distinctly intended to be conveyed, unless the passages which- 
define the duration of future punishment are to be excepted. That 
which we have thus seen to be true of atwv is equally true of 
Leaving out of view for the present the five cases in which it is used 
of the future state of the wicked,! there are sixty-six passages in which 
it occurs, having reference to the existence of God, the eternity of 
His kingdom and glory, the eternal life of the believer, etc., and 111 
all these, with two apparent exceptions J in which the phrase rtpo 
x^ov^v atciriuv is used, there is not one in which the meaning is not 
strictly eternal, a parte ante if of the past, and a parte post if of the 
future. These two phrases, together with the one above, rtp6 tZ,v aUvoiv, 
are the ones upon which Canon Farrar has lent his support in his 
work, “ External Hope,” to men who ridicule the idea of times that 
are beginningless and yet were preceoed by the ordinances, purposes, 
and promises of God. Now, it is one of the results of recent critical 
study of the Greek language— can it be possible that Canon Farrar 
is ignorant of it? — that there is distinctly traced in the post-classic 
(jreek a usage of ?tpo vvith the gcnitiv'e in tempoial clauses, analogous 
to the use of ante with the ablative in Latin, so that just as we have 
in Latin paucis ante diebus, signifying a few days before, so we have 
in Greek such phrases as rtpo nivxi rfirpCjv, signifying five days before ; 
and, having the very best authority to sustain me as to this usage. 
I do not hesitate to say that to translate 7rp6 ^:po^•wv before 

yEonian times, as the “^onist ” does, instead of eternally before, 
would be like translating np6 Tiiv'tt before five days, instead ot 

five days before.% , 1 • 

This difficulty out of the way, there is only one more deserving ot 
consideration. Canon Farrar and others ask if atwv signifies eternity 
in its strict sense, what are we to do with such passages as u'saiwms, 
acwvu>r, ft? roL? etc., where we have 

added to atwy multiplied by etc. How can this be if the woid 


* Matt. xxi. 19; Mark xi. 14; John viii. 35; xiii. 8; I Cor. viii. 13. 
t Matt, xviii. 8; xxv. 41, 46; Mark iii. 29; 2 Thess. i. 9. 

% 2 Tim. i. 9; Til. i. 2. § Liddell Scott, 6th Eng. ed., sub.-verb rcpb a. 2. 


yj 6 THE PTESEYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

aiCjv signifies eternity? The answer is so simple that it seems marvel- 
lous that one should be needed. So long as the idea ol eternity is 
held simply as a logical concept sij ai^va gives lull expression to it. 
But when we come to analyze the concei)t and see what it contains, 
to bring before the mind some metaphysical conception ol eternity, 
then through the impotence of the finite to grasp the infinite, a new. 
process must go forward. The mind, stretching itself to embrace the 
utmost conceivable period of duration, makes that the unit in a sys- 
tem of additions and multiplications, that by these as stepping-stones 
it may pass on and on in its nearest possible approximation in con- 
sciousness to the infinite period embraced in its logical concept. But so 
far from the idea in these expressions being less than strictly eternal, 
the very purpose of their formation is to give the most emphatic ex- 
pression possible to this idea, and for Canon Farrar and others to 
])lead these passages as a prool that atw^ does not mean enL/ess is about 
as rational as it would be to plead that because we use in English sucli 
])hrases as forever and ever, and eternity of eternities, therefore our 
English words forever and eternity imply a period that may have an 
end. We have alluded to the exact parallelism in the expressions 
which define the duration, on one hand, of the punishment of the 
wicked, and on the other, of the blessedness of the righteous. As this 
point has been disputed by our opponents, it may be well to notice it 
for a moment. A recent writer of the .T^onistic school,* after speak- 
ing of the “ample Scriptures” that assure us by stronger statement 
of the endlessness of the bliss of the righteous, produces in support 
four passages,t of which only one can be regarded as an explicit 
statement upon, the subject, and that one (Eph. iii. 21) is a statement 
not of the endlessness of the life of the righteous, but of the endless- 
ness of the glory accruing to God through their redemption. After 
an impartial examination of all the jmsages alleged, it may be safely 
affirmed that no stronger phrases are found, "of can be found in Greel: 
to express duration than those which the sacred writers have used in 
reference to future punishment. Others have been suggested, but 
there is not one of them the classic usage of which is more uniformly 
in the sense of eternal and everlasting — not one of them which could 
any better withstand the destructive criticism that has been brought 
to bear upon aiwv and aicoi'i-o;. 

Did time permit, it would be easy to show from the writings of the 
Christian fathers who were familiar with the Greek tongue, the sense 
in which they understood these words. They employ them in con- 
trast with words which express temporary duration they use them 
with explanatory or epexegetical clauses, which sliow that the writers 
meant them in the sense of eternal ;§ they use synonymes which con- 


*Clemance Fut. Pun., p. 64. f John xiv. 19; xvii. 24; vi. 39; Eph. iii. 21. 
J Polyenrp — Address at martyrdom — Justin Martyr, Ap. i. 8. Iren. Adv. Ilaer. 
iv. 28, I and 2. Athanasius, 41)1 Fest. Ep. 

\ Iren. Contr. Haeres 4, 28, 2. 'reriull. De Praescr. adv. Hneret. Ch. XIII. 
Tertullian De Jud. Dum. Ch. IX. Cypr. Lib. ad Demeir. Cap. XXIV. Chryst. Ep. 
V. ad Theod. Laps. Au;;ust ad l.aurei.l. Cap. CXITl. De Civ. Dei. Cap. XXII., etc. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


377 


v-'y the idea of endlessness* beyond doubt- But into this field we 
cannot enter. It is enough to say that in the light of the latest Greek 
criticism, it still remains true that “ if the idea of duration without 
end is not expressed in the words alCjv and atwvtoj, it cannot be expressed 
by any words in the Greek language, ”f and that the words of Moses 
Stuart, written a half century ago, stand as impregnable to-day, not- 
withstanding all the assaults that have been made upon them, as when 
they were first uttered. “ If the Scriptures have not asserted the end- 
less punishment of the wicked, neither have they asserted the endless 
happiness of the righteous, nor the endless glory and existence of the 
Godhead.”! 

And now if the conclusions to which we are thus brought are just, 
then we are upon a proper vantage ground from which to consider 
the duty of the Church of God in refcrence to the doctrine of endless 
punishment. 

It is charged upon the ministry of the present day that it has in 
great measure changed front in reference to this important doctrine 
of Scripture; that our pulpits no longer resound with the words 
“hell” and “damnation;” that the day of frightful imagery of 
gnawing worms and gnashing teeth and enshrouding flames is forever 
gone. If this change in the tone of our preacliing — the fact of which 
we do not deny — means only that whilst we still hold fast and firmly 
by the doctrine, and are ready on all proper occasions to bear testi- 
mony to it as a segment of the great circle of inspired truth, we are 
not accustomed to rack the imaginations of our hearers with pictures 
of the abodes of the lost, painted by the gloomy fancies of Dante and 
Milton, the change is one which we have every reason to commend ; 
but if this change has come from any wavering of conviction as to the 
truth of the doctrine itself, then it becomes a subject for gravest and 
most thoughtful consideration. There are many aspects of it in which 
such a loosening of conviction would be a matter most profoundly to 
be deplored. 

I. For, first of all, it would be the renunciation of that great prin- 
ciple to which reference has already been made; namely, that all 
formulation of doctrine must base itself first, last, always, upon the 
simple testimony of God’s word. It makes an incalculable difference 
in our attitude towards the word of God, whether we hold in abey- 
ance all our a /r/W convictions, our preconceived opinions, and the 
promptings of our moral sense, until we have first ascertained what is 
the plain teaching of the word of God ; or whether we first listen to 
the voices within us that whisper of what ought or ought not to be, 
what is accordant with or repugnant to our moral sense, and then go 
to God’s word with the hope, if not the fixed purpose, that it shall 
beams out in these conclusions from our own imagined intuitions. 


* Justin Martvr, Trvplio, XLV. Andreas on Apoc., 14. ii. John Damascen. 
Exp. Fid. Orih. B. II. Ch. I., etc. 

f Tyler Fut. Pun., p. 25. X Stuart Fut. Pun., Ed. of 1830, p. 57. 


378 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

And yet it is just in this way that all the difficulties in the acceptance 
of this doctrine have sprung. 'I\\q prima facte evidence of Scripture 
is so manifestly in its favor, that had it not been repugnant to the 
instincts of our fallen nature, no question would ever have been 
raised concerning it. I say, th^n, that however painful it may e 
to us to hold this view of the sufferings of our fellow-creatures— to 
yield to a pressure which is brought to bear against a doctrine froin 
this direction, is to surrender that great citadel of the supremacy and 
sufficiency of the Scriptures as a rule of faith upon which the very 
stability and safety of the Church of God depend ; it is to sanction 
a spirit of investigation that is irreverent towards the Author of rev- 
elation, unscientific in its critical methods, and utterly subversive i»i 
the end of all soundness of doctrine and unity of faith. 

2d. To falter in the maintenance of the doctrine of endless pun- 
ishment is to admit that in reference to one of the most supremely 
important doctrines of the Christian system, the Scriptures have 
failed to give us any definite information, not by reason of their 
silence, but by reason of their ambiguity. That the Author of* ^^‘ve- 
lation should keep silent upon any point of doctrine which he should 
choose to conceal we can understand j but that he should make a 
revelation of a doctrine, and yet make it in such ambiguous terms that 
no intelligent meaning could be gotten from his words ; this is— I 
speak it reverently — to charge the Infinite One with folly. He has not 
kept silent on the subject of the duration of future punishment. He 
has spoken over and over again and in varied form, and we challenge 
for that revelation a clearness like the shining of his noonday sun. 

3. To shrink from an explicit testimony to the endlessness of future 
punishment is to imperil the souls of our fellow-men. If men can be 
persuaded, nay, if they are even encouraged to a faint hope, that the 
period of probation does not end with death, that further offers of 
salvation will be made them in that after world, they will adventure 
all upon that hope and postpone to a future life the interests and claims 
of religion. In vain will we tell them of the long indefinite period of 
suffering through which they must pass. Let these “ seons ” be as 
long as they may, yet if they are ever to end at all, they are at the 
most but as a moment compared with eternity. Beyond, lie the ages 
upon ages of celestial glory, and sure of heaven at last, men will 
indulge in sin to their hearts’ content. A solemn responsibility there- 
fore rests upon the Church of God. As a witness-bearer for the truth 
she must bear testimony to this doctrine. Unpopular it may be, 
painful it must be, but she must, through her creeds and symbols, 
through her pulpits and ministry, bear her testimony faithfully to 
the truth. She cannot allow liberty upon this point. She may 
be accused of bigotry, of dogmatism, of illiberality if she requires her 
authorized teachers to hold and teach so unpopular a doctrine. But 
there is no other course for her to pursue. The principles involved 
are too fundamental. The interests of perishing souls involved 
are too great. Her trumpets must give forth no uncertain sound. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


379 


For myself, fathers and brethren, impressed by the momentonsness of 
this issue, I could ask no higher honor tlian that these feeble words 
of mine, falling like a faint keynote upon the cars ot tliis great con- 
vocation, should cause it to arise like a giant in his might, and send 
forth from out this bannered hall one bugle blast that, echoing irom 
shore to shore, shall tell to all the world that one great division at 
least of the army of Christ holds, and by God’s help means to hokl, 
the same redoubts of truth that have been pressed by the feet of God’s 
veterans in all the history of the Church. 

The Council then proceeded to five minute discussions on 
CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS. 

The Rev. Prof. J. R. W. Sloane, D. D., of Allegheny, Pa.— 
We have had indeed this morning a feast of fat things and of 
wines on the lees, well refined. The paper of Dr. Van Zandt, 
which was read to us yesterday morning, so far as I v/as able to 
hear it, gave me perhaps as great personal satisfaction as did 
any other of the papers that have been read before this Council. 

Creeds always have been a necessity of the Christian Church. 
They were formulated, first, for the benefit of those who were 
within the pale of the Church ; and, secondly, as a bulwark 
against errors that were outside, or that were coming in. They 
were as great a necessity as were the great Ecumenical Councils 
in whicli"they originated. The Council of Nice was no more a 
necessity than was the decree which w^as then promulgated, and 
which afterwards found its final and full expression in the so- 
called Athanasian creed. Against that creed with its statements 
and counter-statements, with its singular phraseology and with 
its damnatory clauses, have all the waves of error in regard to 
the Trinity and the person of Christ broken for more than four- 
teen hundred years, only to be dashed to pieces. 

Moreover, these creeds afford the finest of all illustrations of 
the fulfilment of the gracious promi.se of our ascended Lord to 
the Church. That promise was that he would give to her the 
Holy Spirit, to lead her into all truth. And not even in our 
systematic theologies, nor even in our holy songs, have we so 
fine an illustration of the fulfilment of that promise as we have 
in the great creeds of the Church. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


3cSo 

We ought to remember that for these creeds the Church of 
Christ in ail ages has contended even unto the death. As I 
look back over the long line of witnesses, I trace the pathway 
of the Church by the scaffold on which her witnesses poured out 
their blood like water; and by the stake at which they were 
burned for the word of God and for their testimony for Jesus. 
It was not simply for the Bible as such, but for their understand- 
ing of the Bible — for the manner in which they apprehended its 
great fundamental truths — that they thus contended even unto 
the death. We cannot go back simply to a single statement of 
the New Testament and ignore all the faithful contendings of 
God’s witnesses and God’s Church in all these ages, and these 
struggles of the past, and propose a creed under whose broad 
csegis (according to the account of the fabulous tent that we had 
in the opening sermon) every form of error that the Church has 
ever known, from Arianism down to the religion of the intui- 
tional consciousness of our day, may sit down. 

Finally, creeds, instead of being a separating, are a unifying 
element 

Rev. Thomas Neilson, of New Hebrides. — Ever since I was 
appointed a deputy to this Pan-Presbyterian Council, I have put 
to myself the question, Of what use will the Council be? That 
question I have answered to myself in two ways. If it is to be 
of any use, it is to be first in the way of a simplification and a 
unification of the creeds of the Churches here represented ; and 
second, in the way of co-operation, especially in the work of for- 
eign missions. 

I belong to a very old Church — to what was called “ The 
Reformed Presbyterian ” or “ Cameronian ” branch of the Church 
in Scotland. In taking upon myself ordination vows, I sub- 
scribed a very long creed : I subscribed the Confession of F'aith ; 
I subscribed the Catechisms, the Larger and Shorter; I sub- 
scribed the Declaration and Testimony of the Reformed Presby- 
terian Synod. I bound myself to maintain the faith contended 
for by the martyrs in all the persecutions in Scotland. Now, for 
the last fourteen years I have been in a mission where we have 
been admitting converted heathen, cannibals — men who have 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


381 

been eaters of the flesh of ministers of the Christian church ; and 
we have admitted all these upon a creed that can be written 
upon a small scrap of paper. We have a joint Presbyterian mis- 
sion in the South Seas; and the genesis of the confession of our 
faith, of our symbolism, is not a Presbyterian one. Our first 
missionaries who went to that mission went there in harmony 
with the London Missionary Society. In admitting members 
from heathenism, we co-operated with its missionaries, and 
adopted the symbolism that was adopted by the London Mis- 
sionary Society ; and we hold to it. 

I have accepted the creed and I have subscribed it from my 
heart. I believe in it. And yet I know that we have repre- 
sented here very important points of difference. In the Confes- 
sion of Faith the same marriage law is laid down by almost all 
the Presbyterian Churches that I know of throughout the whole 
British empire. It is considered a matter not of doubt, but one 
of certainty, that a man ought not to marry his .deceased wife’s 
sister. But that point is departed from in your Presbyterian 
Churches here in America, as I am given to understand, or at 
least by most of them. 

In point of im.portance there are central matters and there are 
subsidiary matters before this Council. The greatest work that 
can be put before this Council is that of uniting in a symbolism 
on the central matters, leaving the subsidiary matters free to 
individual councils. 

Rev. William U. Murkland, D. D., of Baltimore. — If any 
one asks for the noblest human defence of this subject, I merely 
answer, “ Look around.” It is not sufficient to publish the gos- 
pel of the Baptist; to publish the gospel of brotherly love — but 
on either side you have the great gospel fenced in and interpreted 
by the historic Churches which are now within this Alliance. 
Clean-cut thinking is allied to believing. It is not sufficient for 
a man to say simply, I accept the statements of Scripture, unless 
he states in what sense he accepts them. The Council composed 
of the historic Churches of our Alliance is a symbolical Council; 
its Churches are symbolical Churches : and one reason for its 
prominent position to-day, one reason for its power in history, 


382 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

is the fact that men know and have ever known where to put it. 
If you ask what we think of sin, we tell you. If you ask what 
we think of retribution, we tell you. If you ask what we think 
of the divinity of Christ, we tell you. Therefore the power of 
this Church is known ; and it confronts at every point the antag- 
onisms of the age. 

One of the most distinguished of the Roman Catholic prelates , 
of this country said to a friend of mine not long ago: “There is 
one Church that we fear a,bove all others, and that is the Pres- 
byterian Church; because,” he added, “we always know where 
to find it, and it meets us at every point with an intelligent 
answer for its faith and the Bible for its basis.” If I were to call 
for testimony from another direction, I would call upon the 
rampant infidelity of this age which dares to say, and I glory in 
its saying it, that the Church which it hates above all other 
Churches is the Presbyterian Church. Why is this ? It is 
because we stand upon these historic confe.ssions. 

A man is apt to promulgate half-formed opinions in which he 
does not believe, and, in stating them to his congregation and 
to the community, he thereby, figuratively speaking, scatters 
firebrands, contention and death. I say that if a man does not 
know what he believes, let him descend from his place in the 
pulpit and submit his doubts to the Presbyters. It is hard for 
the man who doubts the faith which he professes, when looking 
back along the hills and valleys of his spiritual life, through 
which he has walked with Christ, to say at the point of death, 
“ I have fought the good fight.” But, oh, it is a grand thought 
for one to look back along the illumined pathway of his minis- 
trations, as he passes into glory, and to be able to add, I have 
kept the faith.” 

The Rev. Donald Macrea, M. A., B. D., of St.John, New 
Brunswick. — I avow myself at the outset as entirely in sympathy 
with that honored missionary from the New Hebrides (Mr. 
Neilson,) who desires to see a simplification and unification of the 
creeds. There are, in my belief, hopeful symptoms that this 
object may be attained. 

The first of these is that we live in an age which has dared at 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


383 


least to venture upon a revision of our time-honored translation 
of the Scriptures ; and that revision is being made in the light 
of the sciences of philology and biblical criticism. I believe 
with my friend, Principal Caven, that it is possible to make pro- 
gress in biblical criticism and philology, without, at the same 
time, departing from our accepted theology. I believe that 
God’s truth is one ; and that progress in one direction involves 
progress in another. 

The other encouraging fact is that the report on creeds and 
confessions has been again referred to the committee, in the ex- 
pectation that they will take some further movement in this 
direction. I am not in the counsels of the learned brethren to 
whom that report was referred ; but from what I have seen of 
their public positions I do trust they will move first in the direc- 
tion of simplicity. 

It is told of the commentator Scott, that he issued an edition 
of the Pilgrim’s Progress with notes, of which he gave a copy 
to one of his parishioners. Meeting that individual some time 
afterwards, he asked him, “Did you read that work? * “Oh, 
yes,” was the reply. Did you understand it ? ” “ Oh, yes, 

and I hope soon to understand your notes.” In reference to 
many of our Confessions of Faith, the reverse of this may be 
said to be true. We read the text and the proof-notes, and we 
are puzzled and perplexed by the former. These, when origin- 
ally drawn up, were intended, no doubt, to be the keys to an 
understanding of the Scriptures ; but many humble people are 
obliged to use the Scriptures to interpret the keys. I think 
there could be .something done in the direction of. simplicity, 
and, further, in the direction of abbreviation. 

I think, if we were drawing up our Confession of Faith for the 
first time, we should not at this day leave it at all doubtful, 
whether one chapter in that book did or did not teach Presby- 
terian principles. W^e should not attempt to limit the holy One 
of Israel in deciding the length of the period, or the number of 
^ days, within which creation was effected. So as to many other 
points. We should not present to an humble soul seeking eter- 
nal life, as a summary of what he must believe, the serried ranks 


334 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

of a document bristling with 500 or 600, or 700 distinct propo- 
sitions. 

These are directions, I think, in which real progress could be 
made. As to unification, I think that something could be done 
in that direction also as the days roll on. It is to be hoped, too, 
that in this way the idolatry of the letter may be shaken ; for 
many do not know to what extent it is profitless. I know of a 
congregation which was addressed by a learned minister, who 
understood the character of the people he was addressing, in 
reference to a union among our churches in Canada. He 
appealed to them on the ground, first, that union was sanctioned 
by the Scriptures ; that, more than that, it was sanctioned by 
the Confession of Faith ; and that, yet more than that, it was 
.sanctioned by the Shorter Catechism. This was unanswerable 
in the e.stimation of the people. Now I would say that I honor 
the Confession of Faith ; that, more than that, I honor the 
Shorter Catechism ; but that, more than that, I can put neither 
of them above God’s word. 

The Rev. Robert F. Burns, D. D., of Halifax, Nova Scotia. — 
I would not have attempted to address you but for the fact that 
two respected members of the delegation from Canada, yester- 
day, in discussing this subject, propounded views similar to those 
which have been presented by a third representative this morn- 
ing, who comes from the part of the Dominion from which I 
come, away down by the Atlantic. I have* found that others 
of the delegation have been asked whether the sentiments thus 
expressed were the views of our delegation ; whether they were 
the views of a majority of our Church. When that query was put 
to me, I certainly could give but one answer, and that was that 
they were not. 

I felt yesterday, when listening to the remarks of Dr. De Witt, 
that that gentleman had struck the nail on the head. I felt that 
my beloved brother. Principal Grant (and no one loves him, with 
his great heart, more than I do), did speak unadvisedly with his 
lips. I do hope that the remarks of Dr. De Witt will strike him 
with such force as to make an impression upon him without 
breaking his head. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


385 


When my dear brother from St. John (Dr. Macrea) ran in the 
same groove, I began not exactly to tremble for the safety of 
the ark of God, but to feel a little non-plussed. 

Although three out of the eighteen gentlemen from our part 
of the world have spoken thus, I do not know of any others of 
the number who indorse their views. We believe in a creed. 
We believe in our own creed, and we believe in it just as it is. 
There may be among us differences of opinion, just as there are 
among yourselves, as to the particular mode of subscription ; 
some favoring an acceptance of the Confession as containing the 
substance of doctrine, while others hold to an out-and-out literal 
subscription to it all. But when I hear some one speak about a 
shortening of creeds, I am reminded of a story which I will re- 
late. An individual came up to a brother, belonging to a church 
that has an elaborate rubric, who had given a pretty short ser- 
mon, and said to him, Well, I like your sermon.” The brother 
was pleased with that remark. “ But,” continued the friend who 
addressed him, “ to be honest with you, I don’t like any preach- 
ing at all, and I like yoursM^ecause it is about next to nothing.” 

The Rev. Principal D. H. McVicar, LL. D., of Montreal. — 
I presume that the creed of a cannibal in the New Hebrides or 
elsewhere, when brought into the Christian Church, may be a 
very short one ; but that the creed of the public preacher of the 
gospel of Jesus Christ, and of the whole word of God, cannot be 
quite as short as that of the cannibal. 

Hints have been thrown out, I think, on the floor of the 
Council (and they are quite abundant beyond it), that there is a 
want of freedom in discussing the doctrines of our Church on 
account of something in our polity. I grant at once there is a 
limit set to the province of the public preacher. I hold that no 
man is entitled to go before the people and deliver a message 
until he is quite sure himself that it is the truth of God. There 
is a limit for him. But there is no limit set for any one of the 
fathers and brothers of this Council in bringing forward for dis- 
cussion, by overtures in Presbyteries, in Synods and Assemblies, 
any doctrine which is formulated in our creed. In the Presby- 
tery of Montreal I would be willing to sit for eight or ten days 

25 


386 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


to hear a man plead for an overture touching the doctrine of the 
Trinity, or any other great doctrine. I suspect, however, that we 
should send him home fully convinced that he had undertaken 
a very foolish piece of business, in assuming to disturb that doc- 
trine. Yet he is at liberty to bring it up and discuss it to his 
heart’s content. 

It has been hinted, too, that there is something wrong about 
the creeds. These hints may be wisely made in Presbytery or 
Synod ; but for one, I should much prefer to see such proposi- 
tions distinctly formulated, so as to set forth exactly what it is 
these brethren wish and demand. If the creed is too long, pray 
tell me what it is you are going to cut off. If the creed is too 
diffuse in its texture, pray give me a proposition which you de- 
sign to substitute for that diffusiveness in a creed which you 
have had so long. Then I shall have something tangible to 
consider. But until that is done, these mysterious hints (which 
often conceal far more than they express) do not present any- 
thing definite. It is hinted, too, that an adherence to creeds 
is calculated to hinder progress. ♦Historically the evidence 
is just the reverse. The Churches which have had long, con- 
catenated creeds, are themselves, to-day, strong and vigorous. 
Churches, on the other hand, which have been constantly ex- 
temporizing their creeds have been non-progressive. So that 
the evidences of history are in favor of length in creeds ; and I 
can conceive of nothing that would be a greater advantage to 
the truth than for this great Council to gather up all the ac- 
cepted truths held by Christendom, and set the stamp of its ap- 
proval upon them. That alone would shut the mouths of scep- 
tics, and would break the backbone of the argument by which 
Romanism is accustomed to hold its votaries in thraldom. 
What we need to do, is not to go back in formulating creeds, 
but to discover the truth as we reason it out more fully, and as 
we are ready to subscribe to it. Progress is not in the direction 
of disintegration, but rather in the direction of reformation. 

Rev. Prof. Henry Calderwood, LL. D., of Edinburgh. — I 
listened with very great attention and interest to the discussion 
which we had yesterday, not at all marvelling that there are 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


387 


many among us who are anxious for some degree of liberty be- 
yond what we at present enjoy, and not wondering that there 
were some inclined to seek a greater simplicity of creed. But 
as I listened, I thought it became obvious that the discussion 
needed to be somewhat carefully regulated with regard to all the 
interests involved. What was sought for by those who did so 
earnestly and passionately plead for increased liberty, or for a 
reduction of the creed, was simply that which would allow lib- 
erty to the individual along with fidelity to the Church. But 
the question is, what liberty to the individual is to be allowed, 
and under what circumstances is it to be allowed \ The fidelity 
of the Church is quite above the liberty of the individual in the 
Church ; and the fidelity of the Church is its fidelity to its Mas- 
ter, and to the great work which the Church has to do in in- 
structing mankind. Accordingly, we must put the responsibility 
of the Church for its teachings altogether above any liberty 
which may belong to the individual in respect to his own teach- 
ings. 

Next, it must be obvious to every one that his teaching is to 
be in harmony with the creed of his Church ; and whosoever, 
acting under authority to teach God’s truth from the pulpit to 
the Church, asks the liberty to teach that which that Church 
does not hold to be God’s truth, asks what the Church cannot 
grant. 

But when we are brought down to this point, it is urged that 
we are placing ourselves in a wrong position, unless we admit 
that the creed may be revised. That, however, is another ques- 
tion ; and one that stands in a totally different position. It is 
the liberty, the right, and the duty of each Church to revise its 
creed, as that Church shall see fit, by means of its own repre- 
sentative courts. It is for the good of theologic truth, it is 
for the interest of the whole Church, that the man who enter- 
tains a wish to modify, alter, or improve, shall be required first 
to think so carefully, so long, and so patiently about what he 
means to propose, that he shall meet his brethren in the regular 
court to make that proposal, and shall go through all the neces- 
sary restrictions that are involved. 


388 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

In the same way you may say it belongs to us to remember 
that we may shorten our creed. Certainly, may the Christian 
Church, if it see fit, by its representative office-bearers, shorten 
its own creed. But it is not the right of the individual minister, 
whatever his position, either in the pulpit or in the chair, to be- 
gin that work of reduction. It belongs to the Church as a 
Church, through its representative body, to shorten its creed. 
The Church, rejoicing in its liberty, will act slowly, cautiously, 
prudently, and well, as- it proceeds in this great work. Let it 
not then be said that we are in any way lowering the power of 
the Church to. deal with its creed; but rather that we are asking 
that Presbyterian order and honor be constantly and carefully 
guarded in all that we do in dealing with a question such as this. 

Let us ask ourselves (while we allow all such discussion, and 
while we value it), what is the exact position of this Council, 
and what is the relation of the Churches represented in it as a 
Council ? We may yet do something very important in ou;- 
history, by presenting the different aspects of the several 
Churches in relation to the creed ; but if we have to do that 
work at all, we have to do it well. This Council will follow be- 
hind the Churches which, have the individual right (and they 
cannot be deprived of it) of dealing with their creed ; and it will 
very slowly and patiently, step by step only, and with the ut- 
most caution, do that which, as a Council, it may think may be 
done, in the interest of truth and in the service of the whole 
Presbyterian Church. Just as we are open to admit free discus- 
sion, and yet are cautious and slow in formulating, do we serve 
our Churches. 

Rev. Wm. Reid, D. D., of Toronto, Canada. — I wish to ex- 
press very cordially my concurrence in the views expressed in 
the latter part of Dr. Calderwood’s remarks. I wish also to 
correct what seems to be an erroneous impression, on the minds 
of some of our brethren, to the effect that we have begun to go 
in the direction of an alteration or shortening of our confessions 
of faith. The committee which has been appointed has nothing 
to do with that whatever. As I understand, all that it proposes 
to do and all that it is empowered to do, is to give a report showing 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


389 

a consensus of the confessions of the several Churches. I have 
yet to learn that there is the slightest proposal, or suggestion in 
regard to a change. 

This Council is a new thing. It is only feeling its way. In 
some of the Presbyterian Churches there was some little degree 
of doubt as to the expediency of entering into the Alliance. Of 
course being one of the older men, I am not likely to desire 
change ; and I do feel that, if at the next meeting of the Coun- 
cil, there should be any manifestation of a tendency towards an 
alteration of our old, time-honored symbols, it would be a very 
great misfortune. I think, too, it would tell against the harmony 
and prosperity of this Council, and against the great good that 
may otherwise result from meeting together from time to time, 
and consulting with regard to those practical matters which may 
promote the good work and the success of the various branches 
of the great Presbyterian family. 

^ Wm. Neely, Esq., of New York city. — I belong to and rep- 
resent a Church that has, perhaps, as long a confession of faith 
as that of most of the Churches ; namely, the Old School Re- 
formed Presbyterian Church. I have never regretted the length 
of that document ; because, when coming in contact with lay- 
men who simply take the word of God and believe in the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and say that is a sufficient confession and testimony 
for them, I generally find such brethren, though often far more 
intelligent than myself, and with far more education than I have, 
very deficient with regard to anything like a knowledge of sys- 
tematic theology. It was my privilege, last summer, at a water- 
ing place, to have charge of a Bible class for several Sabbaths. 
I there met men who were superintendents of Sabbath-schools 
in Presbyterian churches who did not know anything about the 
Covenant of Grace. I even heard two or three such superin- 
tendents deny that there ever was such a Covenant, and had 
them ask me for my proof when I asserted the affirmative of the 
proposition. Indeed I had to refer to Hodge's Outlines before I 
could convince them of their error. Yet they were intelligent 
men and superintendents of Presbyterian Sabbath-schools. I 
told one of them he ought to be ashamed of his ignorance and 


390 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

ought never to show himself again as a superintendent. I 
thought this morning that I must testify to these things, else 
before God I would not be true to the cause of Christ Jesus, our 
Lord. Creeds and confessions are necessary, and a systematic 
theology among our laymen is more necessary than perhaps we 
realize. Our pulpit hardly does its duty in this day if it does not 
train the people in systematic theology. 

Rev. a. R. Van Nest, D. D., of Philadelphia.— It is my honor 
to represent the oldest Reformed Church in this country ; and 
I am very happy to say that it is a Church which stands fiimly 
by its creed, the confession of the Synod of Dortrecht. It 
has struck me as something very remarkable, at which I have 
been astonished, that in this Council there should be any differ- 
ence of opinion on the subject of the creed of the Church. I 
have been astonished that our own Church has been misinter- 
preted here. 

We have a liturgy. It has been hinted that a liturgy is con-, 
trary to the word of God. Our old liturgy is a great part of our 
creed. We take our liturgy from the Holy Bible; and we be- 
lieve that in this, and in having our ministers recite it, we are 
presenting the word of God to the people in the purest form. 
We demand of every minister of our Church that he shall preach 
on the Heidelberg catechism— and he cannot blink it! When 
he comes up before the classis he is obliged to answer the ques- 
tion, “ Have you preached the Heidelberg catechism faithfully?” 
and his answer goes upon the record of the Church. 

There is one thing more that is peculiar to our Church. 
Every man who comes into it has to do something that I do 
not believe any other Presbyterian Church requires to be done. 
He has to sign a formula which runs substantially thus : we, the 
undersigned, hereby sincerely, and in good conscience before the 
Lord, declare, by this subscription, that we heartily believe, and 
are persuaded, that all the articles and points of doctrine con- 
tained in the confession and catechism of the Reformed Church, 
together with the explanation of the points made by the National 
Synod, held at Dortrecht, agree with the word of God fully. If, 
after signing that, a brother has any doubt, he is obliged to 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


391 


come before the classis, declare it, and give up his place. It is 
due to this fact that our Church is the Gibraltar of Protestantism. 

I repeat I have been astonished at the intimation that any of 
these great Calvinistic bodies should have any desire for change 
in this matter, or that we should lower the great standard that 
has been raised by the fathers and the martyrs of our Churches. 
It has been well said here that creeds are not made. No, 
creeds are not made ; they grow. But where did our creeds 
grow ? They grew in the fires of persecution. Go to my own 
fatherland of Flolland. What do you read upon the columns of 
history there? One hundred thousand martyrs! And they 
produced this glorious confession of ours. Turn to Scotland: 
what do we see there ? The blood of the martyrs all over the 
hills of the country; the memories of the old Covenanters. Turn 
to France : there we read about the Huguenots. Turn to Italy: 
what do we read there ? Of the same glorious old faith and 
the same grand sufferers. Brethren, these creeds grew. Yes, 
they grew, but they cannot grow now ! Never will we have 
another exhibition of their growth until \ye have another of 
those scenes of trial of which brother Campbell spoke so elo- 
quently last night. 

The Rev. Thomas H. Skinner, D. D., of Cincinnati. — I think 
that the desire as expressed here to-day for a change of creed, 
arises from a misunderstanding of the object of a creed. What 
is a creed ? The Bible is God’s word to us. The creed, as Dr. 
Schaff has put it, is our aqswer to God before the world as to 
what we believe God has said to us. Now, that our creed is the 
creed of a witnessing Church, we have heard over and over 
again ; and when God has spoken to us in his word from Gen- 
esis to Revelation, we give an answer to that word from Genesis 
to Revelation. We witness for our God, to a gainsaying world, 
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of God. 

As this creed is the creed of the Presbyterian Church, how 
does it hold us ? Under our polity, it holds the office-bearers 
in the Church. In my church I have a negro woman, a poor 
creature, who can neither read nor write, but who has been 
taught by the Holy Ghost What has she been taught ? The 


392 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

Westminster Confession of Faith, do you suppose, in all its ter- 
minology and technical theology ? No ; do you think that we 
would take even the Shorter Catechism, place it before that poor 
creature, and ask her to subscribe to it under penalty of being 
kept from the communion of the Church at tlie Lord s table ? 
No. The terms of admission into the Church for private mem- 
bers are one thing ; the terms of preaching and teaching and 
ruling in the Church are another thing. We have a standard 
of doctrine in thirty-three chapters; and a witness, who had 
reason to make a sharp and close investigation, says there 
are but two things in the whole revelation of God con- 
cerning which the Presbyterian Church does not testify in her 
standards. I would not have any subtraction, but the addition 
of those. One, he says, relates to women preaching. There 
is no testimony in the way of an interpretation of God’s word 
on that subject in our Confession. The other is a melan- 
choly admission, in my judgment. It relates to the duty of 
alms-giving, and to that practical charity which behooves all 
Christian souls. 

The Rev. D. A. Wallace, D. D., LL.D., of Wooster, Ohio. 
•—It seems to me that the creed of our Church subserves a most 
valuable purpose as a help to our young men in clear, correct, 
thorough investigation and conclusive thinking. Here is a 
young man who starts out, we will say, to examine the doctrine 
that was discussed this morning. There is put into his hands a 
work advocating one or other or several of those partial views 
to which our attention was called. He is enamoured with it, and 
thinks that that is just the thing. He says, I agree with this 
doctrine ; I agree with that one ; these are the right views on the 
subject.” But he brings himself to examine what the confes- 
sion of faith and the catechism say on the subject. He finds 
there a clearer, fuller, and more concise statement. He inquires 
further as to this confession of faith. He asks who made it, and 
inquires into its history. He ascertains how long it was being 
prepared, the thoroughness of the investigation of those who 
prepared it, whence it came, who believed it ; and then he looks 
to see by what arguments it is maintained. And he will be a 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


393 


very presumptuous young man, indeed, who, on superficial inves- 
tigation, after such a looking back to the beginning, wdll say that 
that is false. Then let him pass through the range of investiga- 
tion, and he will find that it will not do for him to come to con- 
clusions antagonistic to this confession, without long-continued, 
protracted, and very thorough research. When a young man 
comes to be able to say, “ I believe the system of doctrine con- 
tained in that confession,” if he has made investigation, and 
makes his profession ex ajiiino, he is one who is not likely to 
be a fool. And w'hen he goes out into the world, makes a pro- 
fession, and lays down a position, you can depend upon him to 
maintain it at least with some show of reason. As I have grown 
older, I have come to have a more profound, and a still more 
profound, respect for the wisdom, the knowledge, and the under- 
standing of the men who prepared our doctrinal statements; 
and ‘not to have a very profound respect for the young man, 
upon whose face the down yet remains, and who flippantly at- 
tacks those doctrines. 

We hear a good deal of talk about freedom of investigation. 
There should be freedom of investigation. Liberty is a God- 
given right. A man should have liberty of investigation. But 
let him make his investigations before he makes his vows. Is it 
too much to ask, after a young man has gone through a course 
in philosophy (in which every great principle of theology, we are 
told, is rooted), after he has mastered that, and has taken his 
course in the theological halls, is it too much to ask that he 
should have made his investigation so complete and thorough, 
that when he professes his faith at his ordination, there shall be 
something settled ? Must he be forevermore digging around 
the foundations to see w'hether there is any corner-stone there 
or not ? 

DEFINING THE CONSENSUS. 

The Rev. Dr. Schaff.— Before reading the report which I 
have now to submit, I will make one remark, wfith a view to 
dispelling a possible prejudice in regard to it. The revision of 
an existing confession of faith is one thing ; the defining of 
some twenty or thirty confessions is another thing. With the 


394 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


former, as a Council, we have nothing whatever to do. The re- 
vision of an existing confession of faith is exclusively the 
business of the Church or Churches which hold that confession. 
But the defining of the several confessions, on which this Coun- 
cil is professedly based, is altogether within the- province of the 
Council ; and whether it shall or shall not be done, is altogether 
a question of expediency. In that view we have framed the 
following resolution, which the Committee on Creeds and Con- 
fessions has instructed me to recommend the Council to adopt : 


Resolved^ That a committee consisting of members from the various 
branches of the Reformed or Presbyterian Churches embraced within 
this Alliance be appointed to consider the desirableness of defining 
the “Consensus of the Reformed Confessions’' (as expressed by our 
Constitution) ; and to report at the next meeting of the Council. 

Resqlved, That the following be the members of this committee : 
Principal Dr. Cairns, Chairman ; Professor Dr. Flint, Professor Dr. 
Blaikie, Professor Dr. Calderwood, Professor Dr. Graham, Profes- 
sor Dr. Watts, Professor Dr. A. A. Hodge, Professor Dr. Patter- 
son, Dr. Wilson, Professor Dr. Morris, Rev. Dr. Chambers, Rev. 
Dr. Bomberger, Rev. Dr. Dales, and Principal Caven, Professor Dr. 
Apple, Professor Jean Monod, Professor Dr. Von Oosterzee, Pro- 
fessor Dr. Godeb, Rev. Dr. Carlin, Rev. Dr. Krafft, and Professor 
Comba. 


The Rev. Dr. S. I. Prime. — I move the adoption of the 
report. 

Principal Caven, of Toronto. — I beg respectfully to suggest 
that the name of Dr. Schaff be added to that list. 

Dr. Schaff. — Allow me one word. I have very earnestly 
protested against that in the committee ; and, to be consistent, I 
have to do so now. Please excuse me. 

The President. — But I suppose we need not accept Dr. 
Schaff’s protestation. 

Several Delegates. — No ; not at all. 

The Chairman. — If there is no objection, the name of Dr. 
Schaff will be added to the committee. 

The Rev. A. A. Hodge, D. D., of Princeton, N. J.— There is 
no time to discuss the resolutions now. Let them be passed 
over for discussion. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


395 


The President. — Do you move that they be postponed until 
to-morrow morning ? 

Dr. Hodge. — I do. 

The motion was agreed to. 

The Council then adjourned to meet at two and a half o’clock, 
in the Academy of Music. 

September 2 %^, 1880. 

The Council was called to order at 2.30 p. m. 

The Rev. Prof. Nicholas Hofmeyr, of the Cape of Good 
Hope, President. 

After devotional services, the Rev. R. M. Patterson, D. D., 
of Philadelphia, read the following paper : 

CHURCH EXTENSION IN LARGE CITIES. 

I. “The energy of civilization grows by a coalescence of strengths 
and by a competition of strengths.” Large cities are, therefore, one 
of its products, and one of its means as well. Under the social in- 
fluence of Christianity they grow in population rapidly— more rapidly 
than in ancient times and in non-Christian lands \ more rapidly than 
do the rural regions. In 1871 more than one-fourth of the inhabitants 
of Great Britain were in cities of over 50,000 of a population ; in 1801 
there had been less than one-eighth. One-sixth of the people of Eng- 
land live in London. The census which has this year been taken in 
the United States shows twenty cities with over 100,000 inhabitants 
each, and an aggregate of 5,952,267, or almost one-eighth of the whole 
nation. Ten years ago there were only fourteen cities in that rank; 
in i860 only nine. In 1870 we had twenty citip with over 50,000 
inhabitants each ; we have now thirty-one. “ ^^'e are and are to be 
a nation of great cities.” 

Their closely-welded population ; their business, social, and gov- 
ernmental connections ; their publishing-houses and newspapers ; 
their libraries and the literary men who frequent them ; the capital 
that is centred in their commercial houses ; and their progressiveness of 
spirit, make cities the depositaries of national power. “Commercial 
men,” says an old novel, “ are the first class in the s^ate.” 

Nor do the direct figures, in regard to a large city, indicate its full 
strength and influence. For instance, Boston itself contains one-fifth 
of the population of Massachusetts ; but one-half of the population, 
and in value seven-tenths of the personal property, and two thirds of 
the real estate of Massachusetts are within twenty-five miles of the 
State House in Boston. The power is radiating. 

Balzac has declared, “as one of the great wounds of our modern 
society,” that “ the nineteenth century France is divided into two 
great zones— Paris and the provinces : the provinces jealous of Pans ; 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


396 

Paris taking no thought of the provinces save to demand money of 
them.” A similar remark cannot be made of the English-speaking 
nations. The cities and the country are too largely interfused; and 
therefore especially ‘'the church that holds the cities will control 
the religious character of the country.” 

So it was also in the earlier ages. The apostolic system of Church 
extension was one of radiation from the great centres of population. 
Christianity made its first progress in them. Renan says, “ Nearly 
all our superstitions are the remains of a religion anterior to Christian- 
ity, which that has not been able entirely to uproot. If one would 
find an image of paganism in our day, it must be sought in some ob- 
scure village in the depth of some out-of-the-way country. . . . 
Christianity, like Judaism and Islamism, is a religion of cities. . . . 
The great city once converted, the small city and the country followed 
the movement.” 

II. Grossly exaggerated assertions are current as to the failure of 
the churches to keep up with the advancing urban populations. But 
distance lends enchantment to the view. The evils that are near to 
us are magnified, and we do not properly compare them with, the past. 
“ The good old time ” is a wretched pessimistic sing-song. More- 
over, precise statistics are the growth of the present century, and 
strangely wild assertions, which cannot carry all that they are made 
to bear, are perpetually sent out. For instance, sixty years ago a 
minister of the Church of England asserted that there were no less 
than 760,000 unconverted pagans in London. Remember that the 
whole population was only 1,225,694, and you will see that even .if, 
as is likely, the members of the dissenting churches were super- 
ciliously counted as unconverted pagans, the assertion was an ex- 
aggeration. 

A wide and careful comparison, in place of the loose generaliza- 
tions which are hastily and unscientifically made from a few cases and 
in fearful tones taken up and cast abroad on the wings of the wind, 
will show that the churches, in their number, in the number of their 
members, and in their varied influence, have been advancing on the 
population, though it may be in that orbital manner which marks 
human progress. 

In this city of Philadelphia, the one’ branch of the Presbyterian 
Church with which I am most familiar had at the opening of this 
century less than 500 communicants, all told, in a population of 
nearly 70,000* This year it has 25,898 communicants, in a popula- 
tion of 847,000. In other words, the population is twelve times more 
numerous, the church membership fifty-one times more numerous. 
Similar statements, though not so strong, may be made of the other 
religious denominations. The city is kept provided with church- 
accommodations sufficient for all of a church-going age ; and the mem- 
bership of the churches is proportionally larger than it was four- 
score years ago. 

Forty years ago London, with a population of 1,873,676, of whom 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


397 


it was asserted a million were of proper age to attend worship, had not 
more ‘than 200 Established and 268 Dissenting Churches, and there 
was no church-room for from 300,000 to 500,000 of the people. In 
1875, ^ population of 3,445,160 — not quite double that ot 1841 

there were about 1,200 places of worship, 500 of them Established : two 
and a half times the number that existed in 1841. Whether the attend- 
ance was as good in proportion, I do not know. It is asserted that 
1,500,000, or nearly one-half of the inhabitants, neglect public wor- 
ship and instruction. And a perhaps ten-year-ago declaration of the 
Earl of Shaftesbury, that not more than two per cent, of the working- 
people are church-going, is still reproduced ; and along with it the 
statement that in this country forty per cent, of the same classes live 
in church absenteeism. I confess that I do not credit these figures. 

I read them with many grains of allowance. 

Moreover, Christianity has so purified society that the vices which 
exist appear the greater and are the more noticed because of the 
clearer atmosphere which surrounds us. The gospel reveals arid 
blackens sins while destroying sin. Bunyan thus describes Mansoul : 

Now every corner swarmed with outlandish doubters \ red- coats 
and black-coats walked the town by clusters and filled the houses 
with hideous noise, lying stories, and blasphemous language against 
Shaddai and his son.” Froude declares; “This is evidently meant 
for fashionable London in the time of Charles II. Bad as the 
plague-spots of London are, widespread as is the sceptical leaven, 
could such language be drawn from it now? 

Still the churches have lagged behind. Much remains to be done. 
We should press on to the doing of it with the words of Constan- 
tine who, when in the midst of the tracing of Constantinople, his as- 
sistants suggested that he had already exceeded the most ample meas- 
ure of a great city, replied, “ I shall still advance until HE, the in- 
visible Guide who marches before me, thinks proper to stop. 

III. The great problem, at least in the American cities generally, 
is not how to reach debased neighborhoods, whose inhabitants have 
sunk down into filthy immoralities. c ^ a 

Fifty years ago nearly one-seventh of the population of England 
were poor enough to need constant or partial aid. There were, then, 
in Liverpool 7,862 inhabited cellars, containing one-seventh of the 
whole population of the city. There were 2,270 courts, few of which 
had more than one outlet. Later still, in 1848, during the Chartist 
agitation, while the window tax still continued, Charles Kin g^ey 
wrote an appeal to the working people, in which he said: The 
working clergy go into your houses: they see the sharneful 
filth and darkness in which you are forced to live crowded together : 
they see your children growing up in ignorance and temptation tor 
want of education.” Describing one of the thoroughfares along which 
the procession went in London in 1872, on the day of thanksgiving 
for the Prince of Wales’ recovery. Dr. Guthrie wrote : Vice and 
misery were the prevailing characteristics of that sea of upturned 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


398 

faces.” Of Edinburgh he also declared: “ Not a single house, nor 
a block of houses, but whole streets, once from end to end the homes 
of decency, and industry, and wealth, and rank, and piety, have been 
engulfed. A flood of ignorance and misery and sin now breaks and 
roars above the top of their highest tenements.” When Dr. Chal- 
mers took charge of the parish of St. Johns, Glasgow, it had a popula- 
tion of ten thousand, a large proportion of whom never attended 
religious instruction anywhere. And of the first one hundred and 
fifty families Dr. Guthrie visited in the same city, not five attended 
church. 

Those evils have not developed themselves so widely in American 
cities generally. Not many large districts can be found here in 
which, in the words of Tennyson, 

“ The poor are hoveled and hustled together, each sex like swine.” 

Carlyle, in his Latter Day Pamphlets^ savagely predicted : “ New 
spiritual Pythons, plenty of them ; enormous megatherions as ugly 
as ever were born of mud, loom, huge and hideous, out of the twilight 
future on America ; and she will have her own agony and her own 
victory, but on other terms than she is yet aware of.” Large 
districts of the debased poor are not yet at least one of these wide- 
spread demons. And Christian philanthropy has been, during the 
last fifty years, and still is, doing much to remove it from the old 
world ; as in New York such a sore as the Five Points has been some- 
what healed. Science, and sanitary measures, and social improve- 
ment under a Christian influence, which some of them, however, do 
not recognize, are elevating the condition of the people generally. 

But in reference to Church extension among the viciously lapsed, 
wherever they may be found, it is not likely that anything better can 
be devised than the Scotch system of evangelization. Dr. Robert 
Buchanan had a church built in the Wynd district of Glasgow in 
1854. In 1877 there had been added to the Free Presbytery, besides 
several mission stations, eighteen regularly sanctioned charges, all of 
which owed their origin to the Wynd mission. The membership in 
several of those congregations is over five hundred ; in three or four 
it has approached one thousand. Dr. Islay Burns declares: “The 
mission churches have furnished a majority of all the students in our 
hall this year,” and also “a majority of our able men.” And Mr. 
Wells now writes : “ Seldom does any district hold more than a hand- 
ful of out-and-out infidels. There are very few Protestant children 
in Glasgow who are ijot under some gospel influence.” The kind of 
work which has produced these results, and such as these, photographed 
by Mr. Wells in the Catholic Presbyterian for February, 1880, deserves 
careful study and discriminating imitation. The ecclesiastical princi- 
ples which underlie it are essentially Presbyterian, and more enduring 
than Scotia’s hills. 

IV. One particularly disgraceful phase of that general inconsistency 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


399 


of the Christian life which is so harmful to the progress of Christ’s 
cause may be noted. The growing disposition to administer churches, 
as if it was a part of their mission to provide entertainment for the 
people. Fairs, concerts, comical lectures, even oyster suppers, turn- 
ing the dedicated house of worship into a place of hilarious amuse- 
ment, are fearfully demoralizing to the religious life. They de- 
spiritualize the people ; merge the high sense of obligation in pleasure- 
seeking ; and blot out that line of demarcation between the world 
and the Church, which cannot be destroyed without debasing the one, 
and affording rare comfort to the other in its sins. The piety of con- 
gregations which tolerate such things has lost the high old Puritan 
type. They are full of weaklings, with itching ears and sensual 
stomachs, who measure a church by its amusement-producing capacity. 
In the end no congregation gains by having them. It is not wise to 
introduce the world, the flesh and the devil into the Church as allies 
of its king. Timeo Danaos et dona fercJites. 

But the special difficulties which church extension in the large 
cities now meets are the following : 

First — The abnormally rapid accretion to their population, espe- 
cially in the United States. The net increase of inhabitants in this city 
of Philadelphia in the last decade by births was a little over 1,300 a 
year ; but the total annual gain in population was 17,352. So that there 
was a migration hither of more than 16,000 strangers annually ; enough 
to require at least twenty new churches of average size for their accom- 
modation. Fifty years ago about a dozen families clustered around 
Fort Dearborn in Illinois; in 1837 the city of Chicago was formed 
therewith 4,170 inhabitants; in 1850 it had 29,963; in i860, 109,- 
206; in 1870, 298,977; in 1880, 501,979. Holyoke, in his recent 
magazine article, speaks of its “hotels in which the population of 
twenty ordinary English parishes would be lost ” During the 
decade just closed, St. Paul, Minnesota, added a hundred per cent, to 
its population; Atlanta, Georgia, 106; Minneapolis, 244; Denver, 
Colorado, 614 per cent. These are extraordinary cases. But our net 
decade city growth is about thirty-five per cent. 

Much of this accretion, too, is not only foreign, but Romish and 
infidel. New York is said to be the fifth German city and the second 
Irish city in the world. Nearly the half of its population are for- 
eigners. Indeed, the papal churches, by such additions alone, can 
show great growth among us, without making any real progress in 
adherents. 

Of course it is very difficult to keep abreast of such incoming floods. 
Migration itself unsettles people, and subjects Christian families to 
the danger of apostacy from church attendance. 

Second — The necessary territorial expansion of the cities is accom- 
panied by one of the most threatening evils of the day— the with- 
drawal of the wealthy and the cultivated from social contact and 
intermingling with the very poor and unrefined. Lecky, in his 
“ England in the Eighteenth Century,” designates this product of the 


400 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

growth of the English manufacturing cities ‘‘as one in which the 
political observer discovers one of the most dangerous systems of 
revolution.” Dr. Guthrie, at an earlier day, had it revealed to him 
as a fruitful source of irreligion in the Scotch cities: “This total 
separation of the higher from the lower, of the more decent from the 
less decent, of the wealthier from the poorer classes of society, has 
originated much of the irreligion, the crime, the misery, that deform 
the face of our city.” It has become one of America’s impending 
dangers. It destroys the humanizing influence which each class 
should have upon the other. It inspires the inchoate socialistic 
movements of the age. It creates neighborhoods in which Church 
work is either largely abandoned ; or is done by missions, which as 
satellites to distant wealthy churches, deaden the self-respect that 
Presbyterians should have, or by poor churches which find it difficult 
to sustain the means of grace and whose life is a constant struggle for 
existence, in which it is hard even for the fittest to survive. And it 
produces here and there religious anomalies, which are one of the 
greatest blots on the Protestant name — churches which the wealthy 
alone can and are expected to attend. 

Third — Romanism, with its usual worldly foresight, spends its 
strengthen the cities. If is perfectly magnificent in its real estate 
speculations, even to Archbishop Purcell’s extent of failing to the 
tune of three and a half millions— but leaving the property safe in the 
hands of the hierarchy. Its judicious management of churches, keep- 
ing them few in number but crowded with worshippers and with a 
multiplicity of priests, and the show it makes by its property, bewilder 
the public mind with the impression of greater strength than really 
belongs to it. 

The numerical and social power of Romanism in this country is, 
for political effect, overrated. The claims which it makes are exag. 
gerated. There is one territory in which the papal prelate has 
returned, from year to year, a papal population more numerous than 
are the inhabitants of the territory. It is supposed that Purgatory 
lies beneath, and that its denizens, whom the flesh-and-blood census- 
takers cannot count, are included in the ecclesiastical returns. Else- 
where, however, the Papal Church is annually losing more of its own 
children than it gains by perversions from Protestantism, though im- 
migration and purchase have caused it to multiply. But it makes very 
much of those in high position who go into its bosom. Its work is 
beaver-like. It has become a dangerous power in the free cities of 
America. 

Fourth — The greatest obstacle in the way of rapid church exten- 
sion, however, and one which we are just beginning to feel in its 
power, is the unscientific scepticism of the day. Charles Kingsley 
wrote: “The power will pass more and more, if all goes healthily 
and well, into the hands of scientific men.” It has largely done so. 
The class who most directly reach the masses are unhappily the trun- 
cated physicists. Their irreligious leaven is very pervasive. Like 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


401 


the Egyptian frogs its spawn creep everywhere. Not merely the 
ponderous treatise, but the review, the magazine, the pamphlet, the 
novel, editorials and squibs in the daily press throw them up. The 
mechanical classes are especially assailed ; and the mechanics who 
begin to doubt, at once leave the churches and turn upon and revile 
them. Fashionable society people will continue to attend worship 
after faith is lost. The bone and sinew of the people will not be, 
even to that extent, hypocritical. Matthew Arnold has said of Eng- 
land : We have an upper class materialized, a middle class vulgar- 
ized, and a lower class brutalized.” Such distinctions will not be 
acknowledged in this land. As Holyoke says, “ There are no com- 
mon people in America, as in the English sense.” Nor does the 
irreligious scientism of the day vulgarize and brutalize its subjects. 
It as yet leaves the large proportion of its slaves high-minded, moral, 
attentive to social duties. It has a morality which is the child of 
Christianity, though with parricidal hands it seeks to destroy its 
parent. In this morality lies the greatest power with which it is 
clothed; and this practical Agnosticism is drawing many from Chris- 
tianity. 

These four things combined make the defensive and aggressive 
work of the Church of Christ in large cities more difficult than it has 
been in any age since the days of the apostles — more difficult than it 
was then. 

V. To meet and overcome these enemies, and to extend the 
kingdom of redemption : 

First — The different Christian churches should bid each other God- 
speed in the supreme mission of winning souls to Jesus. Carlyle has 
savagely said that the ‘‘ultimate question between every two human 
beings is. Can I kill thee, or canst thou kill me?” It is to be 
regretted that that spirit has too often appeared in the mutual strife 
of Christian societies. Dr. Guthrie, speaking even of his noble 
ragged-school enterprise, was compelled to writer “-It is a very sad 
thing that you cannot attempt the salvation of these poor outcasts 
without interference from parties who were leaving them quietly to 
perish.” Now, to our Presbyterian doctrine and government we 
believe may be emphatically ap^^lied the assertion that ‘■‘ strong beliefs 
win strong men, and .then make them stronger.”' But there are 
intellectual and emotional differences in humanity;, and if some may 
be first approached and won to Christianity by the more highly emo- 
tional Methodists, others by the excessively formal Immersion ists, 
others by the Ritualists, others even by the rough Salvation Army, 
let us be glad and rejoice. Religion, in any form and any degree of 
purity, is better than no religion. 

Second — The churches should be in active sympathy with all refor- 
matory movements. Lord Derby, in a recently delivered speech, 
said: “Pauperism is national dishonor; so is drunkenness; so is 
preventive disease ; so is the miserable squalor in which our poorer 
classes in the large towns lie,, even wlien they escape the work-house. 

26 


402 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

These are the most really formidable enemies we have, as a nation, 
to contend with; and, if we attack them sincerely, we shall have 
enough fighting to last our time.” Now, the gospel ts really the 
fountain-head of what Gladstone, has described as “ the great moral 
forces” which move onward in their might and majesty against these 
social evils of the day. The churches and their ministers should, 
therefore, co-operate with them, and place a guiding, not a checking 
hand upon them. The Presbyterian Church is essentially conserv- 
ative. We glory in that ; but, as one of the finest among the recent 
creations of fiction, the laird of Denny-mains in Blacks “White 
Win"s ” says: “ While it is only a lot o’ radical bodies that are for 
upseuing institutions that have been tried by time and not found 
wanting,” yet “a wise conservative knows how to march with the 
age,” in moral movements, it may be added, whose motive power 
comes from the gospel. 

Especially should we be unequivocal in our preaching and practice 
in reference to temperance. “Drunkenness,” says Mr. Wells in his 
Catholic Presbyterian article, ‘‘ is the most malignant social cancel in 
Scotland ; beyond all comparison the most stupendous oulward hin- 
drance to the gospel. Whiskey is the most successful proselytizei for 
the sect of the non-church going.” Dr. Guthrie found that in eight 
cases out of ten the outcast children of the streets were of drunken 
parents. It will further be found by every pastor that the immense 
majority of the cases of apostacy from the Christian life commenced 
with drinking. Now it will be admitted, even by those who think 
that they themselves can be moderate and safe in the use of intoxi-^ 
eating liquor, that the only security for the multitude lies in total 
abstinence; and no man who is himself known to be a drinker in any 
de<^ree can influence the masses against the terrible demon of the day. 
No church which hesitates to throw all its influence on the right side 
of this question practically can or should extend itself in large cities 

or elsewhere. . 

q'hird— One of the marvels of the day is the multiplication of cheap 
literature. It is not merely of obscene books and papers though 
they liaVe been ruinous — or of a “dressy and exaggerated literature, 
which purists properly condemn as one of our curses ; but the best 
works of fiction, poetry, history, essays, scienc-e, and religion, are scat- 
tered broadcast, and meet us at stalls on the corners of the streets, for 
twenty, fifteen, ten, five, even three cents a volume. Particularly, be 
it noted, there is a wonderful activity in the dissemination of works 
which are irreligious in their tone ; they thus circulate freely and 
widely; and they are helping to undermine the faith, especially of col- 
lege boys and working people. In both hemispheres we need ortho- 
dox men to do for sound science and theology what Tyndall and 
Huxley are undoubtedly doing by their popular present?tion for phy- 
sicism ; what Charles Kingsley, for instance, did in his Town Geology. 
Popular primers and books on the great themes of religion, prepared by 
masters and issued in cheap form, arc greatly needed. Yea, more, a fruitful 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


4P3 


blessing would be the raising up of first-class popular writers who 
would largely use the novel in the interest of evangelical religion. 
Any great publishing houses that would, in the preponderating relig- 
ious line, by cheap issues imitate the “ Franklin Square Library,” or 
the ” Standard Series,” or the ” Seaside Library,” or the “ Humboldt 
library of Popular Science and Literature,” would soon be repaid, 
d'he various union and denominational publishing concerns which are 
under evangelical influence should devote themselves more to this 
work. It would be a great help to church extension. The pulpit 
will never be superseded by the press; but the press is either the pul- 
pit’s mightiest foe or its. most irresistible ally. The engine which is 
being so largely used to assault the faith of men, and thereby kill 
church attendance, should be seized and turned on the enemy with 
more effective ammunition and more of it. 

Fourth — 'Fhe Sabbath school must be mentioned, and yet need only 
be mentioned, as an important means of Church extension. Dr. Guth- 
rie said : ”1 had not labored three months in the parish when 1 
became perfectly satisfied of this, that it was impossible to raise the 
lower classes in towns unless through the means of the rising genera- 
tion.” The children of the outside world, as well as those of the 
church, should thus be looked after, not only for their own sake, but 
for the mediate influence through them on the adults. The only sug- 
gestion needed to be made here is, that we should be careful not to 
separate the school from the church, nor permit any line to be drawm 
between the two, but to use the school as one agency through which 
the church does its work ; and to have the scholars always and every 
Sabbath at the church services, none of which should ever be without 
a portion for the children. The evil of the non-attendance of the 
young in the sanctuary, which is said to be growing, should be over- 
come. And it deserves to be considered whether the christening of 
some special services as ‘‘ Children’s Church ” does not increase that 
evil. 

VL In addition to these hints, which concern all the churches, 
there are some others concerning the polity and policy of Presbyte- 
rianism which should be empliasized. 

First — Seek to have strong churches, rather than many of them, in 
the cities. Feeble organizations are a necessity in sparsely settled 
regions. In many of our cities they are the withes with which the 
wily Delilah, operating in the hearts of unsanctified, dissatisfied and 
selfish elders, trustees and church adherents, has been binding our 
religion unto death. The Church, through its Presbyteries, should 
break them by consolidating such struggling organizations as are now 
in existence, and by guarding against the creation of similar ones. 
Many weak churches cripple the Church. Rome shows her wisdom in 
this respect. In this city, with a population not really larger than the 
Presbyterian, she has only about one-third of the congregations; but 
she keeps them all full, organizing a new one only when the overflow 
of the old makes it necessary; and thereby she makes the greater 
impression, has the greater influence, and extends herself more surely, 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


404 

Second— Keep the pulpit in the foreground and high up as, under 
God, the great Presbyterian power. Not by a liturgy ; not by the 
aesthetics of worship ; not by artistic singing ; not by social entertain- 
ments, important as these may be in their place ; — but by preaching, 
has our Church become the force which it is in the world. And one 
Paul, whom we do not believe to be antiquated, asserted that ‘‘it 
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save'^ The culture 
of the age makes it more, rather than less, necessary to preserve and 
increase this power. Our preachers should be pre-eminently learned 
and should be trained to use their learning for popular effect ; not 
indeed by philosophical or scientific discussions in technical language; 
for if Wordsworth be wrong in his idea that the vernacular of the 
uneducated is better adapted to poetical purposes than that of the 
educated, it is true that the popular language ought to be largely the 
language of the pulpit ; and to fathom the mental currents of the day, 
and in simple words to meet the difficulties of scepticism and present 
the eternal verities, is the highest of intellectual triumphs. 

This preaching must also deal with every-day life. Thirty years 
ago F. W. Robertson wrote: “If a clergyman refuse to touch on 
such subjects, which belong to real, actual life, the men will leave his 
church ; and, as is the case in the Church of England, he will only 
have charity orphans who are compelled to go, and old women, to 
preach to.” 

Now in large cities, where thinking is at red heat, it deserves to be 
considered whether one or both of two things should not be sought 
after : whether we should not have more commonly in every congre- 
gation the preacher or doctor and the pastor ; or whether our ruling 
elders should not be brought more into the foreground for the main dis- 
charge of the pastoral work, leaving the minister more largely, though 
by no means exclusively, to his studious preparation for the pulpit. 
Our Church should practically, more than she does, and as Rome 
wisely does with her priests, recognize the diverse gifts of her minis- 
ters, and be judicious in the use of them in different positions. 

For the development of the full efficiency of eldership, it is further 
worthy of consideration, whether young men of promise should not 
early in their Christian life be taken hold of by our sessions, and 
specially trained for the office of elder, and then be in due time 
called to it and ordained in it. If a special training is needed for the 
ministers, w'hy not for the eldership ? 

In this way we might, without the use of evangelists or undenomi- 
national city missionaries, reach more effectively the outlying and less 
thoughtful masses, and bring them into the Church under the higher 
intellectual training of the pulpit. The English Methodist connec- 
tion, it is stated, has thirty-eight thousand preachers, of whom only 
thirty-six hundred are ordained ministers. We have the material 
and the Scriptural mould for a similar exhibition. We should look 
for and cultivate the preaching gift in the eldership at large. 

Third — Whatever slowness there may be in Church extension is, how- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 405 

ever, due less to the ministry than to the private membership of the 
churches. What proportion of them realize their individual duty to 
labor ? Emerson is right in his theory of education, that instruction 
is only half the battle, provocation being the other half. What pro- 
portion of our church people are provoked to activity in church 
work while enjoying the pulpit instruction? We must individualize j 
the masses, as they are called, must be approached man by man.” 
But no pastor, with the far-reaching demands that are made upon him, 
in our modern city life, can do that thoroughly. The elders, with the 
claims of prospering business on their time, cannot do it all. It is 
essential that the people themselves who are already in the Church 
shall so seek to reach and influence those who are around them. 

There are some who are first attracted to the church by the preach- 
ing. There are others who are first reached by the social influence 
of Christian neighbors. That the work of the Church may be most 
widely done, the two agencies must be combined ; and the two must 
further co-operate in building up, in an intelligent faith, those who 
are received, and in stimulating all in all the graces of the Christian 
life. Mr. Wells says ; Perhaps the best way to reach the lapsed in 
the higher classes is just to reach the lapsed in the lowest. Extremes 
may be nearer meeting here than we fancy. Dean Stanley and 
Dr. Tullock, for instance, are extremely anxious that the Church 
should secure the very highest intellectual culture, so that she may 
win the cultured who are outside her pale.” But both views are 
right. Reach both classes through the same means: the pulpit power 
and the consistency and activity of the individual membership ; though 
for the one class at the outset the predominating influence may be 
found in the one means, while the other means may have the over- 
mastering influence upon the other class. But, with both and all, the 
members of every Christian church should together form a cyclopean 
building, stone upon stone, with no foreign mortar between. Or 
rather true Church extension is coral like. Each polype multiplies 
itself by division, the divided halves growing after a time into com- 
plete and separate animals, and they in turn dividing, but all remain- 
ing united, and thus extending over the rocky bottom of the sea into 
one grand mass. So our churches should be a grand system ot living 
organisms, each in turn enlarging, and in time throwing off from 
itself another and that another, yet all remaining bound together by 
and in the one life. 

There seems to be something mdically unpresbyterian and un- 
christian in the idea of having mission churches labelled poor, 

and intended to be for the poor alone, in any part of a city which has 
once been under Christian influence. It is not enough for the wealthy , 
to give their money for the work in such missions : personal labor, 
personal contact, personal sympathy with the children in the Sabbath 
school, and with the people in their homes, as they are met on the 
street, and when they appear in the church: the personal inter- 
mingling of rich and poor in the same house of worship; this is 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


406 

needed to win the poorer. And be it remembered tlie poor of thil 
generation will be the controlling men of the next — unless you hold 
them now, your power in the future is gone. Methodism has reached 
the position which it occupies because it went down at the outset es- 
pecially to the low, and still continues to work largely among them. 
The highly aristocratic Episcopal Church has of recent years been 
turning its attention more that way. And the most pronounced 
Evangelical cannot withhold the meed of his praise from the Roman- 
izing Ritualists for the extent to which they are working among the 
working people. 

Dr. Chalmers, in his sermon On Preaching to the Common People y 
longed for “ the spectacle to be again realized in towns which might 
still be witnessed in country parishes where high and low meet to- 
gether, and the congregation, though sprinkled over with a few of rank 
and of opulence, is chiefly made up of our men of handicraft and of 
hard labor.” That is the normal condition of a true church of 
Christ. In every city whatever is needed to keep or restore it, should 
sedulously be attended to. If, for instance, in any quarter the 
erection of costly edifices entail church expenses which practically 
bar the masses of the people from them, they should not be encouraged. 
Let the rich go into the churches of the poor, and let the poor be 
drawn into the churches of the rich. In other words, let the dis- 
tinction of rich and poor churches never exist. 

And wherever the Spirit of God is present in his saving power this 
will be exhibited. “ In a revival and awakening,” says Joseph Cook 
in his latest volume, “ I have seen factory proprietors, managers, and 
operatives sitting side by side on the floor in the same aisle in an 
overcrowded church, and singing psalms from the same book, where 
a few weeks previously they had been almost ready to draw knives 
and use them on each other’s throats.” The great power is after all 
the Spirit’s presence. And for that the Lord shall always and ear- 
nestly be inquired. 

Fourth — Our denomination would gain if it were to restore the apos- 
tolic order of deaconesses. The best work of the day is largely done 
by the women of the church. Among our city populations there is 
much of it that can be done by them better than by men. They 
ought to be recognized, and guided and developed in the church 
line. Doing the work of the church so largely, they have a right to 
be recognized officially in the church. The influence of the celibate 
priests, by which they were shut out from the positions in which the 
apostles placed them, should no longer be permitted to sway us. 

Fifth — It is due, not only to itself, but to its extending influence, that 
Presbyterianism should be more churchly in its tone than it is gener- 
ally understood to be. While excommunicating no Christian belie\er, 
nor the child of any Christian, nor any organization of Christians, 
we claim — if we do not we have no historic standing to justify our 
meeting here — we claim to be in our doctrines and government pre- 
eminently the scriptural Church. We have not what Junius, in his 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


407 


celebrated “Duke of Grafton Letter,” described as “a system of 
government which may well be called a reign of experiments.” The 
apostolic form was the Presbyterian. The apostolic system of doc- 
trine was what we now call the Calvinistic. And amid all the aberra- 
tions which prevail among true Christians, the Church, in the millen- 
nial age, will accept this doctrine and government. Never should 
we substitute the Church for Christ ; but neither should we disfigure 
the head by hiding the body, nor dishonor the head by underrating 
the body. Let us, not polemically but calmly and impressively, 
teach that all should accept our doctrinal and ecclesiastical systemsy 
and that the Church which holds them is the most proper and the 
safest one to be in. We lose in the two extremes of social life by not 
being churchly enough. 

Sixth — Presbyterians pre-eminently should labor in the practical be- 
lief of the sovereignty of God, of his electing love, and ot the neces- 
sity of the Spirit’s efficacious influence. Let us not in our work for- 
get our belief. Think more of laboring in strict scriptural ways than 
of the immediate results; convinced of this, that God’s work will be 
done, in his own time, in his own way, and to the extent to which 
he has determined— by us if we are faithful ; by others if we are not. 
A Greek writer tells of a man who cut the wings of his bees and 
placed the finest flowers near them in order to save them the trouble 
of a flight to Hymettus. But his bees made no honey ; they could 
not work against nature. The asserted scientific principle does not 
always hold good that results are accomplished by the method which 
costs least force. Nor can we improve on God’s way, or do his work 
of salvation faster than his Spirit is sent to do it. Ihe chariot has 
never moved as rapidly as men think it should have done. Piesent 
inefficiency is often set over against the success of the apostles. It 
has been supposed, however, that the churches of the apostolic age 
did not number more than two hundred in the whole world. But the 
grace of God fails not. Every elect blood-bought soul will be gath- 
ered into the kingdom. . These large cities will be evangelized. The 
nations are Christ’s. They are all to acknowledge him as their King. 
With calm assurance our faith beholds a city, into which all the 
redeemed are to be gathered, and of which infallible prophesy has 
written : “ The nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light 
of it, and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into 
it, and there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, 
neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie, but they 
wliich are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” 

Let us, fathers and brethren, so live, teach, and rule, that, under 
the 'blessing of the Holy Spirit, we and those to whom the Lord has 
sent us may appear among the untold myriads who, washed white in 
the blood of the Lamb, shall forever glorify and enjoy God in that 
LARGE city. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


408 

The following paper on the same subject, by Rev. W. J. R. 
Taylor, D. D., of Newark, N. J., was also presented : 

CHURCH EXTENSION IN LARGE CITIES. 

The example of the Master is the wisdom of the disciple, and his 
methods of propagating the gospel of the kingdom furnish the model 
for his Church. “It came to pass, when Jesus had made an end of 
commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and 
preach in their cities” (Matt. xi. i). When the people of Caper- 
naum “stayed him that he should not depart from them, he said 
unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also ; 
for therefore was I sent. And he preached in the synagogues of 
Galilee” (Luke iv. 42-44). His principal point was the Holy City, 
and his disciples were commissioned to preach repentance and remis- 
sion of sins in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem 
(Luke xxiv. 47). In accordance with this specific divine mission of 
the Saviour and of his apostles and disciples, they took early posses- 
sion of the great cities, and Jerusalem, Samaria, Antioch, Cesarea, 
Damascus, Ephesus, Colosse, Phillipi, Thessalonica, Corinth, Athens, 
and Rome became centres of Christian teaching. The^ primitive 
preachers planted churches in the provincial, civil, military, and 
religious capitals of the Roman Empire, and they ordained elders and 
placed pastors, evangelists, and teachers “in every city.” These 
were the great centres of population, and the distributing reservoirs of 
trade, learning, arts and sciences, religion and civilization, and, in- 
deed, of all national resources. Thence the gospel could go out in 
every direction, taking advantage of commerce and travel, business, 
government and religious festivals, and forcing its way through the 
wickedness of paganism and the decay of Judaism. Pentecost was 
possible only in Jerusalem, and at the great national festival which 
brought those diverse tongues together. Moreover, cities give char- 
acter to the surrounding country. There the best and the worst types 
of humanity are found. The most refined, active, enterprising, and 
pious dwell alongside the most degraded, helpless, and worthless of 
the population. There Christian philanthropy and the Spirit of 
Christ find their best opportunities among the lost multitudes whom 
the Good Shepherd came to seek and to save. The Christian 
churches of our great cities are really the only effective breakwaters 
against the tides of ungodliness which have overwhelmed the proudest 
of ancient capitals in those terrific hours when, like the Amorites, 
“ their iniquity was full.” In this general estimate we must not dis- 
regard the great difference between pure and corrupt churches in 
large cities, nor the evangelizing power of feeble and infant and mis- 
sion churches in their smaller spheres, and in their aggregate influences 
upon the entire community in which they live. A genuine revival 
of religion in a city is likely to have more immediate and wider prop- 
agating force than in places of less population and resources, and a 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


409 


large, strong, working city church has unlimited opportunities for 
doing the Lord’s work. 

Church Extension in large cities is chiefly a question of ways and 
means. It implies the existence of mother churches, which shall 
justify their right to live, not merely by self-preservation, but by 
propagating their own kind or a better offspring. A sterile church 
is a moribund church. No new churches grew out of that one in 
Sardis which had a “ name to live, and was dead.” A self-propagat- 
ing church will grow, like a goodly tree, from within itself, from 
root and stock and branches and fruit, bearing seed after its own 
kind. 

These general principles suggest the specific discussion of Church 
Extension in large cities in the light of the Preamble to the Constitu- 
tion of the General Presbyterian Alliance, which says that “ the time 
seems to have come when ” the Churches represented in it “ may all 
more fully manifest their essential oneness, have closer communion 
with each other, and promote great causes by. joint action.” I have 
said that the question we are now considering is chiefly one of ways 
and means ; but it also involves much of 'Hhe spirit of wisdom and 
love and of a sound mind.” Is a new church of this or that com- 
munion needed here or there? Is there population that demands it? 
Can it live a' decent and useful church life? Will it seriously conflict 
with other established or weak churches of Christ, and specially 
with those of like faith and order ? Is it to be a sectarian experiment 
or a speculator’s church to improve adjacent property? or a miserable, 
lean starveling or a self-sustaining, earnest, and life-giving church of 
the Redeemer? 

Putting the subject into more definite form, it seems to be in ac- 
cordance with the spirit and objects of this Council to suggest that 
Church Extension in large cities ought to be so conducted as to secure 
such ends as these : To prevent undue crowding of churches of like 
faith and order in certain sections of those cities, and the crushing 
out of poor and small and weak churches, that are doing a good work, 
by those that are rich and large and strong ; to secure a proper inter- 
denominational spirit of comity and co-operation in the location of 
new churches ; to promote the peaceful and profitable union of con- 
tiguous churches that are struggling for existence ; to promote new 
and substantial church growth in favorable localities ; to save old 
churches by timely removal to better locations ; to economize man- 
power and money-power and church-power by concentration in order 
to diffusion ; and to prevent the waste which is sure to follow these 
hurtful plans, or that lack of plans, by which so much money, time, 
and toil have been squandered upon unsuccessful experiments. 

The most practicable methods cf Church Extension in large cities are 
such as follow : 

I. The natural process of what may be called church evolution ^ by 
which an established church evolves a new one from itself, by its own 
overgrowth, or by colonization in some other section of the city 


410 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

where a good site can be had, and where an incoming or neglected 
population may invite the effort. 

2 The of a Sunday-school or a mission among people who 

may be gathere.i in, and with a direct view to church orgai.izaiion at 

an early date. , . , , , • i i 

3. The Benefactor'' s or Patron' s Plan, by which wealthy individuals 

or families may erect church edifices, either as memorials of the de- 
parted, or as permanent gifts to the Lord and his Church. Ihese, 
however, are exceptional cases, and they have not always resulted ac- 
cording to the founders’ wishes. , , 7 7 

4. The erection of chapels and mission -buildings by wealthy church 
corporations, which also furnish the ministry and schools as part of 
their parochial system. *^1 he principal difficulty in such instances has 
arisen from keeping the chapel ministers and congregations and wor- 
ship in a subordinate and dependent position. It does not thoroughly 
develop the branches, and yet what can they do if entirely severed 
from the parent stock? Good sound Christian common sense on 
both sides, and a true Christ-like spirit, will remedy this trouble. In 
our own country, at least, experience proves that as soon as possible 
every minister and mission and chaiiel that can stand alone should be 
encouraged and aided to do so, and thus to serve Christ in their sep- 
arate and independent church life. 

5. The Denominational or Ecclesiastical Plan of Church Extension 
in large cities now claims larger notice, as it throws the whole weight 
of an organized ecclesiastical body into the work. This involves the 
oversight and orderings of church boards or committees, and a regular 
system of operations, which have accomplished great results in the 
various Christian communions of Europe and America. In Glasgow 
alone, under the powerful influence of Dr. Chalmers, in the Estab- 
lished Church of Scotland, in the six years from 1828 to 1834, twenty 
church edifices were built, at an expense of £20,000. In 1835, by a 
much mightier effort, under the same auspices, sixty-four churches 
were built, at a cost of ;£65,ooo, contributed during that single year 
— “about as many,” says his biographer, “as the whole preceding 
century had given birth to, or were being built, in connection with 
the Establishment.” And in May, 1838, Dr. Chalmers reported to 
the General Assembly, as the result of four more years of labor, 
“ that nearly two hundred churches had been added to the Estab- 
lishment, for which upward of ^3^200, 000 had been contributed.” 
(Hanna’s “ Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr. Chalmers,” iii. 

443-445» 4^7-467 ; iv. 42.) 

Again, when the Free Church of Scotland set out upon its great 
career, 470 of the 600 churches that were needed were erected in a 
single year. {Ibid., iv. 352, 353; 362, 363; 478, 470.) 

'I'hese facts show what has been done by a right system of Church 
Extension properly administered, and particularly what can be ac- 
complished under the leadership of one strong, enthusiastic and 
directing mind, with a genius for the work, and fired with love for 
souls and for the glory of God in and through his Church. 


4II ’ 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 

The principles which are now embodied in the various denomina- 
tional boards of Church Erection and Cdnirch Extension in tliis coun- 
try and in Great Britain are intended to apply to their entire fields, and 
specially in the extension and erection of churches, in cities as well as 
in the country, among those who cannot otherwise enjoy these privi- 
leges. They all proceed upon the wise jdan of helping poor and 
weak churches to help themselves, by giving pecuniary aid in such 
ways as to avoid debt and to secure the church })roperiy to the denom- 
ination for which and by whose metins it has been erected. 'The 
methods and precautions of these agencies have resulted in very large 
additions to tlte number of churches, and especially in the foundation 
and establishment of new ones in the right places. 

A few facts from recent reports will show the extent of this^ noble 
work at home and abroad : 

During the fourteen years ending January i, 1880, the Church Ex- 
tension Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States 
aided 2,683 churches, by both donations and loans, and disbursed 
$1,509,172.44; and 7,000 of the 17,000 churches have been built 
within the last nine years, and one-third of all this increased number 
have been thus aided. The Wesleyan Chapel Committee of Great 
Britain, now sixty years old, has expended in the past twenty-five 
years $24,092,385, or nearly one million a year, in aid of 5,684 
new edifices, and about $45,000 per year in payment of church debts. 
The Presbyterian Board of Church Erection, with an average annual 
income of $100,000, during the last decade has aided yearly about 
180 churches; and it is officially stated that “more than half the 
Presbyterian churches built during the last twenty years have received 
aid" from this Board. The American Congregational Union, organ- 
ized in 1853, has helped in the erection of new churches in the pro- 
portion of one to every thousand dollars of its receipts. How many, 
of all the churches thus aided, were in cities, is not known to us, 
although they undoubtedly received their full share of these funds. 
The facts which now follow are taken from the Church Extension 
Annual of the M. E. Church for 1879, directly upon 

the subject in hand, and should command the admiration and study 
of all earnest workers in this cause. ^ ^ 

“ 'riie most remarkable work of Church Extension in the world is 
that accomplished under the ‘ Metropolitan Wesleyan Chapel Building 
Committee,’ in the city of London. The Committee v/as orgmiized 
in April, 1861, and the work began about a year afterwards.- There 
were then in the city of London some 80 chapels, affording some- 
thing over 30,000 sittings, and the membership numbered about 
12,000, served by some 30 ministers. About ten years ago Sir Fran- 
cis Lycett offered to give a quarter of a million of dollars towards the 
erection of 50 additional new chapels in London, provided the prov- 
inces should respond with a like sum. His offer was accepted, the 
provinces responding with nearly $75,000 more than his munificent 
offer. According to the latest information we have been able to 


412 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


obtain, more than half of the proposed additional chapels have been 
completed, each furnishing accommodations for i,ooo persons, and 
they have now about 130 chapels, 85 ministers, 20,000 members, and 
over 100,000 sittings.” 

After this general summary of facts, I venture to set forth a local 
plan which has worked well in my own city and denomination, and 
which may incite others to go and do likewise. The first Reformed 
Church in Newark, N. J., was founded in 1833, and struggled for life 
in a population which afforded little of the Dutch Reformed material 
that formerly gave name and vitality to our churches. Fifteen years 
later (in 1848), it sent forth its first daughter church, and a German 
church was also organized and aided by its members. Eight years 
after that it gave up a large company of its choicest families and mem- 
bers to form its third offshoot, which is now the largest and most 
powerful of this family of churches. In 1866, by the united efforts 
of the three, a new German church was established. In 1868, the 
mother church, generously aided by her two daughters, contributed 
still larger numbers of communicants and families and liberal gifts, to 
found a new and successful church in the south part of the city. One 
year later, 1869, the East church was formed, principally from the 
Second, but with the help of the others; and in 1871 still another 
was started in the northern suburb of Woodside. In each case of a 
new church organization, all the previously existing churches that 
were able have united their counsels, prayers, and pecuniary contribu- 
tions. There is also a Consistorial Union^ which embraces all the 
ministers, elders, and deacons of our city churches, who meet at 
stated times for conference, information, and mutual aid in promoting 
Sunday-school and mission work, helping the weak churches to help 
themselves, and the general care of our denominational interests. 
This is a purely voluntary association, which does not interfere with 
ecclesiastical supervision, and stimulates and strengthens the spiritual 
intercourse and welfare of all our churches, while it casts the entire 
denominational influence, sympathy, and interest into each successive 
new mission and church enterprise. 

In the erection of the largest and costliest of these church edifices, 
the following plan was adopted : — Very liberal subscriptions were first 
secured from the founders and their helpers in sister’ congregations. 
Then the entire congregation and Sunday-school, the Ladies’ Society, 
the Young People’s Union, and even the infant school, were enlisted 
as church-builders, and for years, while the edifice was being con- 
structed, and until the last cent of debt was removed, between five 
and six hundred givers were contributing in weekly and monthly pay- 
ments, according to their ability. The building of the sanctuary 
became a means of grace to many Christian people, whose characters 
and virtues were developed by this training to systematic and propor- 
tionate and cheerful giving of their substance to the Lord. They 
made it a part of their worship on every Lord’s day, and built their 
lives, with their offerings, into the Lord’s house, from its corner-stone 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


413 


to its topstone. It may illustrate the extent and strengthen the appli- 
cation of these principles and plans, to state that the whole sum thus 
raised and paid tor all purposes, during the first eleven years of this 
single church, was over a quarter of a million dollars. It is also 
entirely supported by voluntary weekly payments in envelopes. Any 
subscription, of even the smallest weekly sum, entitles the subscriber 
to a sitting or pew, as may be needed. No pew in the church is sold, 
nor has it any price put upon it as rental, and no one pays more for 
church sittings than is voluntarily proffered. The subscriptions range 
from five dollars to ten cents per week. The pews are assigned to 
subscribers annually, in April, at a congregational meeting for the 
purpose. This plan has worked so well in hard times, and accommo- 
dates itself so thoroughly to all classes of the people, that they would 
not readily change its essential features. 

Conclusion. — While no one method will suit all places, those which 
have been set forth in this paper certainly combine suggestions and 
practicable plans that may be adapted to the necessities of all large 
cities. They show the absolute need of thorough organization, intel- 
ligent oversight, and effective co-operation ; and they present the 
highest motives for enlarged exertion, and specially for the consecra- 
tion of the wealth of the rich, the competence of those who are 
neither poor nor rich, and the small offerings of the lowliest and of 
the children, to the extension of the Church of Christ in those great 
centres of population and of power. They demonstrate the applica- 
tion of Dr. Chalmers’ famous declaration of ‘‘the power of littles” 
to Church Extension, and they illustrate as forcibly the close logical 
and spiritual connection of John Wesley’s three principles, “justifi- 
cation, sanctification, and a penny a week.” In other words, they 
show how Church Extension in large cities may be carried forward 
successfully by uniting the efforts of all classes of Christian people, 
according to their ability, and by systematic and continuous benefi- 
cence, which, while it enlists the help of all, makes the work neither 
a tax nor a task, but “ a work of faith and a labor of love.” Churches 
that are thus built bring with them into the world, like children of 
promise, a wealth of love, which is their best inheritance, and insures 
the ten derest care. 

And let me add, that these principles, faithfully carried out, have 
been, and will be, found very effective for the prevention or the re- 
moval of church debts, which are never church blessings, but almost 
invariably are church curses, crippling the ministry,* blighting benefi- 
cence, keeping those who would otherwise come, out of the sanctuary, 
and often “making havoc of the church” under the blows of the 
sheriff’s hammer. Happy the day, when Church Extension, in city 
and country alike, shall be free of this cruel and fateful bondage to 
the indiscretions and the errors of church-builders, who do not count 
the cost before they begin to build. 

If this venerable Second Council of the Presbyterian General Alli- 
ance of the world can so voice its own constitutional principles as 


414 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


to inaugurate their practice in the great work of Church Extension in 
large cities, by planting and building, and paying for and sustaining, 
Christian churches where and when they are most needed, avoiding 
jealous rivalries and self-dee^troying confiicts with sister churches and 
branches of the Christian family, and commending the most success- 
ful methods which ex])erience has developed, some of the difficulties 
of the great problem may be more readily overcome, and a new 
impetus may be given to the work for which the Lord Jesus Christ 
himself was sent into this world. 

'fhe late British Premier, Lord Bcaconsfield, said some )’ears ago: 
“ I have ever myself been of opinion that it was in the great cities of 
the earth the Church would effect, in this age, its most ‘ignal tri- 
umphs.” The liistory of the gospel Church fully confirms that 
statement of a patent fact. In many of the great cities of Christen- 
dom, the churches that were first planted have outlived all other 
institutions, and they have put on new life with the changes and 
emergencies of successive ages. Every new Church of Christ points 
forward to the better future of this world, and to the things that arc 
not seen and eternal. And every wise, persistent, and successful 
system of Church Extension in large cities is a better herald than 
Constantine’s cross, of the final conquest of the world for Christ and 
his Church. 

The Rev. Wm. J. Reid, D. D., of Pittsburgh, Pa., read the 
following paper on 

CHURCH EXTENSION IN SPARSELY SETTLED 
DISTRICTS. 

Thickly settled districts have the first claim on the Church. The 
gospel is for the salvation of souls, and it must be carried where souls 
are. Other things being equal, it is the part of wisdom to bring the 
gospel within the reach of a thousand souls, rather than of one. 
Populous cities arc the centres of influence; and such cities, when 
evangelized, shine forth, far and near, with a light which cannot be 
hid. The example of the Master and of his inspired apostles shows 
that the Jerusalems and Capernaums and Anliochs and Romes of the 
earth are first to be occupied. Nevertheless, the same example and 
reason itself teach us that sparsely settled districts should net be 
neglected. There were devils to be cast out in Gadara, as well as 
in the populous towns on the other side of the Sea of Galilee; Paul 
found souls to be saved in Galatia, as well as in Ephesus. The gospel 
is for the world, and no part of it can be overlooked. But though 
there is “ one Lord, one faith, one baptism ” for the country as well 
as the city, there is of necessity so much difference in the method of 
working, that it will not do to say, “ Come into the city, and it shall 
be told thee what thou must do.” 

1. The Church, in laying its plans for the conquest of the world 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


415 


for Christ, must not ©verlook sparsely settled districts. The soul 
living in a dug-out is as precious as the one whose home is in a palace. 

He who reclines in his glittering carriage in the crowded park is in 
no greater danger of eternal death than he who rides his mustang 
over the lonely prairie. 

Sparsely settled districts have furnished the world the most stalwart 
manhood. There are portions of this globe on which the curse of 
barrenness has fallen so lightly, that they seem almost to have re- 
tained their original fruitfulness. There is little demand on the labor 
of the husbandman; the plains and valleys scarcely ask for cultiva- 
tion* yet they are covered with abundance; homes spring up in 
clusters and crowds. But the inhabitants of these districts are, 
the most part, sunk in the lowest degradation, and are far behind 
other nations in what is manly and civilized. If you would find a 
people presenting the finest spectacle of greatness, order, intelligence 
msd manhood, you must go to those lands in which there is a con- 
stant struggle for existence; and the sterile soil forbids a crowded 
population. In such regions, manhood has reached its highest honors 
and civilization gained its greatest victories. , , , , , 

Many of the most successful Christian teachers have been born and 
nurtured in sparsely settled districts. Illustrations of the truth of 
this assertion will suggest themselves to every reader ot ecclesiastical 
history. And what has been is yet. In the city the attractions of 
law, the excitement of business, and the wealth of commerce have a 
charm which wins the young from the pulpit and the study. Ihe 
Church must expect a goodly number of its teachers and 
the homes of the country, m which the god of this world does not 

rei’^n with absolute tyranny. ,11 ♦. 

Not a few of tlie churcliss, which have proved themselves most 
faithful ill enduring persecutions and in resisting the encroachments 
of error were planted in sterile and mountainous regions. Ihe 
simple mention of faithful churches suggests the Waldenses ot Italy 
amWIie Presbyterians of Scotland, whose faithfulness under trial of 
every kind has passed into a proverb. It is written m history as well 
as in the word, that many of whom the world was not worthy, and 
who have obtained a good report through faith, “ wandered in des- 
erts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. It 
would have been well for the race, if there had been more Smiss 

mountains and Scottish glens as homes for "a s urdv man- 

As the Church now needs, and as it ever wi 1 need, a sturdy map 
hood courageous teachers and faithful disciples, it will iiot do to 
nef'le’ct the sparsely settled districts, which in all the ages have been 

the cradles of sturdiness, courage and faithfulness. 

II The Church whose plans do not look to the evaii^elization o 
sparsely settled districts, and whose ecclesiastical machinery is not 
adapted to this work, is not rightly executing the great commission : 
“ Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to 
It matters not what claims such an organization may put forth to be 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


416 

a Church or the Church, if it cannot do the work the Lord has given 
it to do, it is deceiving itself with a name to live. 

In some respects thinly inhabited regions offer an easier field to 
cultivate, and present fewer obstacles to the progress of the gospel 
than the great centres of population. The necessary expenses for 
sustaining the. ordinances of religion are less; and in this campaign 
against the world and its prince, as in every other, it is the duty of 
the wise to sit down and count the cost. The temptations of Satan 
are less numerous and open, if not less powerful. Though “ the trail 
of the serpent” is over all the earth, he does not build synagogues at 
every “parting of the way ” and beneath every green tree. Licen- 
tiousness, intemperance, infidelity and mammon build their strongest 
entrenchments, and station their bravest champions, in the crowded 
cities. No place is without danger, but the thronged streets are “ the 
high places of the field,” where souls stand in greatest jeopardy. If 
a Church cannot meet unorganized opposition, how can it hope to 
overcome embattled legions, marshalled by all the wiles of the devil? 
“ If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, 
how canst thou contend with horses? ” A Church which cannot solve 
the easy problems of mountain, prairie and forest, is not able to 
grapple successfully with the harder problems of market-place, grog- 
shop and tenement house. 

A large part of the earth’s surface is correctly described by the 
words, “ sparsely settled districts.” So it will remain for centuries 
to come. The prophetic history of the future tells of a time when all 
the world, and not cities alone, shall be filled with the know'ledge of 
the Lord. They that dwell in the wilderness, as well as the kings of 
Tarshish, shall bow before the Messiah. In that day, the desert, as 
well as the garden, is to blossom. The Church that does not, or can- 
not, work in the scattered homes of the wild frontier, is not keeping 
step to the music of prophecy. The gospel is wisely arranged for 
“ every creature,” and that ecclesiastical organization, which is not 
adapted for carrying the gospel to “ every creature ” in the north, 
south, east and west, is not fulfilling the commission of its ascended 
Lord . 

III. If the Presbyterian polity does not meet the necessities of 
sparsely settled districts, it ought to be reformed, or abandoned for 
something better, if reform is impossible. All our arguments in favor 
of Presbyterianism, drawn from the synagogue and its bench of elders, 
from the inspired history of the early Church, and from the writings 
of the Christian fathers, will be drowned in the overwhelming cry of 
human need. If there is a single province, on continent or island, 
amidst the drifted snows of the north or the luxuriant vegetation 
of the south, which Presbyterianism is not adapted to reach and 
evangelize, it is not the instrument by which God intends to accom- 
plish his purposes. No believer in the wisdom of the infinite will 
think that the agency of God, which cannot do the work to be done. 
The need of the race is the touchstone, by which to test the polity we 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


417 


esteem so highly. No Presbyterian should fear the trial. Confident 
in our cause, we should take this cup of “the water of jealousy” 
with no trembling hand. Let Presbyterianism stand or fall by its 
adaptation to the wants of the world. 

IV. Presbyterianism is peculiarly adapted to the work of Church 
extension in sparsely settled districts. The experience of the ages 
has shown that stability and unity are necessary to real success in any 
enterprise ; and the Presbyterian form of Church government, with 
its gradation of courts, binds all its parts in one as with bands of 
steel. This form of government also provides for that degree of 
flexibility and freedom in its courts and agents, which is essential to 
greatest efficiency. Under this government the Church is one, but 
the parts, each one free in its own sphere, are many. It furnishes 
the best illustration of the words, Pliiribus Uninn'' The unity 
gives the greatest strength ; the freedom permits the greatest activity 
in the use of that strength. This unity, combined with this free- 
dom, this strength, united with this activity, make Presbyterianism 
a power in evangelizing all districts, whether sparsely settled or 
otherwise. 

But how can the inherent strength and activity of the Presbyterian 
system be brought to bear on the solution of the problem before us? 
Any method of work, which interferes with the unity of the Church 
on the one hand, or with the freedom of its agents on the other, must 
be rejected. Many plans, which are in harmony with the fundamental 
principles of “ government by Presbyters,” might be suggested. One, 
which has been tried and not found to be altogether wanting, will be 
briefly outlined. 

(a.) A committee of missions is provided for bylaw, consisting 
of one delegate from each Presbytery in the bounds of the Assembly 
or Synod. This committee meets annually, a few days before the 
meeting of the Supreme Court ; and it has the general management 
of the home mission work of the Church. 

{b.) Each Presbytery collects money for this part of the Church’s 
work, and forwards it to a common treasury. It examines the terri- 
tory under its care, selects its mission stations, and reports their con- 
dition, need and prospects to the general committee. It also reports 
the names of all its licentiates and unsettled ministers, who are able 
for ministerial work. The advantage of placing all the money in a 
common treasury is seen in the fact that those Presbyteries which 
have the widest and neediest fields are the poorest in this world’s 
goods. If each Presbytery expended its funds in its own bounds, the 
strong would not bear the burdens of the weak. In selecting mission 
stations, especially in a land where different branches of the Presby- 
terian family are laboring side by side, there is need of care. One 
church should not injure or interfere with another. Ecclesiastical 
courtesy has too often been overlooked j and two or three feeble 
organizations covered the field, when one would have been sufficient 
for the need. Presbyteries, occupying . the same territory but belong- 
27 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


418 

ing to different denominations, should understand the first principles 
of common politeness, and not hinder one another’s work, or trespass 
upon one another’s rights. It may not be well to have such a statute 
formally enacted, but it should have a place among the unwritten laws 
of the churches. 

(<r.) When the general committee, at its annual meeting, receives 
these reports from the Presbyteries, it considers the wants of the whole 
territory it represents, and makes such appointment of men and 
appropriation of money, as its ability permits and the necessities of 
the field demand. The delegate from each Presbytery knows his own 
field, and makes a full presentation of its needs. When all parts of 
the Church are represented by such interested delegates, it is not 
likely that injustice will be done to any through ignorance or preju- 
dice. 

{d.') The action of the committee is approved, after amendment 
if necessary, by the Supreme Court; and then each Presbytery is left 
free to assign the missionaries appointed to it to their fields of labor, 
and to expend the money appropriated to its mission stations. 

A plan like this leaves Presbyteries their full measure of freedom in 
the management of their own affairs, and yet binds them together, 
and gives each the strength of the whole Church. It makes provision 
for the most sparsely settled districts, for it groups, if need requires 
it, several mission stations, and makes them one pastoral charge, sup- 
plied by a missionary adequately supported. Under this arrangement, 
each feeble mission, though it stands alone in the wilderness, is united 
to all the other congregations in the Presbytery, and through the 
Presbytery to all other Presbyteries; and in this union there is 
strength. Each missionary or pastor, while he labors in his restricted 
field, feels that he has the power of the whole Church at his command, 
and he works with a confidence which nothing but the power of the 
whole Church could inspire. At the same time, the Presbytery, the 
congregation and the missionary have sufficient freedom of inde- 
pendent action to take advantage of whatever emergency may arise. 

By its marvellous combination of united strength and far-reaching 
activity, Presbyterianism shows itself to be adapted to the need of 
sparsely settled districts as well as of crowded cities. It abides the 
test of experiment. In answer to every doubt and question, we point 
to. the history of the past and the records of the present and say, 
“ Come and see.” What Presbyterianism has already done for Church 
Extension in sparsely settled districts gives assurance that it will here- 
after do its part in making all wildernesses bud and blossom as the 
rose. 

It cannot be that too much attention has been paid to the cities, 
where men crowd and jostle each other in the struggle for life and for 
wealth ; but it may be that the Church has neglected, in its missionary 
operations, the sparsely settled districts, from which have sprung so 
many of the sturdy men, successful teachers and faithful churches of 
history. But the work in all its departments is one. The whole 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


419 


world is the field, ripening for the coming harvest. ‘‘What, there- 
fore, God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” Country 
and city, desert and garden, are groaning and travailing in pain to- 
gether, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God ; but they 
are, before the final chapter of the history of redemption is written, 
to be “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious 
liberty of the children of God.” 

The Rev. Robert Knox, D. D., of Belfast, Ireland, followed 
with a paper on 

THE EVANGELIZATION OF IRELAND. 

If you look at Ireland on a map, it is a mere speck in the great At- 
lantic ; and yet that little island has wielded for ages, and continues 
to wield, a mighty influence on Britain and all the dependencies of 
Britain, and on this great continent of America, Hence it becomes 
a matter of supreme importance to bring the Irish people under the 
power of the gospel, not only for their own sake, but for the sake of 
those countries whose character and destinies they influence. 

In round nunibers, Ireland has a population of 5,000,000. Little^ 
more than one in four of these are Protestants, and this prop»o,rdon . 
has been maintained with little variation for the last two himdredi 
years. 

To Christian men in other lands it may appear strange that the- 
gospel has made so little progress among a people peculiarly susceptible, 
of religious impressions. The explanation is not far to seek. The 
Church established by law for three hundred years had al! the advan-. 
tages which high rank, great wealth, and political power could give, 
while the Irish race were repressed by the most grinding penal laws, 
refused all legitimate opportunities of education, excluded from 
positions of trust, and were regarded as incapable of holding any of 
the high offices of state. Is it to be wondered at that a people nat- 
urally proud and sensitive should resent being thus treated, not only 
as a conquered, but as an inferior race ? In their heart's core they 
resented the injustice, and cherished burning hatred against the re- 
ligion which they associated with spoliation, and whose very presence 
was the symbol of their national degradation. 

Then the priests made common cause with the people through the 
long and weary years of their misery, and came to be regarded not 
only as patriots, but martyrs, and the successors of a long line of 
martyrs. This bound the masses as with a chain of adamant to the 
ancient creed. To the priest was given up reason- and con.science, 
and thus the Irish people became the most abject slaves of the Roman: 
pontiff in all Christendom. 

The penal laws are now removed, but churches and statesmen are 
beginning to learn that it is not so easy to obliterate the memory of 
ages of oppression. The old grudge raukl’es iu.the bosom, While 


420 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

other countries are throwing off the papal yoke, the Irish hug their 
chains and cling to the old superstition. • i j 

The present policy of religious equality seems to have quickened 
Catholicism into new life. It has inflamed the zeal of priests and 
people, and excited the most extravagant hopes. From a condition 
of sullen inactivity Rome has started up ‘^as a giant refreshed with 
wine.” The watchwords noware, “Ireland for the Irish! — ‘‘ 
land for Rome;” “ Protestantism must be conquered or expelled. 

Never was the Romish Church so active and aspiring as at this 
moment. The hierarchy is intensely Ultramontane, so that every 
line converges to the one centre — Rome. The whole machinery of 
the Latin Church is brought into the field and worked with the rnost 
consummate ability. The land swarms with clerical orders. Friars 
of every description — Aiigustinian, Dominican, Franciscan intei- 
penetrate the country. The Jesuits expelled by other nations find a 
welcome and congenial work among the Irish race. Redemptorist 
Fathers carry the torch of revivalism into the great centres of popula- 
tion, while nuns and Sisters of Mercy ply the work of education and 
proselytism with ceaseless energy. The laity are worked into a ixenzy 
of expectation, and think no sacrifice too great for Mother Church. 
In view of their poverty, their givings are marvellous, so that the 
land is being covered with the most stately buildings. Cathedrals, 
colleges, and schools meet the eye everywhere. The masses are 
Jed to believe not only that theirs i> the oldest and the truest, but 
the only true religion, and that, like Aaron’s rod, it is destined to 
swallow up all others. Unhappily, they are fortified in this belief 
by the apostacy of so many of the clergy and the higher classes in 
England and also in their own country. Every new pervert is hailed 
with a note of triumph. On a people so imaginative as the Irish this 
process in the Episcopal Church has a powerful effect. They are ac- 
tually made to believe that Protestantism is vanishing away— that the 
laity will soon follow the lead of the clergy who are renouncing the 
Reformation and giving in their submission to Rome. Then the 
.whole machinery of national education is being worked as far as pos- 
sible in the Catholic interest. The claim of the hierarchy is that it 
^hall be separate, exclusive, and under the control of the clergy. Be- 
sides all this, every effort is made to grasp civic and political power, 
and this power is made subservient in a thousand ways to Mother 
•Church. 

Such are the agencies and aspirations of Rome. These agencies 
cover the land, and their power is increased tenfold by the fact that 
they are guided by one central authority, from which there is no ap. 
peal. Whilst the Protestant forces are divided, and often in con- 
flict with each other, the whole machinery of Rome moves on with 
cqaseless energy, guided with consummate ability, no force lost, no 
interest divided. 

Such is Irish Romanism in this present year of grace. What can a 
handful of Protestants do against this exceeding great army, this 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


421 


swelling tide of Catholic revival, united, resolute, quivering with in- 
tense ambition to recover all that was lost at the Reformation? 

In the face of all we have just said, we s^e no reason for despair. 
If on no other ground, we take our stand here. “ He that is for us 
is greater than all that are against us.” Ireland shall one day sparkle 
as a brilliant on the brow of Christ. The truth spoken in faith and 
love is all-conquering. This conviction nerves us for present action 
and gilds the future with hope. 

It is not within the scope of this paper to shew what other Prot- 
estants have done and are doing. It is rather our business to set 
forth the plans and purposes and claims of the Presbyterian Churcli 
in aiming at the evangelization of Ireland. 

This Church is few in number — not over half a million — that is, 
about one in eight of the Catholic population. It is limited in re- 
sources also, for the Presbyterians of Ireland were oppressed and per- 
secuted for ages like their Catholic countrymen. They had a hard 
struggle to make for themselves a home in Ulster and to provide the 
means of grace for their own household. Their day of deliverance 
came at last. They now breathe freely, and have begun to realize 
thatjGod has given them a special mission, and that mission is to 
their own countrymen. God planted them in Ireland that they might 
become his agents in its evangelization. 

This work is little more than begun, but it is begun in earnest. The 
lines are laid by which it is hoped one day to encompass the whole 
land and bring the people under the power of the truth. A church 
has been erected and a minister located in every position of influence 
over the whole land. These churches are made centres of evangelistic 
operations. In addition to these centres, ministers are employed to 
itinerate and hold up Christ wherever they find an open door. In 
the darkest regions of the West, mission-schools have been organized, 
into which the young are gathered and trained in the knowledge of 
the word of God. Besides all this, every county is traversed by col- 
porteurs, who carry the Bible and other books full of the gospel to 
the homes of the people, and scatter among them those leaves that are 
for the healing of the nations. 

Such is the work begum It is the day of small things. The cloud 
that rises out of the north is not yet bigger than a man’s hand ; who 
can tdl how soon it may ascend and spread over the whole sky and 
break in showers of blessing on the people? 

These means are very simple, but we can use no other. We know 
of no means for the conversion of men but the truth — the truth spoken 
in faith and love — in the pulpit, in the school, in the family, in the 
highway and the market-place; the truth shining in the sacred page 
and in the life of redeemed men and women. It is not great arma- 
ments of war God wants, but living men — men full of faith and of 
the Holy Ghost ; men with the pitcher in the hand and the lamp 
within the pitcher. 

What is wanted is that these means be multiplied till every son of 


422 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Erin shall have the opportunity of knowing what the truth is and of 
seeing what the truth can do in making men pure and tree. 

Notwithstanding all we have said of the zeal and vast resources 
of Rome, there is much in the present condition of Ireland w 
hopes of ultimate success. The eye of faith can discern here and there 
some bright rays breaking through the gloom. , , , 

Not only in the great cities, but in distant glens and hamlets there 
is springing up a class of men who wince under their spiritual bond- 
age^ and are ready as opportunity offers to strike a blow at the powder 
of the priest. This class is increasing rapidly, and are a cause of 
much anxiety to their spiritual guides. They ^gin by 
functions of the priest to what is spiritual, and repudiating his au- 
thority in what is secular. This incipient rebellion generates other 
thoughts, and so these men soon pass away altogether from the con ro 
of the clergy. At present the movement is more pohitcal than relig- 
ious. Who can tell what may come of it once the mystic tie is 

there is a deeper and more hopeful current among the Irish 
people. Those who know them best— looking below the surface and 
feeling the pulse of their inner life — tell us that there is a spirit of 
earnest religious inquiry abroad— that many still in the bosom of 
the church are dissatisfied with empty ceremonialism, and are yearning 
for something that will bring true peace and joy to the guilty souk 
Then yearning does not always find public exprpsion. 1 o throw oft 
the shackles of early conviction and prejudice involves a great strug- 
gle and to renounce Romanism in Ireland is often perilous to life and 
limb. But it is not so in this free country, and so you find in some 
of your great cities, just now, unmistakable signs of this deep spiritual 


current. , , . , • • • t 

It is our conviction that a new and brighter era is dawning in Ire- 
land. The people are educated, intelligence is spreading. The press 
is making the dwellers in the remotest mountain home acquainted 
with all the great public movements of the day. One ground of com- 
plaint after another is being removed. Beneficent legislation is sweep- 
ing away every plea by which priests and politicians inflamed the 
masses and deepened their prejudices against England and the Protes- 
tant faith. The country is in a transition state. The doOr that was 
closed against the gospel for centuries is being opened in a way that 
we knew not. A great change is impending. It may come from 
without. It is more likely to come from within. It is ours to be 
ready for the emergency that we may go in and possess the land. 

In the opinion of thoughtful men the present activity of the Romish 
Church is spasmodic— a spasmodic grasp at power which is felt to be 
slipping away. To retain the allegiance of the unreflecting masses, 
thev are being dazzled and deceived by magnificent buildings and 
pretended visions of the Virgin. It will not all do. The hammer of 
the Almighty is striking “ the feet of the image that are partly iron 
and partly clay.” 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


423 


In offering the gospel to their countrymen the Presbyterians of Ire- 
land have a special vantage ground. They had no part in framing 
penal laws. These laws bore down heavily on themselves, and they 
had no small share in their removal. Again and again the oppressed 
and persecuted Catholics appealed to the sturdy Presbyterians of the 
North for sympathy as the well-known friends of civil and religious 
liberty. Against us they cherish no grudge. With us they have no 
old quarrel to settle. 

This leads me to observe that there is one thing essential to the 
successful prosecution of this work — sympathy with the Irish people. 
The want of this has marred the power of the gospel hitherto. The 
country wants rest and sympathy. It has been too long under the 
reign 0/ iaw-mtxoTahle law. Oppressed by the state, enslaved by the 
priest, the people are yearning not only for liberty but love, sympathy, 
the tender touch of a soft and friendly hand. This is the key that 
will open the Irish heart. Approach them in the spirit the Saviour 
breathed, and there is no more hopeful field for the gospel. Make 
them to know and feel that you are neither an alien nor an enemy to 
their race — that you love their country and their Saviour, and they 
will listen with gratitude and gladness to the story of redeeming love. 

If Ireland is to be evangelized it shall never be by the Bible in one 
hand and the bayonet in the other. It shall never be by denouncing 
the pope as anti-Christ and Rome as the scarlet whore. The evangel- 
ist must get into sympathy with the people ; be ready to listen with 
patience to the story of their national wrongs, and feel for them as 
every Christian man ought to feel in the presence of misery. 

In point of fact this unhappy country has never been fairly treated, 
either by Church or State, tor seven centuries it has been the battle- 
field of rival statesmen, and it has baffied all their efforts to quell the 
turbulence of the people and lift it up to some measure of social com- 
fort. To the present hour it is the prey of unprincipled adventurers. 
What the people want is the gospel. Under the power of the gospel 
the nation was once free and happy — the home of the oppressed the 
refuge of the persecuted saints of the Most High. When the rest of 
Christendom was shrouded in mediaeval darkness, Ireland held by the 
truth and sent forth her scholars and missionaries over all Europe. 

In an evil hour this beautiful island was sold by an English sov- 
ereign to the pope. From that day her learning declined. Her light 
grew dim. Her liberties gave place to grinding bondage, until at last 
in the reaction of divine justice this people have become a trouble 
and a scourge to those who neglected and oppressed them. 

It is high time to deal with the Irish race on another principle— 
to try on them the power of love. There is no people in the world 
more grateful for kindly treatment. Is it not worth a mighty effort 
on our part and yours to win them for Christ? Men may laugh at 
their foibles, but is there not something in their very misery to excite 
compassion ? In the mouth of many they are a byword, and men 
make merry over their peculiarities, but after all they have many noble 


424 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


traits of character. They are quick of intellect, endowed with great 
powers of endurance, patient in suffering, respectful to their superiors, 
cherishing a veneration for learning that amounts to superstition, and 
clinging to their faith like martyrs. 

Wherever they have had a fair field and measured their strength 
with other men they have been renowned over the world as warriors, 
orators, and statesmen. 

We repeat, it is worth a mighty effort to conquer this people for 
Christ. 

In this work, Britain and America have a deep interest. This pro- 
lific race are spreading wherever the English language is spoken. ^ There 
are over 300,000 of them in Scotland, upwards of 500,000 in Eng- 
land, and on this continent their sons and descendants number many 
millions. They swarm in your great cities, in your hives of indus- 
try, and wherever there is rough work to be done. Let it be borne 
in mind that wherever they settle they bring with them their charac- 
ter and habits, and down deep in their heart of hearts, their fealty to 
Rome. What influence are they likely to yisld on your social life and 
on your free institutions? You have often said already, “these men 
do exceedingly trouble our city.” To statesmen in England and 
America they have become a menace or a snare. It is not so much 
their numbers that make them formidable, but the fact that in those 
great questions that affect your national life, they yield up reason and 
conscience to another and move e 7 i 7 ?iasse to the falling booth. 

I repeat, England and America have a deep interest in bringing 
the Irish people under the power of the gospel. This cannot be 
effectually done by dealing with those who are landed on the shores 
of either country. It must be done at the fountain-head. The salt 
must be cast into the well’s mouth. Irish Romanism must be met 
and conquered on Irish soil. 

In closing this paper I trust it will not be considered out of place 
for me to say that in this great and arduous work, the Presbyterians 
of Ireland feel that they have a strong claim on the sympathy and help 
of America. It was an IrishTresbyterian, from the centre of Donegal, 
who laid the foundation of the American Church ; and from the days 
of Francis McKemie till this hour, America has been thinning our 
ranks and draining our resources. Thousands of what you call the 
Scotch-Irish are landed every year on your shores. This process, so* 
exhausting to us, has been going on for a century and a half. Not a 
few of tliese have become your statesmen and warriors, your orators, 
merchants, and ministers of religion. Others have helped to clear 
your forests and build your great cities, and yourselves would be the 
first to acknowledge that, in many cases, they form the bone and 
sinew of your churches. Thus you have become numerous and rich 
by making us poor. And now in that great enterprise we have under- 
taken, we are not ashamed to p.^: forth a claim on you. By the 
.Ciiurcli’s Head we are placed in the forefront of the hottest battle ; 
but the battle is yours as well as ours, and we feel assured you will not 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


425 


leave the little remnant who still cultivate the hills and valleys of 
Ulster to wage war against such terrible odds. For your own sakes, 
and in memory of all you owe to Ulster, “Come to the help of the 
Lord against the mighty.” If we succeed, as by the help of heaven 
we expect we shall, the richest benefit will be yours, for then you 
would be receiving, year by year, an. influx of free, enlightened, law- 
abiding Churchmen and women. 

Here is a work worthy the united energies of the Presbyterians of 
Ireland, England, Scotland, and America. 

Since this paper was written the Council has resolved to hold its 
next meeting in Belfast. Men and brethren, permit me to urge on 
you to study in the interval, earnestly and prayerfully, the subject of 
this paper, the only real cure for the mise7'ies of Ireland^ so that when 
you come among us we may have the benefit of your mature and en- 
lightened judgment. 

CHURCH EXTENSION IN AMERICA. 

The Rev. Dr. Prime. — The Prograrnme Committee have in- 
vited the Rev. Dr. Kendall, Secretary of the Board of Home 
Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of 
America, to speak for a few minutes this afternoon on the ques- 
tion of the extension of the gospel in our country. 

The Rev. Henry Kendall, D. D. — The extension of the 
kingdom of Christ in the sparsely settled districts of this 
country has usually been called the work of home missions, 
in distinction from the work of foreign missions, and from 
the work of city missions, the evangelization of the poor, and 
the neglected in cities. If I speak with regard to a single 
denomination here represented, it is because I understand its 
work better than I do the work of the other denominations. I 
gratefully acknowledge what the others have done, and what 
all denominations are doing in the work of evangelizing the 
masses throughout the entire country. 

The work of home missions is coeval with our history. Be- 
fore we became a nation, and as soon as we became a Church, the 
work of home missions began in its essential features. The 
first Presbyterian church in New York city received missionary 
aid from the old country; and nearly all the early churches on 
the continent received aid from the mother country in like man- 
ner. When the churches at the East became strong, and the 
children of the churches went west, first over into Western New 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


426 

York and over the Allegheny mountains to Western Pennsyk 
vania, the churches at the East, the old people in the old 
churches, helped their sons and daughters to the preaching of 
the gospel in the new and sparsely settled territories lying be- 
yond. The same thing was true as they went farther on, down 
the Ohio river, and along by the lakes, into Ohio, Indiana, 
Michigan and Illinois, until the fertile valley of the Mississippi 
lay spread out before the country and before the Church. Then 
the great rallying cry was to save the valley of the Mississippi, 
the future centre and strength of all the population in this 
country — to rescue it from the grasp of the papists, and to 
evangelize it in the Protestant faith. 

It was not until within ten or twelve years that the population 
largely went beyond thS line of States that have their eastern 
boundary on the Mississippi river. There were States organ- 
ized, there were territories surveyed ; but the population was 
very sparse, and the aggregate was very small, down to the 
time when the Pacific railroad was built. The Northern Pa- 
cific on the one hand, and the Union Pacific in the centre, and 
various movements toward the Southern Pacific, not then exactly 
inaugurated but approaching completion now, were pushed so as 
to open the whole country, while the population, like pent up 
waters, was waiting for access to that which lay beyond. When 
those railroads were built, it broke over as though the barriers 
had been removed. We have scarcely known anything in the 
history of the world, certainly nothing in the history of this 
country, to compare with the movement of population into that 
section of country lying directly west of those States that line 
the Mississippi river. Allow me to picture it in parcels, for it is 
too large to be pictured as one. 

I. Take, for instance, Dakota, on the north, reaching up to the 
British possessions ; add to that Nebraska, and Kansas, and the 
Indian Territory and Texas ; and you have one broad section 
extending across our country from the north to the Gulf of 
Mexico, and comprising 650, OCX) square miles. It is as 
large as all of the United States east of the Mississippi river 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 427 

except the four Gulf States. We have been 250 years settling and 
evangelizing that section of the country ; and the work is by no 
means complete, for there are more missionary stations in Penn- 
sylvania and New York, than in almost any other States of the 
Union. More and more as you go farther west, the larger are 
the proportions of missionary stations, clear to the Mississippi 
river and beyond. This section of country just named is as fair 
as any the sun shines on, from the north to the south ; it has 
only one small lake, called the Devil’s lake, in the north, with not 
one rocky ridge, nor one mile square of swamp or marsh, with 
almo.st every acre of it tillable land. It is filling up, one year, 
with floods of hundreds of thousands pouring into Texas ; the 
next two years the same tide pouring into Kansas ; and this 
year pouring its great flood into Dakota. While we have not 
the full returns of the census to tell us how many people have 
gone in the last ten years, the demand for ministers and for 
churches is just as great now as it was ten years ago; show- 
ing that we have not kept pace, or more than kept pace, with 
the population. Measuring the population by the growth of 
the Church — and I am only speaking of one denomination — 
we had in that great territory 100 churches ten years ago, and 
we have now 475. Yet ten years ago the demand for mission- 
aries, and for the preaching of the gospel, was not any more 
intense and urgent than it is to-day. 

JI. Take that section of the country which lies on the Pacific 
ocean, California, the southern part of it that great sanitarium 
to which so many invalids go year after year, the land of 
pomegranates, of figs, of orange orchards, of gardens, of vine- 
yards ; and go up along the coast — to the central part of the 
State, where its great wheat-fields are, and to the mountains 
that are crowned with evergreens, and whose sides are full of 
silver and gold ; go farther up to the great timber country, 
Oregon and Washington Territories; and you find very much 
the same condition of things. In 380,000 square miles, with a 
population grow’ing at the rate of more than fifty per cent, for 
the last ten years, we had only 61 churches ten years ago. We 
have now 175 churches there. 


428 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

III. Look at the great mineral belt lying between these 
two sections, containing the Rocky Mountain system, con- 
stituted of two States and six Territories, with 85 5, OCX) 
square miles. There is scarcely a fertile valley in it that 
has not been opened by the railway system. Those terri- 
tories are full of silver and gold, though the available culti- 
vatable land, from which the produce may be reaped. for immediate 
consumption, is not as large as in the East or West ; but wher- 
ever the precious metals are found, there men always will go. 
No seas will keep them back ; no deserts will deter them ; no 
numbers of savages or wild beasts will keep them away from 
that which they so much desire. In all the mountain fastnesses 
on the north and on the south, in these great territories, we find 
mining camps and mining cities, and the population developing 
all the time, and calling for missionaries. In that great section 
of country we had, ten years ago, but five churches. Now 
we have seventy-five churches ; and a demand for more men on 
the north and on the south in equal proportion to any other 
part of the country. 

In addition to the magnitude of this great w^ork in this great 
field that is laid before us for home missionary occupation, we 
strike a population such as we have never encountered before, and 
such as has scarcely been encountered anywhere else on the face 
of the eai'th. We have a population of about 125, coo of the most 
bigoted papists in New Mexico, as bigoted as they are in Spain, 
and as ignorant as can be found in almost any part of the world. 
We have in Utah about .150,000 subjects of a system of com- 
bined Judaism and Mohammedanism, a system wonderfully com- 
pact in its organization, and a population of whom Paul might 
have said, as he did of another population, “ I perceive that ye 
are too superstitious,” or what perhaps would be better trans- 
lated, “ too religious,” so religious as everywhere to invoke the 
presence of God, with an apparent disregard of all the laws of 
God whose presence they invoke — one of the worst systems, 
one of the rottenest systems, to be found on the face of the earth, 
and yet a system of wonderful efficiency and power. 


SECOND GENEEAL COUNCIL. 429 

We have begun work with both these populations ; we have 
a presbytery, and ten or a dozen churches, and ten or a dozen 
Presbyterian ministers in each; we have six or eight native 
licentiates that labor among the Mexican population ; we have 
thirty female Christian teachers at work in Utah, beginning with 
the children to uproot the vile system which the government 
itself seems to be willing to try to take hold of and uproot. We 
are changing the sentiment of the children as we get hold of 
them, so that in towns where we have had a school a year or 
two, it is said there is not a young lady left that is in favor of 
polygamy. In that way, by the blessing of God, we are reach- 
ing those masses. 

Then in the- midst of that great section of country lie nearly 
all the Indian tribes, 200,000 strong. They are no longer left 
isolated and by themselves ; the white people have come to 
them, and are all around them ; their streams have been fished, 
and the fish are all gone ; the buffalo have been hunted until 
they are gone ; their game is all gone ; the Indians themselves 
will all be gone soon, unless we educate them and lift them up 
and teach them how to live, by some other process; and there 
is no such process but the Christian religion. 

I commend to you the magnitude of this great work ; I com- 
mend to you these peculiar features of it, which make it so very 
hard; I commend it to the men of the Church, the ministers 
and the elders, and to the women of the Church who have 
begun so effectively their schools among the Indians, and the 
Mormons, and the New Mexicans. May God bless them and 
t,heir evangelical labors until from sea to sea this great land 
shall have been evangelized. 

The Council then, with devotional exercises, adjourned until 
the evening at 7)^ o’clock. 

Tuesday, September 1880. 

The Council was called to order at 7.30 p. m., in the. Academy 
of Music, Wm. P. Webb, Esq., of Eutaw, Alabama, President. 

After devotional services. Dr. Calderwood, from the Busi- 
ness Committee, recommended, and the recommendation was 


43 P 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


agreed to, that a letter to the Churches represented in this Coun- 
cil be prepared by the Revs. Dr. Paxton, of New York, and Dr. 
Marshall Lang, of Glasgow. 

Dr. Calderwood, also from the same committee, recommended 
that ail business matters not provided for by the appointment 
of special committees, or included in the printed Programme, be 
taken up as the business of Saturday forenoon ; and that the 
hour from twelve to one o’clock be taken as the formal close 
and farewell of the Council : which was agreed to. 

The Rev. Dr. Arthur Mitchell, of Chicago, 111 ., then read 
the following paper on 

SABBATH-SCHOOLS : THEIR USE AND ABUSE. 

There are two great departments of Christian labor which ma)^ almost 
be said to have been created during the past century— Foreign Mis- 
sions and Sunday-schools. It is true that, stricdy speaking, neither 
has ever been entirely omitted from the activities of the church. 
PNpecially were Foreign Missions the glory of primitive Christianity. 
And not only in those early days, but in Christian homes and 
churches of every century, God’s command that the children should 
be taught his word has, of course, been widely observed and with 
fidelity and love. Its vital importance could not be hidden from 
men like Huss and Gerson and Luther and Knox. It is needless to 
say that the Waldenses, the Scotch, the Puritans, instructed their 
children in the Scriptures, often with a tenderness and thoroughness 
which no later day has surpassed. 

Nevertheless, it is quite true that the institution of Sunday-schools, 
as we now see them, is scarcely an hundred years old. In 1780 they 
were practically unknown. It is certainly a most extraordinary phe- 
nomenon which we have witnessed — the growth of the little seed 
which was planted in Gloucester an hundred years ago to that im- 
mense and powerful system which has now extended to every Christian 
land. The facts upon this subject, gathered principally through tlt^ 
industry of Mr. E. Payson Porter, of Philadelphia, have been of late 
very completely presented. It is enough to say at present that there 
are now within the bounds of Protestant Christendom not less than 
twelve and a half million scholars, and one and a half million teachers 
in our Sunday-schools — a total of full fourteen millions. 

The development of this system has perhaps been more rapid and 
extended in America than in any other land. In the United States 
and Canada we have 7,000,000 Sunday-school scholars, and nearly 
a million teachers. These schools are found everywhere. They are 
the pride of our strongest metropolitan churches, and in the log school- 
houses of our far-off frontier they gather about themselves the hope 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


431 

and affection of tens of thousands of hardy.settlers. They constitute 
a vast national university. They have certainly affected our national 
character and the current of our national history, and it is equally 
certain that the future of the nation and the future of this immense 
and rapidly growing system of Sunday-schools are largely bound up 
together. 

'I'he extension of these schools has been scarcely less remarkable in 
Great Britain. In the century they have there grown from nothing 
to a total of more than 5,000,000 scholars and teachers. In France 
they had their beginning at Bordeaux in 1815, but did not receive 
their first vigorous impulse until 1852. Yet, although the Protestant 
population of France is so limited, there are now seen there 1,100 
schools, with nearly 50,000 attendants. In Holland they were in- 
troduced as late as 1836, and have received their principal increase 
since i860. A thousand schools are now found there, and 100,000 
scholars. In Switzerland, from their first beginning in 1821, in 
Canton de Neuchatel, they have risen to an attendance of 81,000. 
In Sweden, where they were unknown in 1850, and where after their 
first introduction they were suppressed for a time by the police, we 
now find 150,000 scholars. In Germany, although first introduced 
before that date, a new life and enlargement of them began only in 
1863, chiefly through the labors of Mr. Brockelmann, who was in- 
terested in the scheme by Mr. Albert Woodruff, of Brooklyn; and as a 
result, Germany now numbers 2,000 schools and 200,000 scholars. 
They are firmly rooted in Italy, and continually extending, as well as 
in every country of Europe from Norway to Portugal, not to speak of 
many thousands in other quarters of the globe. 

To look upon the astonishing development of this new branch of 
Christian activity is impossible without asking. What are the reasons 
for it ? 

Some very incautious words, as I must think, have been spoken in 
answer to this question. It was said a few evenings since, in the 
hearing of the Council, and the statement was loudly applauded, that 
the institution of Sunday-schools was kept agoing by light, secular 
music, parades, processions and picnics. May I be permitted to say, 
with all respect for the honored and beloved teacher who uttered that 
statement, as well as for those who applauded it, that there could not 
possibly be a more complete mistake ? 

Our wide Sunday-school system, which has yielded its harvests now 
for a hundred years, and which graduated more than 125,000 members 
into the evangelical churches of America during the last year, has far 
more solid reasons for its existence than these. 

It is to be feared that there are still many honored brethren to 
whom the facts on this subject are only imperfectly known. Per- 
haps it is not strange, for, except one has investigated it somewhat 
carefully, he will have no conception of the intellect which has been 
drawn into the service of our Sunday-schools, nor of the amount or 
quality of the work which is being expended upon them. 


432 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

I hope I may be forgiven if I speak with some warmth and confi- 
dence, but I feel sure th*at it can be shown that this great fabric is 
resting to-day upon a foundation of the most thorough and valuable 
labors. Some suggestions of caution respecting it are most certainly in 
place, and they are most welcome. Its improvement must be our con- 
stant study; but if an institution in which 12,000,000 of our children 
every Sabbath for successive years are taught the vital truths of God’s 
word, in which one and a half million of our best church members are 
toiling through heat and cold, and in which our own Worden and 
Dulles, our Rogers and Ormiston, and Crosby and Palmer, and Reid and 
Humphrey, and Dawson and Hall are the master-builders — if this is 
not solid, then nothing is solid. There is in many minds, I know, a 
vague fear of those works of darkness called Sunday-school processions 
and picnics. It is said that we must hasten to take these dangerous 
things in hand. It seems to be forgotten that even this venerable 
Council has had one procession already, and if it breaks up without 
going on a picnic to Princeton or elsewhere, it will do better or 
worse than any General Assembly I have known for the last twenty 
years. 

But what I now especially propose, is to examine the reasons for 
that rapidity with which the Sunday-school system has been developed, 
and for the vast proportions which it assumes. 

1. The first of the reasons which may be named for the rapid 
increase of Sunday-schools, is that they met a great, waiting neces- 
sity. 

There were in the midst of Christendom millions of utterly 
neglected children. A frightful mass of ignorance and heathenism 
existed in the heart of the Christian world. It was imperative that 
some way of instructing and saving these children should be found by 
the church ; and when once Christian ingenuity had struck upon the 
plan* the field which awaited its application was immense. But it 
was not the utterly neglected children alone who called for these 
schools. Multitudes more there were, whose religious instruction was 
most meagre, the children of parents overworked and ill-taught them- 
selves. And it has been found, that even the most devoted and intel- 
ligent of Christian parents can receive invaluable aid, in the instruc- 
tion of their children, from the co-operation of suitable teachers, 
and from the stimulus and companionship in study supplied to the 
children through the Sunday-schools. Sunday-schools have had, 
therefore, a manifold opportunity. They centered upon their work, 
soon to discover that the material for their enlargement was practically 
without bounds. 

2. And if the necessity was waiting, so also was the force waiting 
requisite for its relief. 

That force was the Christian laity. The idea, that the work of 
teaching the millions of any population the saving knowledge of the 
Scriptures must be required at the hands of the clergy alone, was left 
behind forever. A million and a half of the laity have been added, 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


433 


by this movement, to the stated teachers of Christian truth. Con- 
sider only the field which has been opened by it for the labor of 
Christian women. It is probable that, in America alone, not less 
than 700,000 of the most intelligent and godly women of the church 
have been added, by Sunday-schools, to the evangelizing force. 

3. Other advantages connected with the system were discovered, 
after it had been fairly introduced. The mine had hardly been 
opened, before the lode proved even richer than the miners had 
thought. Veins of usefulness, unlooked for, opened at every step of 
the way. 

Not the scholars only have been benefited. Sunday-schools have 
been found to be an invaluable field for the improvement of the adult 
members of the church, the teachers. They hav'^e given an unprece- 
dented stimulus to the study of the Scriptures. The social study of 
the Bible, as in teachers’ meetings, has been increased literally a 
diousand-fold. Parents, also, long neglecting the Bible, have become 
interested in it. The lessons brought from the school by the children 
were to be learned at home, and the children must have the parents’ 
explanations and aid. Especially since the introduction of the Inter- 
national series of lessons, a very great increase of expository preach- 
ing is observable throughout all parts of the land, and all preaching 
has tended to a more Biblical form. Our booksellers also inform us. 
that the demand for Commentaries on the Scriptures has been surpris- 
ingly enlarged, as well as for all works illustrative of the Bible, and 
aiding in its study. '* 

In the same line is the immense mass of periodical literature which,, 
especially within the past eight years, has been called into existence, 
devoted to the elucidation of the Sunday-school lessons. I refer now 
to that designed particularly for the use of teachers. Our best relig- 
ious newspapers contribute weekly expositions of the lessons, andi 
these are supj)lied, in many cases, by the foremost intellects and the 
ripest scholars of the church, the chancellors of universities, profes- 
sors in our theological seminaries, and leading pastors. These weekly 
expositions, found in our family religious journals, aggregate not less 
than 300,000 copies. In addition to these, each denomination has its^ 
monthly Sunday-school magazine, designed especially for teachers. 
'Diree of these reach a combined circulation of 1 70,000. One of these,, 
published by the Presbyterians, at 1334 Chestnut street, Philadelphia,, 
has a circulation of 21,000; that of the Baptists reaches 35,000 ; that 
of the Methodists, 114,000. These are figures which might occasion 
some reflection. Not less than 600,000 expositions of the weekly 
lessons, prepared in the main by the best minds in the church, go fortlu 
constantly to instruct the teachers. 

4. And our teachers are not only stimulated by the Sunday-school 
to a new study of the Bible — they are also quickened and trained in 
the art of teaching, made apt to teach, and wise in winning souls. 
Pastors on every side can testify to the new anxiety for the salvation 
of others, which they have seen springing up in the hearts of Sunday- 

28 


434 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


school teachers. We have found ourselves closeted with teachers who 
were asking us, earnestly to show them how to guide souls. New in-, 
qiiiries, new prayers, new spiritual longings, and spiritual tact and 
skill have been evoked in instances without number. 

It is largely to meet this want that there has arisen so great a num- 
ber of Sunday-school Institutes and Normal Classes, Sunday-school 
Assemblies and Conventions. By some, these gatherings have been 
quite overlooked ; by others, they have been lightly esteemed. They 
may have called forth only some dignified or anxious remark as to their 
irresponsible and miscellaneous character ; but he is a blind man who 
fails to see that they speak at least of a great want, of a deep desire in 
the heart of the people, of an earnest purpose, too, and that either 
for good or ill they must have vast power. Not less than 5,220 
of these Sunday-school Conventions and Institutes and Assemblies 
were held in America during the past year, an average of over 100 a 
week, or of 14 each day. None continued less than one entire day ; 
several hundred for two or three dap ; thirteen had an average dura- 
tion of eight days. In these gatherings, every question bearing on the 
personal improvement of teachers, on the methods of Sunday-school 
instruction, and of securing the conversion and Christian training 
of scholars, is presented. To such practical questions, then, during 
the last year, at least 5,540 days have been given, or more than fifteen 
years of time. 

And the number of teachers also is steadily increasing who enroll 
themselves in normal classes, seeking, for successive months, instruc- 
tion in their work, from the most skilful pastors and practised teachers 
in the church. 

From all these particulars, upon which I have cast but ? passing 
glance, it will be seen what a vast and busy university the Sunday- 
school system has become for the teachers themselves. 

5. As to the scholars, the Sunday-school gives admirable oppor- 
tunity for adapting instruction to their nature and capacities. 

Not only is the general fact regarded that most of the scholars are 
young, but a still closer regard for their varying age and ability is. 
provided for by the system of classes. The teaching can be conducted, 
also, with a freedom and simplicity and conversational familiarity 
especially suited to children. Reviews and examinations, which lend 
constant stimulus and life to the scholar, are easily secured. At flie 
same time, this youthful audience awaits the pastor, whenever he may 
think it wise to address them. 

I have spoken of the aids which are prepared for the teachers in 
their study. The most skilful pastors and instructors are preparing 
aids for the children also in their lessons, weekly lesson -leaves, con- 
taining explanations of the lesson, questions upon it, and practical 
thoughts. The Westminster Ouesticn-Book; published at 1334 Chest- 
nut street, last year reacnea an edition of 70,000 copies. The weekly 
lesson-leaves sent forth :rom the same office were 240,000. Those 
given by the combined Presbyterians of this country lor their scholars 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


435 

number over 600,000, Similar aids for the children are issued by the 
Methodists to the number of 1,200,000, and by the publishers of the 
Sunday-School Times and the Sunday-School World — both admirable 
periodicals — more than half a million. 

6. Sunday-schools give opportunity also for devotional services es- 
pecially suited to the wants and the spiritual development of the 
young. 

Re^ponsive readings enliven the service. In the prayers nothing 
hinders a very full, an almost exclusive adaptation to the wants and 
temptations of early life. As for the music, endless criticisms upon 
this subject are easy, and very frequently they have been just ; but 
after all reasonable abatement has been made, it remains true that our 
Sunday-school music has proved a mighty spiritual force. These 
simple hymns have been the first voice of many youthful hearts in 
penitence and prayer,' Their more spirited and joyous measures have 
attracted thousands to the house of God, by the air of hearty glad- 
ness with which they have filled the place. 

What is needed — and it can be easily secured — is a larger use of the 
nobler hymns, the standard hymns of the Church, The church and 
the school should employ the same book, and the book should accord-* 
ingly be adapted to both, 

7. Sunday-schools give to their scholars not only teachers, but in the 
persons of their teachers, the warmest spiritual’ friends. A minute 
pastoral care is thus secured in a multitude of cases through the 
teacher; and through the teacher the scholars are also brought into 
earlier and closer connection with the pastor himself, and with the 
life of the church. We who are pastors make these assertions fear- 
lessly, knowing well that they can be substantiated by proofs innum- 
erable. Exceptions there are, of course, to every rule ; but we 
know how often the spiritual condition of our young parishioners, es- 
pecially in large parishes, is made known to us by their Sunday-school 
teachers and superintendents, and how they open pathways for us to' 
the children’s hearts. 

8. Sunday-schools have also furnished an opportunity for placing ifi 
the hands of the millions who attend them, pure and wholesome read- 

ing- 

Here, again, criticism would be easy, as it has been most abundant. 
Of the more than eleven thousand different books which have been pre- 
pared for the Sunday-school market, and which have found their way, 
to a greater or less extent, into our Sunday-school libraries, not a few 
are weak, and some entirely unsuitable. Careful selection is required.* 
It would be far better if libraries could be gradually formed, instead 
of receiving, as is often the case, hundreds of new books at a time. 
Every book could then undergo careful scrutiny. But the high excel- 
lence and usefulness of many of the books which reach the children and 
the children’s homes, through the Sunday-school libraries, is beyond 
all question. They will be found to be the work of the most spiritual 
and cultivated minds. The names of the Boards of Publication by 


43 ^ 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


which they are issued — our own Presbyterian Boards, the American 
Sunday-School Union, publishers such as the Carters, Randolph, and 
others ecpially conscientious, together with the best publishers of 
Great Britain — these alone would establish a strong presumption in 
their favor, and whoever examines them will be prepared to answer 
the reflections often cast on their literary quality, as a class, and to 
employ them with thankfulness. The number of these books circu- 
lated throughout the community by means of our schools, is not 
always considered in our estimate of their influence. I'he Sunday- 
school libraries of the State of Illinois alone number 369,000 vol- 
umes. Those of New York, 876,000. 

To books are added papers, adapted generally, though not exclu- 
sively, to the younger children. Of these there were distributed last 
year in the State of Illinois, 10,000,000. The two papers for young 
readers published by the Presbyterian Board in this city, at 1334 
Chestnut street, have a monthly issue of 450,000. 

9. Our Sunday-schools have also been found to furnish excellent 
opportunities for training the young in the principles of temperance^ 
and in the work of missions and pi'actical beneiwlence. 

The contributions of our Presbyterian schools, in America, to for- 
eign missions during the past year, were not less than ^40,000, proba- 
bly more ; while to home mission work, in its various forms, an 
equal if not a larger sum was given. 

In Illinois Sunday-schools last year, the benevolent contributions 
were ^39,000. The Sunday-schools of America and Canada probably 
gave last year to benevolent purposes, $250,000. 

In these schools our children often meet personally our noblest 
home and foreign missionaries, and listen to their inspiring words. 
They are, moreover, organized into juvenile missionary societies and 
familiarized in ten thousand instances with missionary intelligence and 
effort, in a manner whicli should awaken our ardent thankfulness and 
hope. It has been said that Southey’s “Life of Nelson” has ofii: 
cered the British navy for fifty years. It is equally true that the mis- 
sionary biographies and examples, with which the children of the 
Church are being made familiar through these schools, have sent hun- 
dreds of heroic laborers already to heathen lands. Upon this point 
— the connection of the Sunday-school movement and foreign missions 
— the words of President Hopkins are most valuable : “ What we now 
need,” he .says, “ is a generation of Christians like that of the Israel- 
ites, born in the desert, having the inheritance directly before them, 
and as their normal condition an enthusiasm appropriate to such a 
})Osition. ^ And is it not for this that the great army of Sunday-schools 
is now being mustered and brought into unity?” 

10. The very rapid spread of our Sunday-school system has been 
secured by another circumstance. It was early found that this form 
of Christian work naturally invited to Christian union. 

Sunday-school teaching, of necessity, deals chiefly with the elements 
and essentials of Christian truth; with those great and vital facts in 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


437 


which all denominations of evangelical Christians agree. Every de- 
nomination has its own force and its own organization, and ought to 
have regard to its own special work ; but all are united, also, in other 
organizations, in which tney move together. A prominent illustration 
of this is seen in our American Sunday-School Union. This is a 
union not of churches, but of individual Christians, of the Baptist 
denomination, the Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational, Re- 
fori\ied, and Episcopal. Its officers and missionaries are from these 
various denominations. Its Committee of Publication comprises rep- 
resentatives of all ; and no book is published by them to which any 
member of the committee shall object. Yet their missionaries and 
their publications are disseminating widely the essential and energetic 
truths of the evangelical faith. For eight years Rev. John Hall, 
D. D., has furnished the expositions of the lessons for their weekly 
publication, and a Dictionary of the Bible, from the pen of Rev. Philip 
Schaff, D. D. , has just been added to the works they issue. The field of 
this Union is chiefly those newer portions of the country where a sparse 
and heterogeneous population makes denominational schools difficult or 
impossible. As soon as practicable the Union schools are adopted by 
some evangelical denomination. During the fifty-six years of its life, 
this society has established more than 68,000 Sunday-schools in 
^\merica, with 441,000 teachers, arid 3,000,000 scholars. 

' It is this affinity of the Sunday-school work for Christian union 
which has called into being the International Sunday-school Commit- 
tee, and the International series of lessons. It is this which has made 
possible the Sunday-school Assemblies and Institutes of recent years, 
to which I have alluded, each an Evangelical Alliance within its field, 
hastening forward the day, if not of uniformity, yet of a better Chris- 
tian unity in the Church at large. 

If I may now add one more to the reasons for the rapid development 
of Sunday-schools, it may b.e stated generally, that they have been 
advanced because of the evident approval and blessing of God which 
has attended them. 

It has been seen and felt that they began at the right end ; that they 
dealt with the most hopoful class — the young. Parents have been 
greatly aided. The preaching of the gos})el has had prepared for it a 
favorable soil. Revivals have been made more durable in their fruits, 
and the churches have received into their communion thousands, 
and hundreds of thousands, of their most intelligent and steadfast 
members. 

But the question has already arisen in your minds: Are there no 
drawbacks in this Sunday-school work? Have no abuses attached 
themselves to it? no dangers been disclosed? 

It is alleged that Sunday-schools have weakened the sense of 
parental responsibility, and lessened the amount of religious instruc- 
tion given by parents. If this were true, it would be lamentable 
indeed. The Scotch have a proverb: “An ounce of mother is worth 
a pound of clergy. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


438 

But it is to be remembered that more of clergy does not mean less 
of mother. The children may have both ; and in point of fact, have 
the clergy weakened maternal influence, or have they stimulated and 
guided mothers? In the same way, more of Sunday-school does not 
mean less of mother : it may mean more. 

Instances there may have been where parents committed their chil- 
dren too much to the clergy, or to Sunday-schools ; but we are confi- 
dent, at all events, that the cases are overwhelmingly more numerous 
in which, by both pulpit and school, parents have been stimulated and 
directed in their own duty. 

It is alleged that Sunday-schools have tended, in some places, to 
withdraw children from the regular church services. But here again 
it is a question how far Sunday-schools are responsible for this with- 
.drawal. They may be so to some extent ; but may it not be charge- 
able, in a large degree, to a growing laxity in family government, for 
which the pulpit is in part to blame? May it not be chargeable also 
to a lack of adaptation in the services of the church to the capacity 
and wants of the young? And is it not just possible that the evil 
result of these things, had it not been for Sunday-schools, would have 
been even more disastrous than they have been ? 

I find the Sabbath -School Committee of one Assembly of the Pres- 
byterian Church lamenting the ‘‘partition wall,” as they term it. 
which tends to rise between the Sunday-school and the church. If 
such a wall is found, the church can have no one but herself to thank 
for it. Such a wall can never rise if pastors and sessions receive the 
Sunday-school into their hearts; if they approach it, not occasionally, 
and with cold and belated authority alone, but cherish it with a con- 
stant attention, giving it their presence, and pouring out upon it 
prayer and love. If this is done in the school, the children will 
iearn to know and to love their pastor and their elders. It is of the 
utmost importance that children should be required by parental 
authority, or rather trained by parental care, to attend the regular 
services of the church. But how is this to be more easily secured? 
Certainly not by making the schools less attractive to the children, 
and less adapted to their wants ; but by making the church services 
more so. If in the music, the prayers, the preaching of the church, 
the younger children, as is too often the case, are almost forgotten, 
if there is nothing in which they can actively Join ; if they sit hungry 
and find no portion in the stately services of God’s house, it is inev- 
itable that they should early plead for liberty to stay away. It is 
absolutely touching to see how easily little children are interested 
and made thankful. How they rejoice, as one that findeth great 
.spoil, in even a little of the sermon which they can understand, and 
how they reward us for it ! Who has not seen their eyes sparkle with 
that pleasure ? And how they welcome a prayer or hymn which was 
plainly meant for them to share ! The pastor who in his ministrations 
remembers the children, and provides for them, will never find his 
church forsaken by the children ; he will have in them his most 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 439 

animated hearers and his most loyal friends. And the Sunday-school 
will be his best ally. 

As regards the future of our Sunday-schools, the one great desider- 
atum is, undoubtedly, 

They have no necessity to compare with this. The question which 
takes precedence of all others is: How shall the standard of teaching 
be elevated? To this question we answer, unhesitatingly, that, at 
least among Presbyterians, it must be accomplished through the efforts 
of our pastors and sessions. If all the elders of our churches were 
present in the schools and magnified them ; if they would themselves 
teach, statedly examine, and suitably reward the scholars, not leaving 
all this to the superintendent alone, a very great stimulus would 
immediately be felt by every teacher. School-rooms and class-rooms 
should be so built that, when a superior teacher is found, many schol- 
ars can be placed under his care. This will help also to retain the 
older scholars. In the finances also of the church, the Sunday-school 
should find special and liberal provision. But especially must the 
pastor devote himself to the work of helping and training the teachers. 
Pastors should come instructed and prepared for this from the theo- 
logical seminary. They are to give seed to the sowers. The pastor 
who fails to inspire and direct the Sunday-school teachers — generally 
the elite of the church — loses half his opportunity. Every parish 
should have its adult Bible-class w^hich shall be also a normal-class ; 
and, if his strength allow, and no other competent instructor is found, 
the pastor must conduct it. Here is one of the best guarantees that 
our schools shall preserve sufficiently their denominational character. 
If in this class parents also are gathered, it must result in great 
assistance to the children with their lessons at home. Scarcely any 
form of labor can give the pastor wider and more durable usefulness, 
second only to the direct preaching of the word. It might be safe 
even to exchange one of our more public services for this greatly 
needed work. 

To this closer intimacy with the Sunday-schools, General Assem- 
blies and Presbyteries are nosv very generally calling our sessions and 
pastors. Every Assembly in America, and in some branches of the 
Church nearly every Presbytery, has its special committee on Sunday- 
schools, and devotes a special session to their interest. A few of the 
choicest and most practised of our ministers have been set apart by 
the Church to give to this work their undivided care. They are 
travelling from the Atlantic to the Pacific, seeking by institutes and 
conventions and normal -classes, and by addressing Synoos and Pres- 
byteries, to inspire all pastors and teachers with their zeal, and direct 
them to the be^t methods of labor. It is by such ecclesiastical recog- 
nition and nurture as this, given in the valuable publications of our 
Boards, given by pastors and sessions and Presbyteries, and by help- 
ful leaders, sustained and commissioned by the Church at large it is 
by these means our schools are to grow, and to grow in living union 
with the churches. Under this nurture they are separated by no 


440 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


partition-wall from the church; they are one with her, integral parts 
of the church; as it has been well expressed: “ Iransepts^of the 
cathedral, from every part of which the high altar is in sight.’' 

One thought upon this subject should be lodged in every heart. 
Astonishing as has been their development, the work of Sunday- 
schools is but just begun. Even in America, where we number six 
and a half million scholars in our schools, we have at least eleven 
million children yet outside. And the tide of immigration is adding 
to them every day. Not one class of society, but all classes must 
be gathered into these schools ; and let it be our future aim — not 
children only, but adults as well. 

In Great Britain, also, a vast work must still remain, while upon 
the continent of Europe Sunday-schools are yet in their infancy. 
Few questions seem more important than how we may most efficiently 
aid our brethren who may desire the extension of these schools in 
European lands. 

As for our own country, mark how perfectly the land is divided and 
subdivided by the public school system for the purposes of secular in- 
struction. The school districts cover every square mile, that not a 
child may be overlooked. The school census in each State searches 
every county, every township, every district, and reaches every child. 
Responsible officers know “ the names of all who are denied or who 
neglect to avail themselves of the benefits of the school privileges." 
Can any good reason be given why the land should not be as method- 
ically and minutely mapped out in the work of religious education ? 
If the churches of any district can supply its needs, the work is 
theirs. There will be no limit to the enterprise of any denomination ; 
but for the supply of the neglected districts which must remain, all 
evangelical churches should unite in a complete organization which 
shall cover every square mile. The offer of Sunday-school instruction 
should be carried to every child in America. If the land can be thus 
districted and searched in the interest of secular education and of 
political success, it can be done, and it ought to be done, in the in- 
terest of Christian teaching. In five States of the Union, Connec- 
ticut, Illinois, Maryland, New York, and New Jersey, numbering 214 
counties, every county has an organized alliance for this end. If this 
can be secured in five States, it can be in all. 

The cry has gone up, and it is hourly waxing louder, that the Bible 
be taken from our public schools. From many of them it is already 
banished. Education, it is contended, must be secularized. A liter- 
ature fitted to sow seeds of doubt, to stimulate worldliness, and inflame 
evil passions, is soliciting even the children’s eyes. To meet these 
destroying powers, to win and save the children, should arouse every 
energy of the Church. And she must not despise new methods. God’s 
Spirit and truth are promised her; but God’s Spirit is the author of 
Christian ingenuity as well as of Christian love. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


441 


The Rev. Alexander Macleod, D.D., of Birkenhead, Eng- 
land, read the following paper on 

THE CHILDREN’S PORTION IN THE SABBATH SERVICE. 

What I wish to advocate is the introduction of suitable words for 
children in the regular ministrations of the pulpit. 

At least one in every three who come to our churches is a child 
under twelve years of age. In every congregation of worshippers, 
therefore, there is a congregation of children. 

^ Sunday brings to those young hearts a certain stir of expectation. 
Everything is different from other days— the very preparations an- 
nounce that it is to some great festival the family are going. The 
thoughts of the children are set towards a great occasion. Sunday 
after Sunday they go up to it with expectation in their hearts; and 
Sunday after Sunday in the majority of our churches, this expectation 
is not recognized : their presence is not felt— they are not once ad- 
dressed. The psalms and hymns express experiences at which they have 
not arrived. The sermon is in a language they do not understand. At 
length the great occasion has come to an end. The people are faring 
back to their homes. But not one word has been spoken to the chil- 
dren ; who, nevertheless, as baptized persons, are members of the 
flock, and concerning whom our Lord left this injunction ; ‘‘ Feed 
my lambs.” 

Who can think of the immense number of children scattered over 
our Presbyterian churches, who come up to the public service Sunday 
after Sunday, with eager hope of finding some interest for their young 
souls, with that hope growing smaller and smaller as the brief years 
of childhood run out, until, at last, the pathetic habit is formed of 
expecting nothing? Who can think of this, and not sympathize with 
the desire to provide for, them also a portion in the service, which 
they shall look forward to, and by which their spiritual lives shall 
be fed ? 

I count myself happy, that it is before a Council of Presbyterians 1 
have to speak this word for the children. 

The Presbyterian Church has never known a time when the religious 
training of her children was not a subject of the deepest interest to 
her. Her Sunday-schools are an honest, most earnest, endeavor to 
supply a portion of that training; but they cannot adequately fulfil 
all that is desired. 

Perhaps the greatest monument of the Presbyterian Church’s inter- 
est in the religious training of children is its catechisms. I, person- 
ally, have the best of reasons for thinking well of one of these. 1 
was brought up, theologically speaking, on the Westminster Assembly’s 
Shorter Catechism. It is a book I greatly honor. Nothing I am 
about to say implies the suggestion that it should be laid aside. But 
I am bound to report that the good I got out of it was not till the 
years of my childhood were past. As a child I did not understand it. 


442 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


I do not think many of my generation did. It was a task book. It 
was a treasury of doctrinal statements set in terms too abstract and 
theological for children to take in : statements none the less good to 
be lodged in the memory, good as forms of thought for the future, but 
beyond the comprehension of all except a specially gifted few among 
such children as I have known. 

In childhood it is the imagination that is most fully developed and 
most eager for food. At every turn those young eyes open upon new 
vistas and reaches of wonderland. Everything presents itself to tliem 
in the resemblance of something else: the stars are lamps; the rain- 
bows, ladders; the clouds, islands in a sea of blue. This is the time, 
also, when the world they see seems to veil another unseen ; when 
woods seem to be peopled with strange forms of being; when moun- 
tains have secret doors opening into hid kingdoms of diamond and 
gold ; when shadows on the wall, and the sighing of trees, and the 
prattle of brooks, are living things. It is the time especially when 
the past lies behind the child like a golden age— when stories of that 
past are, of all things, most welcome to the soul. Thought, feeling, 
emotion, everything, is touched with imaginative receptiveness. If, at ,, 
this time, the heart is to be reached, it must be through the gates of 
the imagination. 

My suggestion is, that we should recognize and meet this condition 
of mind ; that we should follow where nature beckons ; that we 
should set ourselves to meet this susceptibility and yearning of child- 
hood by truth set in imaginative forms ; using the word in a large 
elastic sense, let me say by stories — sermon-stories — which the child’s 
own pastor shall tell. 

I do not undertake to say what is the best arrangement for bringing 
in the stories. The arrangement that would suit one congregation may 
be unsuitable for another. But I offer the following as suggestions 
which at least are practicable. In churches where two lessons are read 
in the morning service, the second might be set apart for the children 
— might itself, in fact, in the very words of the Bible story, be the 
children’s portion. Just there, every child might be apprised that the 
words read and the brief remarks made in connection with them were 
theirs. In churches where instrumental music is used, the time con- 
sumed in playing over the tunes and in executing little snatches of 
cadence between the singing of verses, if gathered together, would 
probably give all the time that would be required. In churches where 
quartet and duet singing is allowed, the proper place would be there. 
Let the quartet singers fall back into the choir ; let the children’s 
sermon come in their jdace. 

In churches where there are neither two lessons, nor organ, nor 
quartet singing, I suppose I am not far from the fact in supposing that 
the sermon is at least three quarters of an hour in length. Let the 
minister cut it down to thirty minutes. He will thereby have done 
two good things : he will have greatly improved the working quality 
of his sermon, and he will have found a good quarter of an hour for 
his word to the children. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


443 


The practical aims we have in the Christian up-bringing of our 
young people determine the kind of stories we should tell. Our pur- 
pose is not entertainment, but instruction. We are set to train up 
the children in gospel principles and to lives which shall be the em- 
bodiment of the gospel. Not any story, therefore, will suit for the 
work — not stories for stories’ sake ; only stories which have more or 
less the formative j-irinciples of the gospel in them ; stories which 
have truth, as truth is found in the parables ; or truth of actual event, 
as it is found in biography or history. Stories which have Christian 
truth neither in the one form nor the other, which are mere fiction, are 
inevitably detected by children, and in nine cases out of ten discarded 
just because they are untrue. The stories which a minister of the 
gospel will tell will be stories of life rather than death. Morbid 
stories — stories which give undue prominence to the details of the 
deathbed — he will soon come to feel can only work evil in young 
minds. The grand purpose of the gospel is life, not death — purer life, 
higher life, holier life. We are sent into the world to live, and every 
word spoken by the Christian minister should be promotive of this 
purpose. This does not require that there shall never be reference to 
death. It is the gospel of immortality we have to preach. The won- 
der of divine grace has its triumphs in the deathbed as well as in 
active life. But in the main it is life, not death, we have to illustrate 
and commend. Our Sunday stories, therefore, should be brimful of 
life; wholesome with the wholesomeness of life; and their natural in- 
fluence should be along the lines which lead to manly and womanly 
worth, to honesty, purity, temperance, and truth in the daily life. 
They should be such stories as go to make boys brave and honorable, 
and girls tenderhearted and pitiful with the pity and tenderness of 
God. 

I need hardly say that the stories should be moral. They chould 
not be — in the hands of the gospel minister they cannot be — such as, 
in the name of religion, discredit morality. We are set to educate 
and foster Christianly the natural affections ; therefore we shut out, 
e. g., tho.se hateful stories which tell of drunken fathers and mothers, 
lectured and sometimes converted by good little abstainers. I have 
been an abstainer all my days, but I am bound to testify against a 
great deal that is admitted in temperance literature, and specially I 
testify against such stories as I have just referred to. They are stories 
which exhibit as heroes children who, instead of covering themselves 
with a garment and going backward, go forward with impudent, o[Xin 
eyes to look at and to censure their parents’ shame. Children who 
are set forth in these stories as “heroes” are— or would be, if they 
had ever existed — intolerable little prigs. 

Just as bad are stories which commend an impossible morality. We 
are set to train Christ’s little ones to lives passed under conditions 
which have been appointed by the tenderest considerations for their 
weakness. They are to do what they can ; no more. They are not 
called to angelical conditions, but to^ human. They are not to be e»- 


444 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


horted to a morality too high for them, or so severe as to give them a 
distaste for the gospel which has called them to it. We shall there- 
fore exclude stories which set up impossible standards, or whicli invite 
them to sacrihces they are as yet simply not old enough to understand. 

But, above all, the stories ought to have in the heart of them some 
fair vision of God, which is the same as saying they ouglit to be gos- 
pel stories. Some aspec.t of the divine face, or some reOection of the 
divine character, or something which should suggest these, should be 
in them all. It is the gospel we are set to preach to the grown-up 
people ; it is the same gospel we should reach by our sermon-stories 
to the children. 

I shall never forget a little speech made once in a company of Sun- 
day-school teachers, of Whom I was one, by an old Secession elder in 
Glasgow. It was at the time when Kitto’s illustrated Bible was first 
brought out. People imagined that they were getting something very 
grand when they were getting pictures of the Holy Land, and wood- 
cuts of palm trees and beasts of burden and dresses and buildings. 
But this old elder, who had looked into the heart of the Bible more 
deeply than we young teachers, said, “ It may be useful and very in- 
teresting to tell your classes of the height and the girth of the cedars 
of Lebanon, and the dimensions of the temple of Solomon, and such 
things ; but in my experience there is nothing will interest a child so 
much, or bear repetition so many times, or do so much good, as the 
story of the cross of Christ.” 

And I entirely assent to that statement. Tlie story itself as it lies 
in the Bible ; illustrations of it, or of little bits of it, as we have sup- 
plied sometimes in the loving and self-denying conduct of mothers 
and mother- hearted souls, are the stories which most easily fascinate a 
child, which make the deepest impression, and which are the happiest 
openings for children into the knowledge of the love of God. 

But now comes the natural inquiry: Where are such stories to be 
found ? See the wisdom and provident goodness of God : great por- 
tions of the book we are set to expound come to us in the form of 
stories- An endless supply is there, and boundless variety, and 
touched with both imaginative and ethical force. In Genesis and 
Exodus alone are stories which will last for a whole year. We have 
only to name the heroes of Bible history to recall the rich materials 
])repared for our use — Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, 
Jonah, Samson, Samuel, David. We have only to think of the events 
of which the Bible is the record to see the same thing — the expulsion 
from Eden, the deluge, the ten plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea, 
the life in the wilderness. What child will not feel the awful side of 
the divine majesty in the story of Belshazzar’s feast? or the weird 
doom of filial didoyalty in the death of Absalom ? or the pathos of 
human life in the anguish which rings in the 137th Psalm? — “ How 
shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land ?” — or the protective 
care of God in the preservation of Daniel in the lions’ den ? or the 
wonder and miracle of his presence in that story of the form of the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


445 


Son of Man, who was seen walking with the three children in the fire? 
And see how the life of our Lord has -been told. That life unfolds in 
a way that might justify the supposition that it was meant to be told 
to children. It arrests the imagination and engages the heart of a 
child — the manger in the stable, the star, the wise men, the visit to 
the temple, the preaching at Nazareth, the baptism by John, the 
temptation. We have elements in these events of an interest which 
never loses its fascination for children. And, as if these were not 
enough, we have line upon line of other and as interesting materials 
in that life. There is the'rich fulness of incident and circumstance 
in the history of the public ministry; the parables are just stories of 
the kind and for the kind of minds 1 am bringing before you ; the 
miracles are stories ; and last of all, as the old Secession elder said, 
there is the endlessly interesting story of the sufferings at the end. 

And we are not confined to the Bible. The history of God’s deal- 
ings with his people, and of their contendings for his kingdom and 
truth, is another Bible outside of the Bible we know. Why should 
our children not be instructed on the Lord’s day in the glorious 
memories of the Reformation ? Why should we ever suffer to be for- 
gotten the heroic faith under persecution which, in every country, 
those who followed the Reformation sustained ? Is it nothing to have 
stories like those of the Waldensian valleys, of the Puritan pilgrims, 
of the Scottish Covenanters? or is it wise to know all we do of the 
conquests of the gospel among the heathen, and let our children grow 
up in ignorance of them? 

God has set the teachers of the word in a world that is teeming with 
illustrative stories. Did He intend the poets to sing to idle worldlings 
only? Why should the Christian ballads {e.g.) of the venerable 
Whittier not be used in the spiritual teaching of the young? Why 
should the preacher not make incursions into the field of general 
literature? Shakespeare himself will minister to the children if we 
let him. The best sermon on the necessity of clean hands and a clean 
heart is first to tell his story of Macbeth; and, if all other books 
should fail, there remains the glorious dream of the Bedford prisoner. 
This will supply many a Sunday story, and be good for the highest 
ends in the Christian training of the young. 

And we are not confined to books. Life is surging all around us, 
and sending in whole tides of interesting incident through the news- 
papers every morning. Never a week — if we care to gather them 
but illustrations of Bible lessons may be found in that supidy alone. 

I will close by pointing out the good we might expect if this sug- 
gestion were adopted. 

I. There will be good to the minister. 

Mr. Philips Brooks in his Yale lectures expresses the fear that 
preaching to children may impair the power of preaching to adults. 
If that fresh and genial spirit has himself preached to children, it has 
not impaired his power to speak to the adults. .It did not impair 
the power of Norman MacLeod, nor of William Arnot. It will not 


446 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


impair the power in any true-hearted speaker for God. But it will 
quicken his spirit. It will simplify his preaching of the gospel. It will 
be like a bath in young heartedness. Having set the child in the 
midst, we will turn round like the Master to the rest of the flock, and 
speak to them with the tenderness and simplicity of heart which 
spiritual contact with childhood never fails to imjjart. 

2. It will be a blessing to the adult portion of the congregation. 
People never cease to be affected by the memories of their childhood. 
That song murmurs behind us along all the path of life. We are 
never far from the subtle tendrils that hold us, or are ready to lay 
hold of us and bring us back to the fair visions of the early years. 
Touch the hearts of the children in your flocks, and you have thereby 
touched the hearts of the parents. When the shepherd wishes the 
dam to follow him he carries the lamb on his shoulder. It is true in 
the narrower sphere of the congregation as in the world-wide sphere 
of the race that a little child shall lead. And sometimes speaking to 
the children, or evoking their praise, you touch chords in the parental 
heart which nothing else can touch. It is not alone in Longfellow’s 
song, that fathers rejoice to hear the voice of their daughter in the 
praise. To real fathers before you, that voice will sound like the 
dear mother’s in paradise ; and hard rough hands in real life will “ wipe 
the tears out of their eyes.” 

We were talking the other day about the enrichment of Presbyterian 
worship. What we are in search of awaits us here. And, coming 
this way, it will come to us, not from without, but from within. 
Recognize the presence and the claims of the children'; and when 
the minister’s brief word to them is ended give voice to their songs. 
And by one bound — by that one addition — Presbyterian worship shall 
have ascended to a height and richness which an imitated liturgic ser- 
vice could never reach. 

3. But chiefly it will be good for the children. The little sermon 
or story to the children will make the Sabbath a delight to them. 

It will draw their young hearts into the same acts of worship with 
their parents. 

It will be the sowing of their young mind with seed of thought. 

^ We can never tell the immense results in after life to which the 
simplest looking event in childhood may lead up. 

A little boy at Tarsus once heard the story of Gideon and the 
earthen pitchers. And in his old age he lifted up that story into 
eternal forms of still fertile thought in that great utterance, where the 
rnemory of Gideon’s lights and pitchers is made to illustrate both 
tne light which God in the gospel commanded to shine out of dark- 
ness, and the power and excellency which he has stored up in preachers 
who in themselves are but earthen vessels. 

Be sure we have not come yet to the last visions of life in the stories 
of the Bible. There are wells of truth, ideals of practice, solutions of 
problems, still untouched in those tales of the divine past. 

Drop them, ministers of the gospel, one by one as you have 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


447 


opportunity into the soil of young hearts. You will tell some day, 
for example, the story of the runaway slave whom Paul found in the 
slums of Rome and sent back to Philemon, his master. And who 
knows? Out of that soil prepared by God, in after years, shall spring 
up the very word we are waiting for ; the very solution of the problem 
we had before us the other day, of the relation between employers and 
the employed. 

And in other ways, past naming, good shall spring forth. The life 
of the pulpit shall flow like a river through the lives of the children. 
And the boys and girls, who are to be the fathers and mothers of the 
years to come, shall rise up to call us blessed. 

I am not advocating an untried proposal. Many congregations in 
England and Scotland have had happy experience of it for years. 

Would that it might become an ordinance in every Presbyterian 
Church in the world ! 

At every morning service, for one ten minutes out of the ninety, let 
the minister be in direct contact with the souls of the children. Let 
nev’^er a day pass in which he shall not give wings to a story of God’s 
love or Christian life. It will go up and down, and in and out 
throughout the week which follows, doing work for God. Doing this, 
we shall whet and keep whole the appetite of the children for the 
services of the sanctuary. Doing this, we shall open the windows of 
heaven and give them also glimpses of the vision of God. And in 
that golden space, in those so consecrated minutes, we shall bring 
back for the children, and it may be for their parents as well, the 
days when Jfesus spoke to his disciples in parables, and taught those 
children of his love as they were able to receive his words. 

RECENT EVANGELISTIC WORK IN PARIS. 

Next on tlie programme was a paper on this subject by the 
Rev. George Fisch, D. D., of Paris. Dr. Fisch was not able to 
be present; but he had forwarded his paper, which was committed 
to the editors, and will be found in the Appendix, page 909. 

The Rev. Joseph R. Wilson, D.D., of Wilmington, N. C., 
read the following paper on 

EVANGELISTS AND EVANGELISTIC WORK. 

Christianity is more than Churches. These are, however, its rep- 
resentatives by which, as to its main features, Christianity is judged. 
Shall it thus be judged falsely ? It no doubt often is ; and always, 
whenever this Church or that fails to exhibit the true gospel spirit, or 
conceals the true gospel purpose, or falters in the true gospel work. The 
true spirit of Christianity is the love it bears from God to our race .; 
its corresponding true purpose and work, to commend this love tO all 
men, in the presentation of the great salvation. That Church, ac- 


448 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


cordingly, which has no success in proclaiming God’s saving grace, 
ought to have no' place among the acknowledged representatives of 
Christianity ; whilst the Church which publishes this grace the most 
effectually, ought to be thought of as occupying the foremost place of 
all. Church glory is, in other words, proportioned not to the har- 
monies of its creeds, or to its historical orthodoxy, but to the direct- 
ness and perseverance of its efforts at evangelization. Had an apostle 
been asked, what are all those churches for^ which you are planting 
here and yonder — in Antioch, in Ephesus, in Philippi, in Corinth — 
he might have replied : ‘^As a matter of course, they have not been or- 
ganized for themselves alone, any more than is the new heart of an 
individual believer for itself ; but as a means for extending the tidings 
with which they have been made glad to such as are yet unacquainted 
with the preciousness of Christ. See, therefore, what I and the others 
of our number are engaged in doing : we no sooner establish the es- 
sential worship in any central spot, than we go, journey upon journey 
(attended by one or more of the men who share our spirit), to make 
it known in the regions beyond.” Thus there have been, from the 
first, two great agencies of influence emerging from' the idea of a 
practical Christianity: the agency that conserves, the agency that 
conveys. There must, on the one hand, be those fixed ministries, by 
which to store spiritual power, by which to concentrate gospel light ; 
but there must be also those other and equally needful ministries 
by which this amassed treasure shall be dispensed and this gathered 
light be diffused. No Church must selfishly retain and consume 
what it has received — it must not monopolize what it enjoys — but, 
jiutting on the shoes of swiftness, must traverse the entire world in 
publishing the news of which it is the appointed, and ought to be the 
winged, herald. 

Thus evangelism is seen to differ from mere p7'opaga?idism ; the one 
crying, come, be of our Christ ; the other, come, be of our Church ; 
the one urgent for the Lord’s sake, the other for opinion’s sake ; the 
one extensively Christian, the other narrowly denominational. Every 
separate Church, in obedience to the same necessity winch authorized 
its detached existence at the first, is perhaps bound to proclaim its 
supposed superior claims over all its sisters to orthodox completeness. 
But the Church, however loud and however just are its pretensions to 
pre-eminency, which makes its own increase its chief aim, places the 
less before the greater ; the right order being this : Christian first, 
then denominational. The genus is more comprehensive than any of 
the species which it includes. The life is more than the organs which 
express it. 

True evangelism, then, is that which, repudiative of mere sectarian 
rivalry, and for the sake of catholicity, consents to join the hands of 
co-operation with all Christians in the one common work which all 
Christian Churches profess to have in view. 

There are thus, therefore, two things which in this aspect of the 
evangelistic work, Presbyterianism is especially fitted to accomplish. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, ^ 449 

and which I will venture to suggest : The first is, to impress upon its 
evangelism the distinctive mark of a benevolence which rises above 
all Churchistn. And, in a peculiar manner, Presbyterianism is qual- 
ified for this, because, in a distinguishing degree, it is possessed of the 
rarest elements of a genuine denominational liberality — and it is so 
possessed for the reason that, having a charity as broad as the truth 
which makes it so strong, it presents no offensive claim to exclusive- 
ness. It is, accordingly, in a position to say to all the other evangel- 
ical Churches : I believe in you so far as you believe in our common 
Lord, and only just so far I ask you to believe in me : come, then, let 
us serve together, with interlocked hands, in that field which, to all 
of us alike, is the world : our several shares in the ensuing converts 
being left to him whose providence shall determine their respective 
ecclesiastical homes. I am, indeed, Presbyterian, and so expect to 
remain — Presbyterian I wish you all were — but then I am what you 
also are, or ought to be, a Christ-adorer first, a Church-admirer next. 
There are already associations, grand and growing, in which we are 
unitedly free to sit down together: such as those Bible societies which 
nation after nation has instituted, to the praise of our common and 
comprehensive Christianity. Why may there not be a similar organi- 
zation whose one most noble purpose it shall be to utilize, on foreign 
and in home fields, whatsoever of the evangelical spirit we severally 
possess? There are difficulties, but may these not be overcome, when 
we combine to meet them, and with no other fear in our hearts than 

the fear of God ? ... . • • i 

If in such candor Presbyterianism might speak to its denominational 
neighbors everywhere, with some hope of an equally frank re- 
sponse, why should not this General Council take measures to give 
substantive existence to so desirable a possibility as is thus suggested? 
It would be only another step in the direction whither all our doc- 
trinal beliefs, hand-in-hand with all our past history, have steadily led 
— i. e.j of paths that rise at every important point higher than churchly 
prejudice and its attendant pride ; a step which would find a con- 
spicuous footing in the inauguration of a scheme, the first effect of 
which would be to marshal suitable representatives from all evangel- 
ical Christendom in a Council whose proceedings would have as wide 
a generality as the pr-eached gospel already has, and whose one ex- 
clusive aim would be that gospel’s universal spread ; a Council sim- 
ilar in construction to that of the '' Evangelical Alliance,” but having 
•no outlook except for the practical eye, and therefore from only a 
single window, that from which could be seen in actual result the' ful- 
filment of Daniel’s prophecy, when many shall run to and fro, and 
^knowledge shall be increased.” .j 

A co-operation so reputable, and even so splendid as this idea sug- 
gests, .would, were it feasible, present to the world a feature of Chris- 
tianity, which, because it is a feature not now beheld on the face of 
the Church, raises against our religion the sneer of a well-understood, 
and, I might add, a well-directed infidelity. The hindering objection 

29 


45 ^ 


• THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


to such a scheme is not to be found in the character of the gospel 
itself, which instructs with respect to the Fatherhood of God not 
more fully than it does with respect to \\\^ brotherhood of believers. 
Opposition to it can proceed only out of that poverty of the Christian 
spirit which is disposed to sink the welfare of the whole body in the 
dreary marsh of denominational selfishness — a poverty which is at 
once a scandal and a snare, and which it will require some tremendous 
effort of fraternal combination to remove, but whose removal is abso- 
lutely necessary, unless we wish to believe that another space of nine- 
teen centuries must be covered by the ineffectual struggles of truth to 
overtake and subdue the errors that the past 1900 years have failed to 
reach and to conquer. 

If, however, the plan now outlined be treated as impracticable, or 
even should it be adopted, there is another important suggestion I will 
venture upon this opportunity to make. Our own Presbyterian system 
is itself incomplete. It needs — it has always needed — the addition 
of a new element to its ministerial force. As things are, we have one 
variety of the preaching office ; we require another. We have the 
rooted ministry ; let this be supplemented by a branching ministry. 
We have our fixed batteries ; we need to have also our flying artillery. 
We have many whose duty and whose joy it is to sta?td for Christ 
in set places and at given times; we ought to have quite as many 
whose duty and whose joy it shall be to rim for Christ into all places 
and at all times ; men who do not wait for inquiring comers, but who 
themselves go out to find and to bring ; the highway heralds, the street 
and lane messengers, the compellers. Have we not these, however ? 
Yes, but in what meagre numbers ! The laity has seen the deficiency, 
and therefore // goes forth, self- actuated, to do what it can for the 
lost whom no one else is finding. Yet who does not know that evils 
not a few are wrapped up in every such spontaneous effort of un- 
trained piety or undisciplined knowledge? — with brilliant exceptions, 
it may be, now and then, to prove the rule. There is, indeed, a sense 
both wide and important, in which every follower of the Son of God 
should regard himself as, by the very possession of his new heart, an 
evangel of the New Testament. And it is to be presumed that not 
until all believers shall have had written upon their characters and 
possessions “ holiness to the Lord,” in letters that the blindest passer- 
by may perceive and must admire, that the promised millennial glory 
is to be let down upon a regenerated world. Undoubtedly, there- 
fore, evangelists ought to be as numerous as Christians. But I 
am speaking of God’s official plan of salvation, in pursuance of which 
men are to be rightly taught and rightly churched by a method for 
which he has left no room to place a substitute : the method of a reg- 
ularly ordained and commissioned ministry. This being suitably 
worked, all else will go by itself, and just because it is the supreme 
method of Him who cannot err. Well, how shall this divine order- 
ing be best obeyed ? Simply by accepting it in all its largeness, as 
embracing the complete equipment of a twofold ministry; the one for 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


451 


establishing, the other for enlarging ; this for coherence, that for 
conquest ; a moiety for garnering, a moiety for gathering. As mat- 
ters now stand, the work of propagative evangelization is regarded as 
a thing extraneous, and is shaped by the uncertain touches of mere 
chance, being in too many instances committed to men who happen 
to be available for the time current who have nothing else to do, and 
not to men peculiarly fitted and personally called. What is wanted, 
in short, is a systematized itineracy composed of mental, moral and phy- 
sical material that is specially adaptable to this business and to no other, 
particularly for countries like America, where the spaces to be cov- 
ered are so large ; and like France, where the truth as we hold it is 
comparatively so little known ; and like Germany, where infidelity 
needs to be pursued with swifter limbs than any which have yet been 
used ; and like heathendom at large, which lies before the Church a 
constant reproach. And it ought to be from among the very best 
sons of the Church that these itinerants are chosen — men who shall 
be educated in seminaries where the training will be such as to enable 
its outgoing proficients to command a hearing from all classes of so- 
ciety, low -and high, or selected from among those who already are 
in the ministry — its first men, as proved by success. 

Is all this not possible? Who can say? It has never been tried. 

And even though, in the incipiency of the experiment, there may 
be found only a few apostolic souls to give it a start, yet what if these 
should turn out to be men, who, like Duff, stream with holy fire with- 
out ceasing from the channel of prudence, or like Martyn, alive with 
energy, whilst solid with learning, or like Baker, uniting the utmost 
simplicity with the deepest earnestness ! Then to these would soon be 
added other twos and threes, until after a while a grand corps of trav- 
elling gospellers would be seen, who evermore refusing a fixed hab- 
itation except in heaven, might serve to move the world as it has not 
hitherto been moved. With these hints, I relieve your patience. 

The following discussion was then had upon the papers of the 
evening : 

Rev. Jos. T. Smith, D. D., of Baltimore. — If all the brethren 
here had the heart and the art of the good brother who would 
have the children’s service introduced into the Church, it would 
mark a new era in our Presbyterian worship ; but unfortunately 
that peculiar tact that would get hold of children’s minds, which 
that brother fortunately has, is not a gift that God has given to 
all his .servants. How shall we bring our children into our 
churches and make them participate in the service ? 

We can address them by name ; but shall we pass over all the 
classes in the congregation and address each by name ? We 
can gather illustrations that will be striking to them ; and none 


452 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. , 

the less so to all the rest. We can understand how other parts 
of the service can be made appropriate to children, and they 
participate in them ; but I for one would like to have the experi- 
ence of some good brother as to how we are to reach the chil- 
dren and give them a portion in the sermon. 

The attitude of the Session towards the Sunday-school, I 
think, is now so well defined, and so well understood, that the 
danger which threatened us but a little while ago is gone. To 
bring our influence to bear upon the children, we have all found 
in our experience as pastors, is the right arm of our strength , 
and I believe that the pastor who stands aloof from the Sunday- 
school and does not incorporate his whole being with it, suffers 
immeasurable loss. 

The Hon. Wm. E. Dodge, of New York.— I have felt for the last 
two or three years as though, before I died, I wanted a chance 
to say one word in relation to Sabbath-schools. Having been 
for thirty-five years a superintendent, it is not necessary for me 
to say that I love and honor the Sabbath-school. But for the 
last year or two I have had very serious fears in regard to it, 
especially in our city of New York— I will not speak outside of 
that. 

Children in our city, and especially those connected with our 
churches, are very differently situated from what they once 
were. Children of parents connected with the churches are 
burdened as they never were before with their weekly lessons. 
When I was young, and when I had a young family around me, 
in all our Presbyterian churches in New York it was the habit 
of parents to take with them their children to the weekly prayer- 
meeting or lecture. Now, the poor children come home with 
their arm full of daily lessons and the parents have not the heart 
to ask John or Mary to go with them to the evening meeting, 
because they must have their lessons ready for the morning ; 
and the child loses that love for the church service that we 
children used to have, and our children had when they were 
young. 

How is it on the Sabbath ? Most of our Sabbath-schools are 
in the morning ; the children go at half-past nine ; they have 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


453 


their lessons ; they take their lesson books ; and as we enter the 
sanctuary, the Sabbath-school is out, and we see the children, 
ten, twenty or thirty per cent, of them, with their library books 
in their hands, turning away from the house of God and going 
home to read their library books because they have had an hour 
and a half already, and the kind heart of the parent will not ask 
them to go into church. In the evening we have at the church 
a very meagre number of people, and only here and there a 
child. 

The fact is, that our children, our sons and our daughters, are 
growing up without a love for the Presbyterian Church ; and as 
they grow into manhood and womanhood, they like the popu- 
larity of some different church, and instead of being good Pres- 
byterians they are good Episcopalians or something else. Now, 
I love the Sabbath-school. I say Amen to every word our 
good brother has said. What would the West do without the 
Sabbath-schools ? But I do say that you had better keep your 
children at home, and never let them enter the Sabbath-school, 
if they, by attending it, leave the church, and lose their love for 
the church, and grow up without that. 

The Hon. Judge W. Strong. — I am very glad that Mr. Dodge 
has alluded to this phase of Sabbath-school instruction in this 
country. I have long had upon my heart a painful sense of what 
perhaps may be called an abuse of the Sabbath-school. I refer 
to the effect that Sabbath-schools have had — not a necessary effect, 
but still an unhappy effect — upon the Christian education of our 
children. I yield to no one in my esteem of the value of our 
Sabbath-school system, or of the instruction which is given in the 
Sabbath-school. It furnishes almost all the religious education 
that a large majority of the children and the youth of this country 
receive. A very large majority of the children who are gathered 
in our Sunday-schools are not the children of the church. 
They are, in a large measure, the children of those who do not 
attend churches ; and unless they have the benefit of Sabbath- 
school instruction they will have no religious education. Their 
parents will not give it to them, for their parents are not re- 
ligious. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


454 

But, so far as regards the children of our church members, are 
Sabbath-schools a benefit to them ? They ought to be, they 
might be ; but are they a benefit on the whole to the children 
of our Christian families? What has been the fact? What 
does the observation of all of us teach in regard to this matter ? 
Have not parents turned over the religious education of their 
children to the Sabbath-school teacher? And have they not 
treated the religious education of their children precisely as 
they treat their secular education ? They have said, “our chil- 
dren will receive their secular education from the week-day 
school-master;” and they have said in effect, “ our children will 
receive their religious education from the Sabbath-school 
teacher.” Now I hold that no Sabbath-school teacher, however 
competent he may be, can supply the place of the Christian 
father and the Christian mother. Nobody is as near to his 
child as the father, and, especially, the mother; and who does not 
know (though there are some most noble exceptions), that in a 
very large proportion of the Christian families in this country — 
aye, Presbyterian families — there is little attention paid by the 
father — more, I trust, by the mother — to the religious education 
of the child ; very little personal effort made to bring a child to 
Christ. 

It was not so in the days of my youth. I thank God I had 
a Christian father and a Christian mother, and that on every 
Sabbath day, as well as on other days, in the afternoon we 
gathered together and received the instruction of a father and a 
mother. We were taught the Westminster catechism ; we 
repeated it every Sabbath from beginning to end. I have it now 
in my memory, every question and every answer. Not only that, 
frequent appeals were made to us, and most tender appeals, by 
our parents, to give immediate attention to the subject of personal 
religion. Is that the case in Christian families now ? Why not ? 
Why it is because Christian parents have felt that they might 
roll over the responsibility of the religious education of tfieir 
children upon the Sabbath -school teacher. What I want is 
this : I want our ministers to spread before the churches, before 
Presbyterians in every church, the imperative duty of personally 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


455 

attending to the religious education of their children, and of 
personally leading their children to Christ, 

Hon. Peter S. Danforth, of New York. — We are entering 
now upon the .second century of Sabbath-schools. A hundred 
years ago, in a little, dark street in Gloucester, Robert Raikes 
started with his ragged school. Now what do we see ? 14,184,880 
children in the Sabbath-schools. “ What hath God wrought 
in the last one hundred years ! We start out with the watchword, 
“All the children for Jesus,” and shall it be said that we shall 
stop this work because Christian ministers and Christian parents 
do not discharge their duties? Are these reasons why we 
should lessen our effort in the Sabbath-school ? Oh, no ! If 
there are any Christian ministers who do not discharge their 
duty in this regard,. I pray them to be up and doing. If there 
are any Christian parents who fail to discharge their duties to 
their children, I pray them to be up and doing their duty. But 
do not let us stop one moment in the work of the Sabbath- 
school. Rather let our efforts be increased. It is not a time 
now to stop ; the time now is to increase our efforts. 

Only the day before yesterday I went into one of the model 
schools of this city, and how my heart rejoiced when I looked 
and found upon the record 2,200 children, and 145 or 150 
teachers enrolled. Why the work is a grand and glorious work, 
and it should not receive any diminution from the fact (if it is 
so, of which I am not aware except as I have heard some 
intimation here this evening) that Christian ministers and 
Christian parents are not discharging their duties to the children. 
I would have the efforts continually increase on the part of 
Christian people to engage in this work. 

I know that it has been charged against the Sabbath-school 
that children sometimes were left at home for the purpose of 
preparing their lessons for the school ; but if the parents will 
discharge their duty that will not be the case. The Sabbath- 
school has proved a nursery and a vineyard of the Lord. In 
this vast audience I ask, where is the Christian minister, where 
is the Christian anywhere on the face of the earth, that would 
say for a moment let us do away with the Sabbath-schools > 


456 THE PRESBYTERTAN ALLIANCE. 

About twenty-five years ago I said to a Christian man, \ on 
ought to have a Sabbath-school in your church. “ Oh, no,” 
says he, “ this is a new-fangled institution ; we will have nothing 
to do with it, and our Consistory are united in that idea ” and 
where is that church to day? It is out of existence. 

The Rev. James Nish, of Australia. — I have listened with the 
deepest interest to the admirable, instructive, and very effective 
papers to which we have been privileged to listen this evening. I 
have no doubt that their publication will do much to deepen the 
interest of Presbyterian churches throughout the world in the 
great work of the Sabbath-school ; and will also lead many of our 
ministers to introduce what Dr. Macleod has called the childien s 
portion into the sanctuary exercises. 

Reference was made by Dr. Mitchell to a statement which fell.from 
the lips of a member of this Council a few evenings ago. I think he 
misunderstood the drift of that statement. It was merely a play, 
ful hit at those who were afraid that innovations would be intro, 
duced into our service, a hint to them that there were some inno- 
vations in connection with Sabbath-school management on which 
it might do to keep their eye. But I am quite certain the learned 
brother who made this allusion did not intend to cast any reflec- 
tion on Sabbath-schools in general ; and I should deeply regret 
if this portion of the paper should be handed over to the pub- 
lication committee. The brother I am sure did not intend to 
reflect upon the management of Sabbath-schools, and assuredly 
the members of this Council did not applaud that sentiment; 
they merely joined in the playful hit. 

I do not know where the statistics which surround this room 
have been obtained. I am afraid that they are not altogether 
reliable; and, if they are to be published in the volume which is 
to be given forth from this Council, they should be accompanied 
by a note indicating that they are only approximate. 

I see in reference to Australia that the number of Sunday- 
schools is said to be 1,300. Australia is naturally misunder- 
stood. It is looked upon as a small island. I can assure 
you that it is not an island simply, but a continent, and 
will very shortly take its place, I hope, among the continents of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 457 

the world. There is no place where the work of Sabbath- 
school teaching excites a deeper interest, and where it is 
necessary that we should attend more thoroughly to this work 
of Sunday-school teaching; for I regret to say that in our 
public schools, at least in Victoria, which is one of the most 
important of the colonies, religious teaching is already prac- 
tically excluded, and we have therefore to depend upon the 
efficient manner in which our Sabbath-schools are conducted. 
We are giving much heed to this matter, and a far larger num- 
ber than 1,300 schools have been established, and a far larger 
number than 100,000 scholars meet from Sabbath to Sabbath 
in them. 

The Rev. James I. Brownson, D. D., of Washington, Pa. 

I wish, in a very few moments, to emphasize a point brought 
out by the first excellent paper, and to state that there is a neces- 
sity far greater than some of our brethren who have here spoken 
seem to recognize, for the union and identification of the Sab- 
bath-school with the church as part of it, as under its control 
not only, but its management, and dependent upon it for its life. 

I know that great progress has been made of late in this par- 
ticular. I know that pastors and sessions are more united with 
the Sabbath-schools than formerly ; and yet in some of the most 
carefully trained portions of the Church in this land, in precisely 
quarters where it might be less expected, there have been dem- 
onstrations of late of a contrary course to the detriment and peril 
of that spiritual jurisdiction in. the church without which the 
church and the Sabbath-school must jointly suffer. 

I can illustrate by the simple fact that, in the oldest and 
densest settlement of Presbyterians west of the Allegheny Moun- 
tains, that very question of jurisdiction over the Sabbath-school 
has risen under new forms, from influences derived from ex- 
ternal organizations, until the venerable presbytery with which 
I have the honor to be connected has been obliged, only within 
the last few weeks, to direct (not to recommend, but to direct) 
the session of one of the largest and most orthodox churches 
of Western Pennsylvania, one blest perhgps more than any other 
With that revival spirit to which many of you have referred, to 


458 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

take charge and jurisdiction of the Sabbath-school in that old 
and venerable church. Why ? Because through external in- 
fluences, improperly allowed I admit, the jurisdiction of the Sab- 
bath-school has been usurped, the literature of the Sabbath- 
school has been chosen, and the teachers have been regulated, 
by a power not only outside of the legitimate jurisdiction of the 
church, the pastor and the session, but in rivalry and contest 
with it, until the presbytery was obliged to intervene and declare 
the scriptural doctrine and the scriptural authority upon the 
question. 

Now that old question is not dead. It comes up in various 
forms. I admit that our excellent brother who read that excel- 
lent paper has given the chief reason why such a thing should 
not occur. I admit that if pastors and sessions were always in 
their places, were always so interested, so earnest, and so faith- 
ful in the great work of the Sabbath-school as to identify 
their own jurisdiction, their own work with it, such things 
could scarcely occur. But they do occur, and therefore 
it is necessary that the church, the mother of the Sabbath- 
school, the spiritual mother of the children of the covenant, 
should not only declare her own proper jurisdiction, but should 
wield it in the love of Jesus, and in fidelity to those who have 
been placed in charge of the lambs of the flock, and thus main- 
tain a loving practical union between the church and the Sab- 
bath-school. 

The Rev. Robert Howie, of Glasgow. — These unhappy dif- 
ferences between the church and the Sabbath-school would be 
avoided, not by any assertion of right on the part of the church, 
but by the minister and the office-bearers all taking their full 
share in Sabbath-school work. In my own congregation, with 
120 Sabbath-school teachers, we have between forty and fifty of 
our office-bearers taking part in that work ; and I do not find that 
there is any collision of the kind that has been here indicated. 

One of the most important questions we have to face, 
however, is that of getting the children into our churches. I 
am struck with the fact^that, considering the millions you have 
in your schools in America, you have only 120,000 coming from 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


459 


them annually into church-fellowship. It will take a long time to 
get the children into the church at that rate. I think that parents 
and teachers have a great deal of power in this matter. In my 
own congregation we have attending our services regularly 
about one hundred of the most hopeless, boys, orphan boys, that 
could be found in any community. In Canada I had the pleas- 
ure of meeting some of that class; and I hope the brethren 
there will take an interest in them. These boys worship 
regularly in my congregation. They are brought by their 
superintendent, they are carefully trained ; and I find that 
they are amongst the most intelligent of my audience. 
They can enter into the church services notwithstanding all the 
nonsense that we hear talked from time to time of the inability 
of children to understand church services. 

There is one other matter that I think attention ought to have 
been directed to this evening : the quality of our teachers — I 
mean their spiritual quality. Everything depends on the getting 
of converted teachers ; teachers who will aim at the conversion 
of the young. We have heard a great deal about instruction 
(and I indorse all that has been said as to the necessity of that), 
but should not teachers rather be aiming at immediate results ? 
I was asked to an annual union meeting in Canada in connec- 
tion with Sabbath-schools. After earnest addresses had been 
given to the children, I found to my great sorrow afterwards 
that the teachers had remained together and wound up the 
proceedings with a ball. If these are the kind of teachers who 
are engaged in the work, we had better have fewer of them ; 
better have those who are filled with the Holy Ghost and 
aiming at the conversion of the young. If they have that, 
I am sure the church will never come into conflict with 
them. 

Dr. Knox. — Does this evening close the discussion on this 
subject ? or will there be any other opportunity to say a word 
regarding Sunday-schools ? 

The Chairman. — That will rest with the Council ; they may 
extend the time or close it, I should say, whenever they think 
proper. 


460 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


The Council adjourned, with devotional services, to meet in 
Horticultural Hall to-morrow morning at 9.30 o’clock. 


SIXTH DAY’S SESSION. 

Wednesday, September 2(^th, 1880. 

The Council was called to order at 9.30 A. m., by the Rev. 
Thomas Main, D. D., of Edinburgh, President. 

The usual devotional services were held, and the minutes of 
yesterday’s meetings were read and approved. 

The Rev. Dr. Prime. — The trustees and faculty of Union 
College, Schenectady, N. Y., have cordially invited the members 
of the Council to visit the college and accept the hospitalities of 
’the institution. This invitation has been brought by President 
Potter, of the College, in person. I move that it be accepted, 
and that the members of the Council, after the adjournment, 
visit the institution, if they can find it convenient. 

The motion was agreed to. 

The Rev. Principal D. H. MacVicar, LL. D., of Montreal. 
— I submit the following report from the Committee on Cre- 
dentials : 

f 

Your committee have had before them two applications : First, 
from delegates from the Cumberland Presbyterian Church ; Second, 
from delegates from the Reformed Presbytery of Philadelphia. After 
a careful consideration of all the facts and claims in this connection, 
your committee recommend the adoption of the following minute : 
“ In the judgment of the Council, the adoption of the Constitution of 
the Alliance by churches should precede the admission of delegates ; 
and in the absence of evidence that the constitution has been adopted 
by either of these churches, the delegates cannot be received.” 

I may be allowed to explain that the committee has limited 
itself to the point mentioned in this minute. We have not gone 
into the merits of the case in any sense ; we have not considered 
what the views held by the two bodies mentioned may be. We 
have simply looked at the matter in the light of the Constitution, 
and submit this recommendation. 

It was moved and seconded that the report be accepted, and 
the motion was agreed to. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 461 

The Rev. Dr. Jenkins.— Is the report accepted or is it 
adopted ? 

The President. — It is adopted. 

The Rev. Prof. Bruce. — There is a misunderstanding among 
the members as to what has been done. • 

Principal MacVicar. — What is done is this: The Council 
has adopted this minute: In the judgment of the Council the 
adoption of the Constitution of the Alliance by churches should 
precede the admission of delegates ; and in the absence of evi- 
dence that the Constitution has been adopted by either of these 
churches their delegates cannot be received. 

Dr. Jenkins. — I move the adoption of that report. 

The President.— I understood that it was received and 
adopted. 

Dr. Jenkins.— “Accepted,” Mr. Chairman, not adopted. I 
move it be adopted. 

Principal MacVicar.— The reading of the article by the 
committee was to this effect : that the Church was required to 
signify its acceptance in some way of the faith of the Council. 

'’dr. Schaff.— Have these delegates refused to accept the 
Constitution ? 

Principal MacVicar.— As a committee, we did not feel that 
we were at liberty to put any such question ; that the churches 
themselves were to do so. 

Dr. Jenkins. — I would like to hear the article read. 

Professor Bruce. — I wish to know whether, as a matter of 
fact, all the churches here represented have formally adopted the 
Constitution. 

The Chairman.— Yes, they have accepted it. 

Professor Bruce.— Have we documentary evidence of that? 
The Rev. Dr. Mathews.— In 1875 there was a conference 
held in London, when the Constitution of the Alliance was pre- 
pared. At that meeting it was agreed that the churches whose 
delegates were there should be held as constituting the Alliance. 
It wL further agreed : “That it should be publicly announced 
that Presbyterian churches desiring admission to the Alliance 
should forward their application to the’ general committee at 


464 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

footing. It is for this Council to declare whether the more hasty 
method of admission that was necessary in Edinburgh, is to be 
the method that is to be sanctioned for all time. 

The Rev. James Nish, of Australia. — We ought to adjourn 
the discussion of this question until to-morrow morning. There 
should, moreover, be an addition made to the standing orders 
of this’ Council. In the church with which I am connected, we 
have as a standing order, that no report shall be considered by 
our Assembly, unless it has been printed and put into the hands 
of the members. It is impossible for us to arrive at a satisfac- 
tory conclusion in regard to reports that are read one minute to 
be determined on the next. Several matters have been disposed 
of in that way in the Council. You are introducing a very dan- 
gerous practice. All reports that are submitted to this Council 
for approval should be printed, and be in the hands of members 
at least half an hour before you arrive at a decision upon them. 

This question is a very important one. It will affect all 
churches that are to apply in the future for admission into this 
Alliance. We should not be hasty in our decision— we can well 
enough wait until to-nio'rrow. It is more than likely these 
churches will not be received into the Alliance during this ses- 
sion of the Council. If in order, I will give notice of the adop- 
tion of such a new standing order, as I have indicated ; and I 
move now that we defer further discussion on this question until 
to-morrow morning. 

Principal McVicar. — I wish to call the attention of the Conn- 
cil to the simple fact that it is quite needless to remit the report 
to the committee ; for as it is now constituted it is unanimous. 
The only course I can see for the Council to take, is itself to de- 
clare whether the adoption of the Constitution is to be required 
or not. It is not competent for the committee to do so. We 
interpret the existing legislation of the Council in that direction. 
That may Be wrong ; we have no wish to press that ; we have 
no wish to exclude these churches; we have no wish in the case 
at all ; and we simply bring the matter in the form in which it 
stands for your action. 

It is of no use, however, to send it back to us, unless you tell 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


465 


us that the adoption of the Constitution is either required, or 
not required. Tell us that and we shall be able to do some^ 
thing ; otherwise we can do nothing. 

Wm. P. Webb, Esq., Eutaw, Alabama. — I move that the re- 
port be laid on the table, and be made the order of the day for 
to-morrow, at ten o’clock, or at any other hour the Council can 
conveniently consider it. 

The Rev. James Nish. — That motion is the same as mine. 

The Rev. C. A. Dickey, D. D., of Philadelphia. — It is very 
evident that there is a great division of opinion in connection 
with this matter ; but it is one that must ultimately be settled by 
the committee. This Council must have confidence in its com- 
mittees, or its business will not be satisfactorily presented. You 
wilPpay a very poor token of respect to the gentlemen who have 
taken so much trouble in connection with this matter, if you 
carry a resolution recommitting the report. I do not believe 
that any one of the members of the committee would, under 
such circumstances, act again. Dr. McVicar has intimated to 
that effect ; therefore, under all the circumstances of the case, it 
is desirable that the matter should receive much more mature 
consideration than it can possibly receive if it should be brought 
up again to-morrow, and discussed in the same desultory man- 
ner that it has been discussed to-day. 

All the churches in the Alliance should enter through the 
door. One of the great dangers to which we shall be exposed 
will be the admission, through some rapid and desultory way, of 
churches with which the great body of the Council are not in 
full and thorough sympathy. I therefore think we should, at 
once and without any qualification, accept the resolution of the 
committee. It is not the exclusion of the churches that have 
applied : that is not the effect of the resolution that has been 
proposed ; but simply the recommendation that the matter be 
more maturely and gravely considered than is possible under the 
circumstances surrounding us now. 

The Rev. Prof. Bruce, of Glasgow. — I desire to give notice 
of this motion : that the application of these two churches be 
regarded as sufficient evidence of the acceptance of the Consti- 
30 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


466 

tution of this Alliance ; and that accordingly their deputies be 
received. 

The Rev. Principal Rainy, of Edinburgh.— In general I agree 
with the report of the committee, though there is, in my mind, 
a doubt about the phrase which the committee has suggested. 
It is a question whether “ the adoption of the Constitution of the 
Alliance ” is a wise and safe phrase in which to put the general 
meaning of the committee. Even if I fully agree with the com- 
mittee, as very likely I might do, I should require time to con- 
sider whether that is the proper phrase in which to put the 
distinctive finding of the Council. 

Dr. Dickey. — I feel very confident that the chairman of the 
committee is fully able to defend his report ; but, at his request, 
I would like to make a word or two of explanation of the action 
of the committee. There are some things, which, if the Council 
would keep in mind, would settle this question without much 
further debate or discussion. This Committee on Credentials 
has been very careful not to assume the responsibility of decid- 
ing on the admission of the churches. 

Prof. Bruce. — I speak to order. Notice of motion has been 
given. This gentleman is going into the merits of the case. 

The Rev. Dr. Boggs, of Atlanta, Georgia. — I rise to a point 
of order. A motion has been made and seconded, and is before 
the Council, to lay the report on the table until to-morrow morn- 
ing at ten o’clock. Such a motion is not debatable. 

The President. — The chair does not understand that the mo- 
tion has been seconded. 

Principal McVicar. — The motion was to adjourn the discus- 
sion. 

The Rev. Dr. DeWitt. — I rise to ask the unanimous consent 
of the Council that the Rev. Dr. Dickey, in behalf of the com- 
mittee that he represents, may make a statement. If this matter 
is to be discussed to-morrow morning, it is important that this 
Council should have the views of the committee before them in 
order to prepare for the debate. Dr. Dickey appears upon 
your platform as a member of that committee, making a state- 
ment in behalf of the committee. Is it not right that this 


SECOND GEANEAL COUNCIL. 467 

Council should give him unanimous consent to make that state- 
ment ? 

Dr. Dickey. — I am very much obliged to my brother for his 
courtesy ; but I have this floor by right, I think, and not by 
courtesy. 

Hon. Samuel Sloan, of New York. — The great difficulty with 
the Council is, that we do not know what the motion is. There 
are two or three motions, one after another. 

The President. — Allow me a single word. It is true, as has 
been said, that there are several motions before the Coun- 
cil, and they do seem somewhat at variance with one another, 
and not to be very direct upon the point before us. In the 
country from which I come, the first motion that would be 
allowed to be submitted would be the question on the adoption 
of the report or not. That motion would take precedence. 
Anything else as a substitute for it could be introduced. The 
chair understands, therefore, that the question before the Coun- 
cil is this first of all : Is this report to be adopted or not ? 

The Rev. James Nish. — It is in perfect order, when the adop- 
tion of a motion is moved, to move that its consideration be de- 
ferred. That is perfectly competent, and that is the motion I 
submit, that we defer the consideration of this report until to- 
morrow morning. 

Dr. Goold. — In favor of this motion, I withdraw my motion 
to the effect that the report shall be recommitted. 

Prof. Bruce. — I wish the chairman would instruct me how 
the motion which I put into his hands would be in order. I 
wish to bring it before the house. 

Dr. Dickey. — I do not think the floor should be taken from 
me for any other thing — 

Prof. Bruce (interrupting). — My motion was given notice of 
before this gentleman spoke. I wish to have that stated to the 
house. 

The President. — As I understand it, there are two motions 
before the house at present : the one is the adoption of the re- 
port, which rnotion has been moved and seconded ; the other is, 
that the consideration of this question be deferred until to- 


463 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


morrow morning. In the meantime there is a proposal from 
Prof. Bruce, and it would be well for him to read what motion 
he is prepared to suggest. 

Prof. Bruce. — The motion I gave notice of is this : that the 
applications of the two churches named be regarded as sufficient 
evidence of their acceptance of the Constitution of the Alliance; 
and that therefore their deputies be received as members of this 
Council. 

The President. — You should make that motion, and that will 
be a third motion. 

Hon. Samuel Sloan, of New York. — This confusion arises 
from the different parliamentary practice in the old country and 
in this. In the old country you can put one motion after an- 
other, in the order in which they v/ere made, having three or 
four before the house at once. Every man speaks on his own 
motion, and then motion is put against motion. But according 
to American parliamentary order, we can have but one motion 
at once, with amendments to be voted on first. 

Dr. Blaikie. — The first motion before us is that the report 
be adopted. Suppose that the Council should approve of that 
motion, would that exclude the consideration of the two amend- 
ments ? 

Dr. Schaff. — We have to vote on the amendment first; and, 
if that is lost, we go back to the original resolution. It is ac- 
cording to American rule to vote on the amendment first. 

The President. — It seems as if it would only be right that 
Dr. Dickey, who is to speak for the committee, should be heard 
by the Council. 

Dr. Lang, of Glasgow. — Dr. Bruce’s motion has not been 
seconded. I would submit that as a point of order. 

The President. — Is any one prepared now to second it? 

The motion was seconded by a delegate. 

Dr. Dickey. — I was challenged yesterday on the street with 
the charge of having kept silent an entire week in this Council. 
I am very sorry that when I rise simply to make a few words of 
explanation I should cause the introduction of such a confusion. 
I would like briefly to give the history of these two cases as they 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


469 


present themselves to the committee. The committee made its 
first report, which was not considered as definitely stating what 
we knew to be the mind of the committee, but which has been 
definitely stated to-day. That report was recommitted on the 
motion of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Day), although 
in a rather informal manner, without any reconsideration. Yet 
the committee, because they wanted to harmonize the Council 
in this matter, received it as they sent it back to us. 

What we want to keep in mind is the fact that there are two 
questions involved — the one the question of the credentials of 
certain men who apply to this Council for admission, and the 
other the question of the standards, or rules, or qualifications, or 
conditions of certain churches which are represented by these 
individual men. The committee has only undertaken to settle 
one question, namely, whether these brethren, coming with cer- 
tain papers, have sufficient credentials to enter this particular 
Council at this particular time. We have not gone into the 
greater question — whether the churches which they represent 
should be represented in this Council. We feel that that is too 
solemn a question to be decided in the rush and confusion of a 
morning’s debate. We believe — and have enough faith in the 
purpose of this Council — we believe, as a committee, that such 
a question should be put by this Council into the hands of a 
special committee to decide whether or not, or by what means, 
these churches, or any other churches that may apply for ad- 
mission into this Council, shall be received. Are we ready, as 
a Council, to take the position that we are nothing but a ball of 
rolling snow, that will gather everything in its path ? If so, like 
the ball of snow, we will melt on the first suns that come upon 
us. And therefore your committee has endeavored to hedge 
the Council. We have not gone into the merits of the case in 
any way, either as they pertain to the individual men, or as they 
pertain to the principles of the church involved. 

Is it not more important that this Council shall be a unit 
than that two or three individuals shall, at the close of the ses- 
sion, have the simple privilege of wearing the blue badge of a 
delegate for two days } Is it not a far more important matter 


470 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


that this Council should preserve its unity, its harmony and 
its consistency ? Is not this Council, in view of its third meet- 
ing, ready to take some sort of stand as to what terms of ad- 
mission shall be made, as to whether there shall be a door or 
not to it ? If it is to be all door, then I am afraid we shall have 
few commissioners to sit among you in such a solemn conclave 
as this. 

I hope that this point which I try to make will be kept clear. 
As a member of this committee, having sat solemnly on this 
question for nearly a week, what I would like to see done to 
the report would be to soften it, if it seems a little too strong, to 
the extent of not having the churches represented formally at 
this Council. Then let this committee, or another competent 
committee, take the whole matter into consideration, and by. the 
next meeting of the Council, when we go to the Green Isle, I 
hope that the committee will be able to prepare such conditions, 
and to prepare them so plainly, that under the tent of our Mod- 
erator we shall all meet, not however in the distraction in which 
we would meet if we were to press it now, but in the harmony 
and unity that should be the exponent of Presbyterianism. 

The Rev. A. M. Milligan, D. D. — There is a confusion as 
to what is the point before us. One class of the Council regard 
this question as one of opening the door to all bodies who 
would apply for membership. That point has been referred to a 
committee to report upon it at the next meeting of the Council 
in Belfast, and we cannot touch upon that now, reconsidering 
the act by which it was so put into the hands of the committee. 
The point before us is simply this: shall members of these 
churches, before the churches themselves are received into the 
Alliance, be recognized on this floor ? That is the question be- 
fore us, and not the question of receiving the churches which 
they represent into the Alliance. 

The Rev. W. P. Breed, D. D. — We are a young body, and 
we are feeling our way to something clear and definite. If the 
Alliance is to continue, it will be very necessary that we act 
cautiously, and take no rash steps. I feel the intensest interest in 
the continuance and prosperity of this body. So far we have ad- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


471 


vanced step by step, and I hope during this Council that we 
shall take no step rashly. If I understand Prof. Bruce’s motion, 
it would certainly destroy the Alliance. Dr. Samuel Cox 
used to say of a certain minister that he would baptize anything 
that would hold still long enough ; and Prof. Bruce’s motion 
will admit anything into this body that will make application. 
“ The application on the part of these brethren to come into this 
body is prima facie evidence that they ought to be admitted.” 
There is not a body pf Christians in the land, or of unchristians 
either, or of anybody else, that might not come in on such a 
proposition, if I understand it. I hope this matter will be passed 
over for the present, and not passed here in the midst of this 
present excitement ; because one single false step might prove 
to be a fatal one. 

The Rev. Robert Watts, D. D., of Belfast. — I agree with 
my brother Dr. Breed, that if we wish to dissolve this Alliance, 
we will pass Prof Bruce’s motion. Our Constitution has been 
appealed to. I would ask your attention to the second article of 
that Constitution, which makes it a condition of membership that 
the church applying shall have “ a creed in harmony with the 
consensus of the Reformed Confessions.” 

Is there any evidence that one of these churches in particular 
has a confession or creed that is in harmony with the con.sensus 
of the Reformed Confessions ? There is evidence to the con- 
trary ; and I trust this Council will not admit a body that is 
known to have a confession that is not in harmony with the 
consensus. 

The President. — I appeal to the Council to this effect. I think 
it of great importance that we should maintain harmony as far as 
possible; and it seems to me that the question of the admission 
of these few delegates to this Council is practically at this stage 
of our proceedings of no consequence whatever. If you 
adopt the report of the committee, with the softening indication 
that Dr. Dickey gave, you commit yourselves in the meantime 
to nothing ; and you reserve the general question for the con- 
sideration of the Council at Belfast, when the report of the Com- 
mittee on Applications to which reference has been made will 


472 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


b2 brought up for consideration. In point of fact there is prac- 
tically nothing before this Council, except the question whether 
these few brethren shall be admitted for three days to be mem- 
bers of this Council. 

The Rev. D. J. Macdonell, B. D., of Toronto. — It may seem 
a small matter whether four or five gentlemen have the right to sit 
here for two or three days. It seems to me if there be nothing 
more, there is a point of courtesy involved even in that. We 
have kept them sitting here, while we shoved the question off 
from Wednesday to Thursday, from Thursday to Friday, from 
Friday to Saturday, from Saturday to Monday, from Monday to 
Tuesday and to Wednesday, and here we are. Now we are begin- 
ning to say there is no use touching it at all. An amendment 
which I propose to submit is to insert, in room of the closing 
words of the report of the committee, some such words as these : 
“ without deciding finally the question of the admission to the Al- 
liance of the churches named, the delegates be recognized in the 
meantime and admitted to all the rights and privileges of mem- 
bers of Council at this meeting ; and that the whole question of 
the mode of admission of churches to the Alliance be remitted 
to a committee to report at the next meeting of the Council.” 
That would not close the question of the admission of these 
churches, a^jd, for that matter, it would not close the question of 
the admission of the churches that are already represented here; 
for it appears that there has been no very formal rule applied to 
the admission of members. We are beginning to draw the cords 
very tight now in connection with two churches that are desirous 
of being members of the Alliance. They have shown their desire 
certainly ; for otherwise what would be the sense of appointing 
delegates ? and what would be the sense of gentlemen coming and 
sitting on the floor of this Council Alliance, patiently and cour- 
teously holding their tongues until they have a right to speak, 
if those churches do not adopt the Constitution in spirit, and if 
they do not want to be recognized as members of the Alliance ? 
If there is any reasoning that commends itself to me, it is the 
reasoning of Prof. Bruce that these churches have shown their 
desire to be in the Alliance with us. I confess for my part I do 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 473 

not see the tremendous principle involved in receiving these 
gentlemen courteously, without deciding finally the admission 
of their respective churches. 

Dr. Watts has introduced the question of the orthodoxy of 
one of the churches. All I have to say is, that that does not 
come out in the report of the committee, and some of us do not 
know anything about it at all — do not know whether the church 
is orthodox or heretical. If that had been brought in by the 
committee, we should have to deal with it. All we know is, that 
here are two Presbyterian churches which have appointed dele- 
gates to this Assembly. What I would like to see done is to 
have a vote taken first on Prof. Bruce’s amendment. If it carries, 
good and well. Then I would like to see adopted the amend- 
ment which I have read. 

The Rev. Prinxipal Rainy. — I am not disposed to overrate the 
importance of the admission or non-admission of the churches ; 
but I should not think it would be a very desirable thing to 
admit these brethren who now appear as delegates, and after- 
wards seriously to raise the question of excluding the churches 
whom they represent. On the other hand, I do not proceed 
upon the ground laid down by Prof. Watts. I know nothing, as 
a member of this Council, of the Constitution or the documents 
connected with the creed of these churches, and I do not pro- 
ceed upon any consideration of that kind in the view I take of 
the pending question. The report of the committee implies 
that adopting the Constitution of this Alliance by a church is a 
proper foundation for sending delegates to the Council. Now 
there may be a question in our minds as to what the meaning is 
of adopting the Constitution. In point of fact, it is a question 
whether the churches that are here represented have adopted 
that Constitution. I think it is very likely that many members 
of the Council legitimately hesitate about adopting that phrase 
and the principle it seems to carry ; but it appears to me that 
it would be more reasonable to adopt a motion of this kind . 
"Resolved, That the Council are unable, hoc statu, to admit as 
members brethren representing churches whose relation to the 
Constitution has not been explained and cannot now be con- 


474 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


sidered.” Then further, the Council might resolve at a future 
day to appoint a committee to consider the whole matter of the 
admission of churches who may in future send delegates to 
meetings of the Council. 

Principal McVicar. — As far as I can understand or interpret 
the minds of the committee, we should have no objection at all 
to what Principal Rainy proposes. 

James Macdonald, Esq., of Edinburgh. — The papers which 
are handed to us are dated respectively the 13th and 17th of 
September, and the way in which they have been sent to us 
— addressed, not to the clerks of the Council, but to the Local 
Business Committee in Philadelphia — disposes effectually of the 
question of courtesy. 

Principal Rainy’s amendment was agreed to, and the report as 
so amended was adopted. 

The first order of the day would have been the reading of a 
paper on The Theology of the Reformed Church, by the Rev. 
Prof. J. J. Van Oosterzee, D. D., of Utrecht. Being unable to 
attend in person, he had sent his paper, which was committed 
to the Editorial Committee for publication. It will be found i^ 
the Appendix, p. 914. 

The Rev. Prof. Alexander Mitchell, D. D., of St. Andrews, 
then read the following paper on 

THE THEOLOGY OF THE REFORMED CHURCH WITH 
SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE WESTMINSTER 
STANDARDS. 

The Westminster Assembly meant their Confession to be in har- 
mony with the consensus of the Reformed Churches, and especially 
of the British Churches, as expressed in their respective symbols. 
They meant it to be a bond of union, not a cause of strife or division, 
among those who held fast the sum and substance of the doctrine of 
the Reformed Churches. And in that logical and system-loving age, 
it was thought that they had been wonderfully successful in carrying 
out their intentions. Their work, according to Baillie, was “ cried 
up by many of their greatest opposites as the best Confession yet 
extant.” Even Baxter spoke of it as the most excellent for fulness 
and exactness he had ever read from any church, and, with all his 
individualism, could fix on nothing in it as contrary to his iudgrp^^-^t, 
save a few minute things which, he did not deny, were capable of a 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


475 


benign interpretation. The Church of Scotland adopted it as being 
in nothing contrary to her received doctrine. The English Presby- 
terians petitioned the English Parliament to sanction it, and it was, 
with a few well-known exceptions^ sanctioned by it, and substantially 
acquiesced in by Indepehdents and Baptists, as well as Presbyterians. 
In our day a less favorable view has been taken of it by many, and not 
a few hard things have been said of it — some by professed friends, 
more by avowed opponents of its teaching. In the introduction to 
the published volume of the “Minutes of the Assembly,” I endeav- 
ored to vindicate it from the more serious charges which had been 
brought against it, and claimed for it that the justice should be done 
it to read it in the light of the writings and known sentiments of the 
men who drew it up ; and less exclusively, than has long been done in 
the light of the teaching and traditions of later times, to separate it 
from those accretions which in the lapse of centuries have gathered 
round it, and in any measure obscured its fair form and true propor- 
tions. I abide by what I then said as to the inspiration and conse- 
sequent canonicity and authority of Holy Scripture, and as to the 
doctrines of the blessed Trinity; of Christ the Mediator; of redemp- 
tion, justification and sanctification through him ; of the Sabbath, and 
of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper ; and especially of the myste- 
rious doctrine of predestination ; and beg you, breviiatis causa, to 
hold as here repeated what I there advanced. Since that time, the 
last named doctrine has been anew assailed and misrepresented by 
some, of whom better things might have been expected. It has been 
asserted in particular, that they who hold the doctrine as there set 
forth cannot preach to their perishing fellow-sinners the love of God 
and the freeness of Christ’s salvation. I deem it a sufficient reply to 
such assertions to call attention to the fact, that they have never ceased 
faithfully and fully to preach these great truths, and that none have 
ever done so with more winning tenderness, or more marked success, 
than the men who thoroughly accepted its teaching on this mysterious 
subject, as Rutherford and Leighton, "Sedgewick, Arrowsmith, Cal- 
amy and Bunyan in the seventeenth century; Willison, Boston, 
Whitfield, Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine in the eighteenth, and Chal- 
mers, M’Cheyne, Spurgeon, Nicolson and Crawford, and many hon- 
ored brethren in your own land, in our own day. By none in recent 
times has the general Fatherhood of God been more resolutely and 
successfully defended than by the last named of these British divines, 
who was fully persuaded that in this, as in other articles of his creed, 
he was following faithfully in the footsteps of the Westminster divines. 
Even the so-called “grim” Synod of Dordt denounced it as a cal- 
umny against the Reformed Churches, to assert that they held “ that 
God of his own absolute or arbitrary will, and without any respect of 
sin, hath foreordained or created any part of mankind to be damned, 
or that his decree is in any such sense the cause of sin or of final 
unbelief, as it is the cause of faith and good works ; ” and, as Dr. 
Cairns told you yesterday, asserted in unmistakable terms that no man 


476 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


to whom the gospel was offered, perished from any insufficiency in the 
atonement of Christ, but because he, by unbelief, rejected the remedy. 
It has been said by one whom we all honor and esteem for the many 
services he rendered to the Presbyterian Churches, that “while the 
[old] Scottish Confession bears the impress of Knox, and the Thirty- 
nine Articles that of Melanchthon, the Westminster Confession, sub- 
stantially the same in doctrine, bears unmistakably the stamp of the 
Dutch theology in the sharp distinctions, logical forms, and juridical 
terms into which the Reformed theology had gradually moulded itself 
under the red heat of the Arminian and Socinian controversies.” 
This was meant, no doubt, in part of that doctrine of the covenants 
or federal theology which many in Britain and Germany have been 
accustomed to associate too exclusively with the name of Cocceius, 
and to trace too confidently to the influence which the jurists of his 
age had on him. Hallam, one of the most accurate of English 
writers, has distinctly traced this tendency to him, affirming that 
Cocceius “was remarkable for having viewed, more than any pre- 
ceding writer, all the relations between God and man under the form 
of covenants, and introduced the technical language of jurisprudence 
into theology ; “ “ that this became a very usual mode of treating the 
subject in Holland, and afterwards in England.” Dr. Hodge showed 
you yesterday that some of these juridical terms were not unknown 
even to the Roman Catholic theologians before the Reformation, and 
to the theologians of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches from their 
origin ; and only last year we have, for the first time, been put into a 
position to affirm that the federal theology as it is called is not of 
such recent origin in the Reformed Church, as the above statements 
had led many to suppose. In the remarkable work of Dr. Heinrich 
Heppe on the history of Pietism and Mysticism in the Reformed 
Church, published at Leyden in 1879, there is a very important 
chapter on the federal theology of the Reformed Church, in which its 
history and development in Holland and Germany previous to the 
time of Cocceius is distinctly trnced and clearly demonstrated. The 
only regret of readers in America and Britain must be, that an author 
who had so carefully examined the writings of their puritan forefathers, 
and lovingly vindicated for them a high place in the development of 
pietism and of the inner religious life in the Reformed Church, should 
have given no detailed account of what they achieved in the related 
department of federal theology, but contented himself with quoting 
the statements from our standards, as sufficient proof that in Britain, 
as well as in Holland, opinion had been fully matured on that subject 
before the time of Cocceius. I have thought I could not better fulfil 
the task your committee have laid on me than by devoting the first 
part of this paper to a very brief account of what had been taught and 
held in Britain on the doctrine of the covenants before the middle of 
the seventeenth century. I have little doubt that Heppe is right in 
tracing back the doctrine to Alasco and his East Friesland congre- 
gation, or to Henry Bullinger— the successor of Zwingli at Zurich — 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


477 


whose writings in his own day were only less influential than those of 
his great Genevese contemporary, and whose relations with the Eng- 
lish Reformers were even more close and cordial. It falls to be traced 
back, however, in his writings not merely to the year 1556’ as Heppe 
tells us, when he first published his Compendium Rebgioms Chnis- 
tiance.,^^ but to the year 1534, when he first published his treatise, ‘ De 
Tesiammto seu Eoedere Dei unico et eterno.'" This was two years 
before Calvin had given to the world, even in its most rudimentary 
form, his immortal “Institutes,” and from that date onwards the 
Reformed Church may be said to have had from one of its most 
trusted leaders, though in brief form, a pretty definite account of 
God’s gracious dealings with our race under the form of a covenant 
of grace, and, at the same time, a pretty distinct statement of its im- 
portant place in the system of revealed truth — containing the germ, in 
fact, of our Protestant historical theology: [Nn hisce porro brevtssimis 
capitibus foederis tota consistit summa pietatis^ into nihil aliud omnium 
cetaium sanciis, per universam scripturam traditum constat, quam quod 
hisce capitibus comprehensum est nisi quod successione temporum singula 
fusius ct clarius exposita sunU' About the very time when the first 
edition of this treatise appeared at Zurich, references, somewhat 
indefinite no doubt, are made to the covenants by Tyndale, the Eng- 
lish reformer and martyr, in his prologues to more than one of the 
books of Scripture translated by him; and the year after the^cord 
edition appeared, the doctrine contained in it was taught at Oxtorcl 
by Peter Martyr, in his lectures on the Epistle to the Romans ; at 
Cambridge by Martin Bucer, in his lectures on the Epistle to the 
Ephesians, and at London by John Masco, who, with his congrega- 
tion, had been invited over by Edward VL, the young king, and 
thic Hnrtrine in his catechism and baptismal service. 



iiroof that he was acquainted with, ana to a ceridui r ’ 

the teaching of the Herborne school on this and some related subje s. 


47S 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


I cannot confidently trace any such decided connection between 
the writers of that school and Whitaker, Perkins and Preston, the 
leaders according to Heppe in the pietistic and practical puritan 
movement at Cambridge, and who treat more or less fullv of the doc- 
trine of the covenants and its place in theology. Dr. Preston, like 
Andrew Melville, makes explicit mention of the covenant of works, 
as well as of the covenant of grace. “ You must know,” he tells his 
hearers, “that there is a double covenant. There is a covenant of 
works, and a covenant of grace, . . . The covenant of works runs in 
these terms: ‘Do this and thoti shalt live, and I will be thy God.’ 
d'his is the covenant which was made with Adam, and which is ex- 
pressed by Moses in the moral law. Do this and live. The second is the 
covenant of grace, and that runs in these terms : ‘ Thou shalt believe, 
thou shalt take my Son for thy Lord and thy Saviour, and tliou shalt 
likewise receive the gift of righteousness, which was wrought by him 
for an absolution of thy sins, for a reconciliation with me, and there- 
upon thou shalt grow up in love and obedience towards me, and I 
will be thy God and thou shalt be my people. This is the covenant 
of grace. Thou shalt believe, and take my Son and accept the gift of 
righteousness, and I will be thy God,’ ” This is the doctrine which 
was taught and somewhat expanded by Cartwright, Davenant, 
Downame, Amesius, Twisse, Ussher, Slater, Roger and others before 
the meeting of the Westminster Assembly. In many of the catechisms 
published in the first half of the seventeenth century, as explicit refer- 
ence is made to the doctrine of the covenants as in the catechisms 
composed by the Westminster Assembly. In fact the treatises of 
Rollock, Slater and two or three others are in catechetical form, show- 
ing how important it was deemed to be, carefully to inculcate this 
doctrine and give prominence to it. But the most remarkable of all 
the works on this subject, which appeared in England before the 
middle of the seventeenth century, is unquestionably Ball’s “ Treatise 
of the Covenant of Grace, wherein the gradual breakings out of 
gospel grace from Adam to Christ are clearly discovered, the differ- 
ences between the Old and New Testament are laid open, divers 
errors of Arminians and others are confuted, the nature of up- 
rightness and the way of Christ in bringing the soul into communion 
with himself ... are solidly handled.” This is valuable, not only as 
one of the fullest and most mature specimens of puritan teaching on 
the subject of the covenants completed just before its author’s death 
in 1640, and published after the assembly had actually commenced its 
sittings, but still more as having been edited by Simeon Ashe, a 
well-known member of the assembly, and ushered in with two addresses 
to the reader ; the one signed by him and the other by five other dis- 
tinguished members of the assembly, Reynolds, Cawdrey, Calamy, 
Hill and Burgess ; both addresses highly commending the author and 
his work, and expressing a hope that by the faithful improvement of 
his labors the reader’s knowledge of the federal transactions, between 
God and his people through Jesus Christy may be much augmented. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


479 


It treats first of the various significations of the words ‘‘covenant” 
and “testament,” distinguishes between a covenant and a simple 
])romise on the one hand, and a law on the other, defines covenant in its 
most general acceptation as signifying a free promise of God, but with 
stipulation of duty from the reasonable creature, “ a mutual compact or 
agreement betwixt God and man, whereby God promiseth all good things, 
especially eternal happiness, unto man upon just, equal and favorable 
conditions, and man doth promise to walk before God in all acceptable, 
free, willing obedience, expecting all good from God and happiness 
in God. Then, descending to particulars, it treats briefly of the first 
covenant made with man at his creation, termed the covenant of 
works or of nature, and goes on to define the covenant of grace as 
that free and gracious promise which God of his mere mercy made in 
Jesus Christ, with man, a miserable and wretched sinner, promising 
unto him pardon of sin and eternal happiness, if he will return from 
his iniquities, embrace mercy reached forth by faitli unfeigned, and 
walk before God in sincere, faithful and willing obedience as becomes 
. . . the partakers of such precious promises.” “ The covenant was 
made in Christ, in and through whom we are reconciled unto God ; 
sins were never remitted unto any man, no man was ever adopted into 
the place and condition of a son by grace and adoption, but by him 
alone who is the same, yesterday, and to-day, and forever, Jesus Christ, 
true God and true man.” “ Externally this covenant is said to be 
made with every member of the Church, even with the parents and 
their children, so many as hear and embrace the promises of salva- 
tion, give and dedicate their children unto God according unto his 
direction ; for the sacraments, what are they but seals of the covenant ? 
but savingly and effectually, and in ‘special manner, it is made only 
with them who are partakers of the benefit promised. And as the 
covenant is made outwardly or effectually, so some are the people of 
God externally and others internally and in truth.” The author, 
then, deals with the matter historically, and treats at greater length 
than had been done till his time, or probably was done again till the 
time of Witsius, of the covenant of grace as revealed to Adam immedi- 
ately upon his fall— of the same as made and manifested to Abraham, 
to Moses, to David, and to Israel after the captivity, and finally under 
the New Testament, dwelling at length on the nature and extent of 
Christ’s mediatorial work, and the manner in which he actually brings 
his people into covenant with him. Ihe same year that Ball s treatise 
was published, there also issued from an English press an edition 
of a remarkable work on the same subject written on this side of the 
Atlantic, and bearing the title, “A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace, 
as it is dispensed to the Elect Church effectually unto salvation, being 
the substance of divers sermons upon Acts vii. 8, by that eminently 
holv and judicious man of God, Mr. John Cotton, teacher of the 
Church at Boston ; ” and in the succeeding year there was published 
also in England the following treatise from this side: “The Gospel 
Covenant; or, the Covenant of Grace opened, wherein are explained; 


48 o 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


ist. The differences between the covenant of grace and the cove- 
nant of works; 2d. The different administrations of the covenant 
before and since Christ; 3d. The benefits and blessings of it; 4th. 
The conditions ; 5th. The properties of it — preached at Concord, in 
New England, by Peter Bulkley, sometime Fellow of John’s College, 
Cambridge.” 

Several other treatises by Blake, Strong and Rutherford followed 
within a few years — all in harmony with what the Westminster divines 
had formulated, and tending to show how deep an interest had been 
awakened among our puritan forefathers on both sides of the Atlantic 
on this subject before the treatise of Cocceius appeared, and still more 
before it was cast into its ultimate shape. It is the more necessary to 
draw attention to the fact that this was not its original shape, as 
Hallam has given as the title of the edition of 1648 what was only 
adopted as the title of the edition of 1654. The former bore the title 
of Col/ationes de Testamento et Fcedere Pei ad illustrandum 
methodwn et analogian doctrince pietatis in Scripturis traditam^''^ 
and consisted simply of a series of disputations or academical exposi- 
tions, forty-nine in number. It was the latter which bore the title, 
^Bumma Doctrince de Fcedere et Testamento Dei Explicata,^' and 
was divided into sixteen chapters, and in many respects recast. 

I come now to the second part of my paper. 

There are two or three topics of minor importance which I could 
not take up in the introduction to the “Minutes of the Assembly,” 
but which in consequence of prevalent misunderstandings I should like 
to notice on this occasion. They really are matters of minor importance, 
and it might fairly be said that not one of them is essential or even 
material to the Reformed system of doctrine, or ought to be regarded 
as imposed on the conscience in the same way as matters entering into 
the sum and substance or the system of the Reformed doctrine. But 
this is not all that can be said about them, or that it is expedient 
should be said now that currency has been given to so many un- 
guarded statements about them. The first to which I advert is the 
question so often and confidently propounded of late, that the Con- 
fession represents the creation of the world as having taken place in 
six “ natural or literal days,” which almost all orthodox divines now 
grant that it did not. But the whole ground for the assertion is fur- 
nished by the words “ natural or literal,” which they have themselves 
inserted. The authors of the Confession, as Dr. A. A. Hodge has well 
observed, “ simply repeat the statements of Scripture in almost identical 
terms, and any interpretation that is fairly applicable to such passages 
’of Scripture, as Gen. ii. 3 and Exod. xx. ii, is equally applicable to 
the words of the Confession. It is quite true,” as he adds, “ that since 
the Confession was composed, . . . new arguments have been furnished 
against interpreting the days mentioned in the above passages of 
Scripture as literal days. But it would be a mistake to suppose that 
the figurative interpretation of the word ‘ days ’ in these passages 
originated in modern times, and was altogether unknown to the men 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


481 

who framed the Confession. To prove it a mistake it is not necessary 
to have recourse to the ingenious conjecture, that some of the Cam- 
bridge men in the assembly may have been acquainted with the 
manuscript work of Dean Colet, preserved in their archives, and only 
given to the public in our own time, in which the figurative interpreta- 
tion of the days of creation is maintained.” 

There is no lack of evidence, in works published before the meet- 
ing of the Assembly, and familiar to several of its members, to show 
that the figurative interpretation had long before Dean Colet ’s time 
commended itself to several scholars and divines. If there was one 
Jewish scholar with whose writings such men as Lightfoot, Selden, 
Gataker, Seaman, and Coleman were more familiar than another, it 
was Philo of Alexandria; and Philo has not hesitated to characterize 
it as “ rustic simplicity, to imagine that the world was created in six 
days, or, indeed, in any clearly defined space of time.” Augustine, 
the great Latin doctor, with whose works several of the Westminster 
divines were far better acquainted than most of their successors, in 
his literal Commentary on Genesis, maintains that the days of the crea- 
tion week were far different {longk. diversi and, again, multum impares) 
from those that now are in the earth. Procopius, a Greek writer not 
unknown to some of the Westminster divines, teaches that the num- 
ber of six days was assumed not as a mark of actual time, but as a 
manner of teaching the order of creation; while in certain commen- 
taries in that age, attributed to the venerable Bede, and largely read 
in England, though now deemed spurious, a similar opinion is said to 
be found. The figurative interpretation therefore of the six days of 
creation is no make-shift of hard-pressed theologians in the nineteenth 
century. It was held by respectable scholars and divines, from early 
times, and was known to the framers of our Confession ; and had 
they meant deliberately to exclude it they would have written not six 
days, but six natural or literal days. 

The next topic to which I shall advert, is the charge made against 
the Confession as teaching that not all infants dying in infancy, but 
only an elect portion of them, are saved. Its exact words are, ‘‘ Elect 
infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through 
the Spirit.” This statement, it is averred, necessarily implies that 
there are non-elect infants dying in infancy not regenerated and 
saved. It does not seem to me to imply any such thing. It might 
have been susceptible of such an interpretation had it been allowed 
to stand in the form which it appears to have borne in the draft first 
brought in to the Assembly — “elect of infants,” not elect infants. 
But the very fact that the form of expression was changed, shows how 
anxious the divines entrusted with the methodizing of the Confession 
were to guard against pronouncing dogmatically on questions on 
which neither Scripture nor the Reformed Churches had definitely 
pronounced. The statement occurs, it is important to notice, not in 
the chapter treating of predestination, but in the chapter treating of 
effectual calling ; and is meant, not to define the proportion of infants 

31 


482 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


dying in infancy who shall be saved, but to assert the great truths,, 
that by nature they are every one of them in the massa perdiiionis ; 
that they can only be separated from it, and saved by the electing 
love of the Father, the atoning work of the Son, and the renewing 
of the Holy Ghost ; and that even they, however as yet incapable of 
the exercise of reason and faith, may be regenerated and made meet 
for the inheritance of the saints in light. As Dr. Hodge has briefly 
but clearly expressed it: “The Confession affirms what is certainly 
revealed, and leaves that which revelation has not decided to remain 
without the suggestion of a positive opinion upon one side or the 
other.” In historical vindication of this interpretation of their mean- 
ing, I deem it only necessary to refer to the judgment of Davenant 
and the other English divines at the Synod of Dordt, who were 
the precursors and teachers of the leading English divines of the As- 
sembly. The Arminians had maintained that, as all infants dying in 
infancy were undoubtedly saved, there could not be said to be any 
election, so far as they were concerned. The English, though per- 
sonally not much in advance of their brethren on the continent, gave 
special prominence in their reply to the statement, that even granting 
the premises of the Armiinans, the conclusions drawn from them 
were by no means legitimate or necessary. Election and preterition,. 
they said, had respect to the whole mass of fallen humanity, not to 
certain separate divisions of it according to age or circumstances, and 
that though a certain number of infants dying in infancy might not 
be separated from or elected out of a certain other number also dying 
in infancy and not saved, yet if all were separated from the common 
mass of mankind sinners, and bound up in the bundle of life, that 
was quite sufficient to constitute an election of them, and to warrant 
such an expression as elect infants dying in infancy. “Ad rationem 
electionis divinae sive ponendam sive tollendam circumstantia setatis 
est quiddam impertinens. . . . Fac, igitur, omnes infantes servari ne 
uno quidem proeterito tamen quia electio et preteritio respicit massam 
non aetatem, licet non e numero infantium, tamen e communi massa 
hominum peccatorum segregati sunt quod ad electionis rationem con- 
stituendam sufficit ” (Acta Synodi Dordrechtanae, p. 499, 4th ed.). 
Few of these divines, or of their successors at Westminster, had prob- 
ably, in personal opinion, advanced as far as good Bishop Hooper — 
the pupil of Bullinger, and the prototype of moderate puritans — who 
said: “ It is ill-done to condemn the infants of Christians that die 
without baptism, of whose salvation by the Scriptures we be assured. 
... I would likewise judge well of the infants of the infidels who 
have none other sin in them but original. ... It is not against the 
faith of a Christian man to say that Christ’s death and passion extend - 
eth as far for the salvation of innocents, as Adam’s sin made all his 
posterity liable to condemnation. But the best of them had come to 
adopt the first part of his opinion, and from reverence for him and 
others whom they loved, to refrain from pronouncing positively 
against the second.” 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


485 


The last topic to which I shall advert as having been quite as much 
misunderstood as either of the preceding, is the concluding statement 
in the same chapter : “ Much less can men, not professing the Christian 
religion, be saved in any other way, be they ever so diligent to frame 
their lives according to the light of nature and the law of the religion 
they do profess, and to assert and maintain that they may, is very jier- 
nicious and to be detested.” This is a softening down of a statement: 
made in more extreme form in the English articles, and in some of 
the continental Confessions, and perhaps the Baptists somewhat im- 
proved it in 1677 when, under the guidance of John Bunyan, they 
changed the words “not professing the Christian religion” intO' 
“not receiving the Christian religion,” to make it more clear that 
they meant the statement to be limited to those who had had the- 
Christian religion tendered to them and had refused to receive it, and 
continued professedly to live by the light of nature and the law of 
the religion they professed. That, I think, was what the Westminster 
divines also had chiefly in view (I will not, in remembrance of cer- 
tain questions in the larger catechism, say exclusively in view) to 
bear their testimony, in common with other Reformed Churches,, 
against the Spiritualists or the Pantheists of the school of Servetus,, 
as well as against the Deists and Free-thinkers among themselves, who,, 
living in the full blaze of the light of revelation, preferred nature’s- 
twilight, and despised the riches of God’s goodness and forbearance 
and long-suffering. They who hold that the words of the Confession 
were meant to have a wider application, should at least do its framers 
the justice to remember that all they do absolutely define is, that the 
persons spoken of cannot be saved by the light of nature, or the law 
of the religion they profess, and that when they go on in a subsequent 
chapter to define the Church of visible professors and outward ordi- 
nances, all that they venture to affirm is, that out of it there is no- 
“ordinary possibility of salvation.” 

In conclusion let me repeat, that all I contend for is that the West- 
minster divines have not pronounced against the more liberal views,, 
on such subjects which modern Calvinists have generally adopted ; not 
that they themselves held them, but that they knew of them, and 
knew them to be tolerated or favored by several whom they loved and 
honored for the good service they had done in their day and genera- 
tion, 'and that they were content to give forth no binding determina- 
tion in regard to them. Their main object, as I said in the outset, was 
to set forth in their Confession the great principles of the faith com- 
mon to the Reformed or Calvinistic Churches, without exalting into 
principles points on which these Churches had not thought fit to de- 
cide. And I believe that in adherence to their creed and method lies 
our only hope of a united Anglo-Saxon Presbyterianism — Calvinistic 
yet comprehensive, strong yet forbearing in the use of its strength,, 
earnest and untiring in self-sacrificing Christian work. Such have 
always been the characteristics of living evangelical churches with a 
good backbone of Calvinism in them — abundant labors, memorable. 


484 the PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

achievements, heroic sufferings— even when there has been least of that 
sweetness and gentleness which all profess to prize, but in which we 
all yet feel we come far short of what we ought to be. Whereunto 
we have attained, may we by God’s grace be enabled to walk by the 
same rule and mind the same thing, and if in anything we are other- 
wise minded, may God reveal his will unto us, and guide us m a plain 
path. 

The following paper was read by the Rev. Prof. Thomas G. 
Apple, D. D., of Lancaster, Pa., on 

THE THEOLOGY OF THE GERMAN REFORMED 
CHURCH. 

I esteem it an honor and a privilege to present some remarks on the 
present occasion before this learned and venerable assembly, on The 
Theology of the German Reformed Church.” The occasion is one 
that rejoices the hearts of all who long and pray for closer union and 
co-operation among all portions of the one Church of our Lord. As 
the principle of Church unity, according to the Protestant theory, 
holds primarily in the union of all believers • in one common Lord, 

one Lord, one faith, one baptism,” it follows that the external union • 
in the organization of the Church must be free, not consttained. Dif- 
ference and variety are not opposed to unity. It is not inconsistent, 
therefore, with the object and purpose of this Alliance to study the 
differences as well as the agreement of the Churches that are repre- 
sented in its plan and organization. They all belong to one- great 
family, and it is no more to be expected that they should entirely 
agree in their apprehension of all particular truths than that members 
of the same family should all look entirely alike. It is sufficient that 
the family resemblance should appear in all, and that this resemblance 
should reveal the unity of the common family life. 

The Reformed Church of Germany, extending now into other lands, 
and maintaining a vigorous independent organization in America, has 
its. roots in original Protestantism, having started in German-Switzer- 
land simultaneously with the Lutheran Reformation in Wiirtemberg, 
and establishing itself subsequently in the Palatinate and in other sec- 
tions of Germany. Among all the Reformed Churches, it led the way 
in developing the peculiar type of Protestant doctrines and principles 
which has distinguished them in different lands, in the Netherlands, in 
France, England, and Scotland, from the Lutheran Church. This 
distinction started, as is well known, in the divergence between the 
Reformed and the Lutheran Church on the central doctrine of the 
Lord’s Supper, that manifested itself already in the early history of 
the Reformation, whilst it comprehended differences in reference also 
to many other doctrines and principles. Zwingli, approaching the 
Reformation more from an objective stand-point, starting with the sov- 
ereignty of God and the sole authority of Scripture, directed his 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


485 

opposition primarily against the tendency in the Roman Church 
towards idolatry, as this manifested itself in the worship of the Virgin 
Mary and the saints, and the worship of the host in the mass. Luther 
started more from a subjective standpoint, directing his opposition to 
the Judaizing errors, the semi-Pelagianism, of the Roman Church in 
holding forth the merit of good works. Against this he urged the 
doctrine of justification by faith alone through the all-sufficient merits 
of Jesus Christ. In the emphasis Zwingli placed upon the authority 
of the Word of God in the Scriptures, and upon the divine sover- 
eignty, over against all worship of the creature, and in finding in this 
the ultimate ground of the election of believers unto eternal life and 
of their justification and salvation, in his doctrine of the Lord’s 
Supper over against the Lutheran view, as well as the Roman theory 
of transubstantiation, and in the practical account he made of the 
ethical significance of the law in the life of the believer, as well as in 
the organization and discipline of the Church, he advanced principles 
which became permanent characteristics of the Reformed Churches in 
general. 

His doctrine of the Lord’s Supper was formulated mainly from the 
standpoint of opposition to the error of the mass, and no doubt lacked 
somewhat of the positive element that was given to it by Melanchthon 
and Calvin, and which found expression sufcquently in the Reformed 
Confessions generally; but there is reason to believe that Zwingli did 
not altogether overlook the positive side, participation in the body and 
blood of the Lord in the holy communion, and that if his life had 
been spared he would have appeared more fully in agreement with 
Calvin. It was on this doctrine that the division first took place 
between the Reformed and Lutheran Reformation, in the effort to har- 
monize and unite them at the celebrated Marburg Conference in 1529. 
At this conference the fifteen articles were adopted, which, after pass- 
ing through some modifications, became the basis of the Augsburg 
Confession ; but on the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper a sharp division 
took place, which no subsequent efforts could heal. We may accept 
this division as a necessity which was overruled in saving both the 
Reformed and Lutheran Confessions from falling into a fatal extreme 
on either side. It stands in portions of the Protestant world even 
to-day as representing the different types of doctrine and life that 
characterize these two original divisions of Protestantism, and when 
inwardly reconciled, it will serve to bring .them more fully into har- 
mony and union. Whatever necessity there was, therefore, for this 
division in order to preserve sound doctrine, Zwingli assumed a 
responsibility here which became shared with him more or less by all 
the Reformed Churches, and in so far he may be regarded as their 
representative, and thus one of their great leaders. It serves to show,, 
also, that differences in the enjoyment of freedom are better than 
constrained uniformity, and that they may be overruled to aid in the 
unfolding of the fruitfulness and fulness of truth. 

Meantime, and before Calvin came upon the scene, a modification 


486 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


was going forward in the bosom of the German Church-life, under the 
influence of Melanchthon. He had been led by independent study to 
differ from some of the views of Luther, although, while Luther lived, 
he seemed unable or unwilling to assert the difference. This differ- 
ence always referred itself to this salient point, in reference to which 
the original separation of the two Protestant Confessions had taken 
place under no little excitement and peril, although here again, as in 
the case of Zwingli, it reached also to other points. This divergence 
of Melanchthon from Luther’s views became the representative and 
rallying point in Germany for what came to be regarded as a Reformed 
type of doctrine, and gave indications, at one time, of carrying with 
it the larger portion of German Protestantism. The old and strict 
Lutheran element became at length aroused, and asserted itself, not 
without partisan bitterness over against Philippism, or crypto-Calvin- 
ism, as this latter was called, until the Lutheran Confession, passing 
through a number of discussions, reached its full development in the 
Formula Concordice^ while Melanchthonianism became more and more 
attracted to the Reformed Church and the Reformed type of doctrine 
outside of Germany. There can be no doubt, however, that it was 
the presence and influence of Calvin, and his distinct and clear state- 
ment of the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, as well as other doctrines, 
that strengthened and confirmed Melanchthon in holding his position 
in distinction from that of Luther. While the Reformed Church 
honors the learned and gentle Melanchthon, the Preceptor Germaniae, 
the author of the Loci Communes and the altered Augsburg Confession ; 
and while the German Reformed Church finds in his type of doctrine 
and his mild and catholic spirit one of the leading elements, if not 
the leading element, in her Confession, yet when Calvin comes upon 
the stage he stands forth clearly and confessedly as the theologian of 
the great Reformation. Calvin at first sought to maintain harmony 
with Luther; he gave his sanction to the Augsburg Confession as 
altered by Melanchthon, and Luther, it is said, approved in turn of 
his tract, de coena Domini; but when the progress of the sacramentar- 
ian controversy required it, he joined his sympathy with the Swiss 
Reformers, while at the same time he enunciated the view which com- 
plemented and completed the view of Zwingli, and which was adopted 
in all the leading Reformed Confessions. 

Thus we have three leading Reformers, whose teaching and influ- 
-ence became united in the origin of the German Reformed Church, 
Zwingli, Melanchthon and Calvin. The Reformed Church in the 
Palatinate was organized and established under the influence and 
direction of Melanchthon. The type of doctrine maintained there 
previous to the formation of the Heidelberg Catechism was Melanch- 
thonian, but there were also disorganizing elements at work disturb- 
ing its peace, and on this account the Palatinate Elector, with true 
fatherly affection for his people, and deep concern for their spiritual 
welfare, applied to Melanchthon for advice in establishing the Church 
in his Electorate on a firm foundation. There were Lutheran, 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


487 


Calvinistic, and Melanchthonian theologians, occupied as teachers in 
the University of Heidelberg. The ultra Lutherans were soon elimi- 
nated, and there remained only the influence of Calvin and Melanch- 
thon, together with some adherents of Zwingli. These, we may say, 
united in the formation of the Heidelberg Catechism, the most irenical 
and the most widely favored of all the Reformed Confessions, the 
chief Confession of the German Reformed Church in Europe, and 
the only Confession of the Reformed Church in the United States of 
America. 

From this brief statement it is not difficult to determine the leading 
feature of the faith of the German Reformed Church as compared 
with other branches of the Reformed Church. While Heppe has 
labored to show that the Reformed Church of Germany owes every- 
thing to Melanchthon and nothing to Calvin, and such writers as 
Sudhoff and Sweitzer have tried to show that its stand-point is purely 
Calvinistic, the truth must doubtless be found between these two 
positions. It was moulded under the influence of Calvin and 
Melanchthon, and also to some extent that of Zwingli and his fellow 
Swiss Reformers. 

In its doctrinal position as contained in the Heidelberg Catechism 
it asserts in general the position of Calvinism over against Arminian- 
ism, or we may say it asserts the old Augustin ian position on the sub- 
jects of sin and grace over against Pelagianism. It asserts the utter 
ruin of the whole race through the fall and disobedience of our first 
parents in paradise, so that man as the race or as an individual has no 
ability to recover himself from this lost condition. All who are born 
into the world are involved in their very birth in sin and guilt. The 
origin of this sinful and guilty condition is traced to the fall of man, 
and its nature is explained only so far as this explanation is to be 
found in the organic character of the race as related to the first pair, 
or we may say in the relation between the generic and the individual 
life of man, according to which relation the fall of the first parents 
of the race included in it the fall of the race. The fall is viewed as a 
concrete fact and not as abstract, as generic and not as according to 
Pelagius, merely individual. It traces the origin of sin to the free 
will of man under the temptation of the devil, and thus avoids the 
metaphysical mystery that lies ‘beyond. It thus avoids all fatalism as 
connected with the origin of sin, while in regard to the extent and 
nature of the fall and its consequence it is equally devoid of all taint 
of Pelagianism. 

So also man’s recovery from the fall is attributed absolutely and 
unconditionally to the free and unmerited grace of God in Jesus 
Christ. Instead of starting here, however, in the divine sovereignty, 
or the eternal abstract will of God in election and predestination as 
metaphysically apprehended, it refers directly to Jesus Christ, the 
God-man, who freely offered himself a propitiatory sacrifice for man. 
The redemption is organic as the fall is organic. The second Adam 
forms a parallel with the first Adam, yet the redemption wrought out 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


488 

by Christ inures to the salvation of those only who are born again 
and made partakers of his life by the power of the Holy Ghost. The 
subjective condition for being made partakers of Christ and of pos- 
sessing his righteousness as our justification before God is faith, 
‘‘which involves a living apprehension, not simply of an abstract doc- 
trine, but of the whole perennial fact of Christianity as embodied in 
the Apostles’ creed.” The great cardinal doctrine of justification by 
faith alone, through the imputation of Christ’s satisfaction, righteous- 
ness and holiness, in opposition to all idea of merit on the part of the 
believer himself, is asserted in the strongest language. This threefold 
imputation itself implies, however, that the objective righteousness, 
which is thus set over to our account in Christ, involves from the 
very start the principle of our personal sanctification. Apprehended 
by faith, it has become already the power of a new divine life in the 
subject of this faith; “for it is impossible that those who are thus 
implanted into Christ should not bring forth the fruits of thankful- 
ness.” Faith itself, comprehending thus in itself the whole force of 
the Christian life, is no product of the human will. The Holy Ghost 
“ works it in our hearts by the preaching of the gospel, and confirms 
it by the use of the sacraments.” Dr. J. W. Nevin, “ Hist, and Gen. 
of the Heidelberg Catechism. ’ ’ Thus while we find here the substantial 
and positive elements of the Calvinistic system, at least under some 
of their aspects, the subject is treated rather Christologically than 
theologically, and the metaphysical questions pertaining to the 
sovereignty of God in relation to the human will are not brought 
forward. 

In setting forth the substance of revelation as contained in Holy 
Scripture, the Heidelberg Catechism is distinguished among the 
Reformed Confessions by the prominence it gives to the apostles’ 
creed. In holding to the inspired word of God as above all human 
teaching in authority, it nevertheless seeks to apprehend the Scriptures 
in the light of the faith of the Church as unanimously confessed in 
this oldest oecumenical creed. This teaches in sum the objects of 
faith as set forth in the Holy Scriptures. The catechism did not seek 
to recast the original fundamentals of the Christian faith, it was not 
the object of the Reformation to do this, but rather to remove the 
errors and corruptions that had crept into the Church, and assert 
such new principles only as were necessary for this purpose, and 
at the same time aided in the legitimate historical progress of Chris- 
tian truth. In this it avoided the danger of radical subjectivism and 
linked itself with the true Catholic Church of the past. While it 
regarded all human creeds and confessions as inferior to the inspired 
Scriptures in authority, it gave to them their proper place as helps in 
the right understanding of the fundamental mysteries presented in the 
Bible. 

As to the doctrine of the sacraments, this church symbol adopts 
without reserve the Calvinistic theory. In regard to the Lord’s 
Supper, it incorporates the Zwinglian element of the symbolical and 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 489 

commemorative character of the sacrament, in opposition to the 
Roman theory of a repetition of the sacrifice of Christ in the mass, 
maintaining that the sacrifice on the cross was offered once for all, 
and cannot be repeated ; and that in the holy supper we are made to 
partake of the merits of that one sacrifice only by faith in the use of 
the elements of bread and wine ; but going beyond this it asserts just 
as clearly that in the holy communion the believer also feeds upon the 
glorified body and blood of Christ through faith by the power of the 
Holy Ghost, and is thus nourished into everlasting life. The body 
and blood of Christ are not present in any sense as imprisoned in the 
bread and wine according to the Lutheran theory, so that all who 
partake of the one necessarily also partake of the other, whether be- 
lievers or unbelievers ; but neither on the other hand is this presence 
one of subjective remembrance only on the part of the communicant ; 
but it is an objective spiritual real presence, exhibited and guaranteed 
to the believer in the use of the elements in the holy sacrament. This 
view of Calvin passed into all the leading Reformed Confessions of 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and must be regarded as the 
orthodox Reformed doctrine,” while Zwingli’s theory, which is more 
simple and intelligible, has considerable popular currency, but no^ 
symbolical authority. Dr. Schaff in Creeds of Christendom, vol. ii., 
p. 456. For this view, although the same was really held by Melanch- 
thon, the catechism is doubtless mainly indebted to the full and 
unmistakable presentation of it by Calvin ; and this view it was 
mainly, and not his doctrine of predestination, which was designated 
as Calvinism and crypto-Calvinism by the Lutherans, and which 
obtained for the Reformed as a term of reproach the name of sacra- 
mentarians. As this doctrine is so central and far-reaching, we may 
be pardoned for dwelling upon it a little, as it connects itself with the 
broader doctrine of the mystical union of believers with Christ, which 
has formed one of the chief characteristics of the faith of the German 
Reformed Church, and enters into its theology. It was in this form 
especially that the substance of the doctrine of the new regenerate 
life was presented in the Reformed Confessions. As fallen man 
derives his corrupt nature from Adam, by reason of which he is in- 
cluded in the fall and becomes subject to spiritual and eternal death, 
so by virtue of his union with Christ, the second Adam, he becomes 
possessed of a new regenerate nature, and thus shares with him in the 
victory over sin and death, and inherits with him eternal glory. And 
this participation, according to Calvin, refers not only to the divine 
nature of Christ, but also to his glorified humanity, so that, as he was 
accustomed to state it, although the flesh of Christ is now in heaven 
and believers on the earth, yet this separation is overcome by the 
Holy Spirit, and the union is effected in the sphere of the supernatural. 
He is particular in stating this lest he may be misunderstood. In his 
Institutes he says: “Nor am I satisfied with those persons who, after 
having acknowledged that we have communion with Christ, when 
they mean to describe it, represent us merely as partakers of his Spirit,. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


490 

but make no mention of his flesh and blood.” And again : Now, 
though the power of giving life to us is not an essential attribute of 
the body of Christ, which, in its original condition, was subject to 
mortality, and now lives by an immortality not its own, yet it is justly 
represented as the source of life, because it is endued with the plen- 
itude of life to communicate to us . . . therefore, he showed that the 
fulness of life dwelt in his humanity, that whoever partook of his flesh 
and blood might, at the same time, enjoy a participation of life. 
The explanation thus given by Calvin has been superseded by con- 
ceiving of this presence of the humanity of Christ as dynamic, but the 
fact of the presence, in Calvin’s view, remains undisputed. 

This union is effected, not indeed by the sacraments ex opere 
operate, but by the Holy Ghost, on the subjective condition of faith, 
and through the word and sacraments as divinely appointed means of 
grace. The word and the sacraments work to the same end, the 
grace offered is one and the same for salvation; it is offered through 
the word and confirmed in the believing use of the sacraments. How 
this can apply to the children of believers in the use of baptism, it is 
not necessary here to attempt to explain. It is sufficient simply to 
state that, according to the Heidelberg Catechism, as well as the 
Reformed Confessions generally, they are included with their parents 
in the promise of the covenant, and thus entitled to the sacrament of 
baptism. They are, therefore, to be treated and trained as in the 
covenant, and there is thus a basis prepared for religion as educa- 
tional, giving us the idea of Christian nurture as related to baptism, a 
great truth, which even among Pedobaptist churches is so much 
overlooked at the present day. The idea that Christianity is life, and 
as such deeper than self-conscious experience, in the sense in which 
only adults can be the subjects of it, lies at the foundation of all true 
Christian culture ; and only as this is held can infant baptism hold its 
proper meaning. Apart from this such baptism becomes an empty 
sign and gradually passes into disuse, or remains only as a dead tra- 
dition. In presenting this as a Protestant Reformed doctrine, we 
assume, of course, the necessity of faith and the conscious experience 
of the grace of God, for the unfolding of the Christian life. 

Having thus referred briefly to some of the salient points in the 
original faith of the German branch of the Reformed Church, it 
remains, in a like brief and general way, to characterize its theology. 

It is the province and task of theology to reduce to systematic and 
scientific form the dogmas of faith derived by a believing church 
from the teachings of God’s word, having for its guide and ecclesi- 
astic authority the denominational confession which it represents, 
and relating itself to the present conditions of the Christian life as 
unfolding itself in the midst of historical progress. It must, therefore, 
not only expound scientifically the form of doctrines already formu- 
lated and as formulated, but it must have in view also the carrying 
forward of these doctrinal formulas to a higher plane of apprehension. 

Hence theology must be historical and progressive. The subject- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


491 


matter remains ever the same unchanging revealed truth, but its appre- 
hension must advance with the progress of Christian life, and in oppo- 
sition to new forms of unbelief. The Protestant theology of the 
nineteenth century cannot, in the nature of the case, be the same as 
that of the sixteenth or seventeenth century. A wonderful progress 
has been made in history, in philosophy, science, in social problems 
during the three centuries that now lie between the present and the 
age of the Reformation. Under the impulse of that freedom of 
thought which was brought in with the Reformation, the great modern 
systems of philosophy have arisen, and in part also passed away to 
make room for others yet to arise in the onward progress of thought. 
During these centuries the Protestant faith has been called to battle 
with the most gigantic form of error and unbelief since the days of 
Gnosticism — I mean Modern Rationalism. Like a great wave it 
swept over England, France, and Germany. As the smoke of the 
battle passes away, we behold the citadel of truth still standing, and 
more firm than ever. The Reformation doctrines become clothed in the 
vigor of their early youth ; but we behold great changes in the manner 
in which they are scientifically formulated, and the method in which 
they are defended. 

During the scholastic period of Protestant theology in the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries, the defence of Christianity rested in 
an extreme and exclusive way upon the Bible, while the old Reforma- 
tion doctrine of Christian life and Christian experience, testifying the 
presence of divine grace in the heart, was kept comparatively in the 
background. The necessities of the contest revealed to the Church 
that Christians have not only the Bible, the written word of God, for 
their defence, but that they have also an ever-living Christ, who is not 
only over and above the Church, but also in the Church, as he was 
in the ship on stormy Gennesaret. A reaction took place which 
served to bring more to the front again the material principle of 
Protestantism, while the formal principle still maintains its place. 

In the progress of German theology, especially since the time of 
the philosopher and theologian, Schleiermacher, who himself, it must 
be granted, mingled much in his teaching that is very far from being 
orthodox, German Reformed theology, in common with German the- 
ology generally, ha^ made great account of the Christological Princi- 
ple in organizing its system of doctrine. The Reformation principles 
remain undisturbed, but they are related from a different stand-point. 
And this change has come not by theological speculation, but in a 
legitimate historic way. The assault of unbelief, it was found, directed 
its force not only against the Bible, but against the person of Christ, 
in the mythical theory of Strauss and the infidel romance of Renan. 
Never before did the Church, in response to this assault, produce a 
richer literature in reference to the person of Christ, and as a result 
the doctrine of the person of our Lord has taken its place as central 
in theological science. 

In the person of Christ the primal questions and problems in regard 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


490 

but make no mention of his flesh and blood.” And again: Now, 
though the power of giving life to us is not an essential attribute of 
the body of Christ, which, in its original condition, was subject to 
mortality, and now lives by an immortality not its own, yet it is justly 
represented as the source of life, because it is endued with the plen- 
itude of life to communicate to us . . . therefore, he showed that the 
fulness of life dwelt in his humanity, that whoever partook of his flesh 
and blood might, at the same time, enjoy a participation of life.” 
The explanation thus given by Calvin has been superseded by con- 
ceiving of this presence of the humanity of Christ as dynamic, but the 
fact of the presence, in Calvin’s view, remains undisputed. 

This union is effected, not indeed by the sacraments ex opere 
operate, but by the Holy Ghost, on the subjective condition of faith, 
and through the word and sacraments as divinely appointed means of 
grace. The word and the sacraments work to the same end, the 
grace offered is one and the same for salvation; it is offered through 
the word and confirmed in the believing use of the sacraments. How 
this can apply to the children of believers in the use of baptism, it is 
not necessary here to attempt to explain. It is sufficient simply to 
state that, according to the Heidelberg Catechism, as well as the 
Reformed Confessions generally, they are included with their parents 
in the promise of the covenant, and thus entitled to the sacrament of 
baptism. They are, therefore, to be treated and trained as in the 
covenant, and there is thus a basis prepared for religion as educa- 
tional, giving us the idea of Christian nurture as related to baptism, a 
great truth, which even among Pedobaptist churches is so much 
overlooked at the present day. The idea that Christianity is life, and 
as such deeper than self-conscious experience, in the sense in which 
only adults can be the subjects of it, lies at the foundation of all true 
Christian culture ; and only as this is held can infant baptism hold its 
proper meaning. Apart from this such baptism becomes an empty 
sign and gradually passes into disuse, or remains only as a dead tra- 
dition. In presenting this as a Protestant Reformed doctrine, we 
assume, of course, the necessity of faith and the conscious experience 
of the grace of God, for the unfolding of the Christian life. 

Having thus referred briefly to some of the salient points in the 
original faith of the German branch of the Reformed Church, it 
remains, in a like brief and general way, to characterize its theology. 

It is the province and task of theology to reduce to systematic and 
scientific form the dogmas of faith derived by a believing church 
from the teachings of God’s word, having for its guide and ecclesi- 
astic authority the denominational confession which it represents, 
and relating itself to the present conditions of the Christian life as 
unfolding itself in the midst of historical progress. It must, therefore, 
not only expound scientifically the form of doctrines already formu- 
lated and as formulated, but it must have in view also the carrying 
forward of these doctrinal formulas to a higher plane of apprehension. 

Hence theology must be historical and progressive. The subject- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 491 

matter remains ever the same unchanging revealed truth, but its appre- 
hension must advance with the progress of Christian life, and in oppo- 
sition to new forms of unbelief. The Protestant theology of the 
nineteenth century cannot, in the nature of the case, be the same as 
that of the sixteenth or seventeenth century. A wonderful progress 
has been made in history, in philosophy, science, in social problems 
during the three centuries that now lie between the present and the 
age of the Reformation. Under the impulse of that freedom of 
thought which was brought in with the Reformation, the great modern 
systems of philosophy have arisen, and in part also passed away to 
make room for others yet to arise in the onward progress of thought. 
During these centuries the Protestant faith has been called to battle 
with the most gigantic form of error and unbelief since the days of 
Gnosticism — I mean Modern Rationalism. Like a great wave it 
swept over England, France, and Germany. As the smoke of the 
battle passes away, we behold the citadel of truth still standing, and 
more firm than ever. The Reformation doctrines become clothed in the 
vigor of their early youth ; but we behold great changes in the manner 
in which they are scientifically formulated, and the method in which 
they are defended. 

During the scholastic period of Protestant theology in the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries, the defence of Christianity rested in 
an extreme and exclusive way upon the Bible, while the old Reforma- 
tion doctrine of Christian life and Christian experience, testifying the 
presence of divine grace in the heart, was kept comparatively in the 
background. The necessities of the contest revealed to the Church 
that Christians have not only the Bible, the written word of God, for 
their defence, but that they have also an ever-living Christ, who is not 
only over and above the Church, but also in the Church, as he was 
in the ship on stormy Gennesaret. A reaction took place_ which 
iserved to bring more to the front again the niaterial principle of 
Protestantism, while the formal principle still maintains its place. 

In the progress of German theology, especially since the time of 
the philosopher and theologian, Schleiermacher, who himself, it must 
be granted, mingled much in his teaching that is very far from being 
orthodox, German Reformed theology, in common with German the- 
ology generally, ha^ made great account of the Christological Princi- 
ple in organizing its system of doctrine. The Reformation principles 
remain undisturbed, but they are related from a different stand-point. 
And this change has come not by theological speculation, but in a 
legitimate historic way. The assault of unbelief, it was found, directed 
its force not only against the Bible, but against the person of Christ, 
in the mythical theory of Strauss and the infidel romance of Renan. 
Never before did the Church, in response to this assault, produce a 
richer literature in reference to the person of Christ, and as a result 
the doctrine of the person of our Lord has taken its place as central 

in theological science. _ ^ , ,1 • a 

In the person of Christ the primal questions and problems in regard 


492 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


to a personal Deity are solved. The question of this age between 
faith and unbelief, it is sometimes said, turns not on the peculiarities 
of the Christian religion, but on that which lies at the foundation of 
all religions, the existence of a personal God. It is a struggle between 
theism and atheism. The Christological stand-point puts the question 
just the other way. The real contest is between Christism and 
atheism, Jesus Christ the only living and true God, or no God ; for 
out of Christ God is forever unknowable, and only in him is the 
Fatherhood of God absolutely revealed. We mean not to undervalue 
the universal, intuitive consciousness of God in man, nor the revela- 
tion in nature, reason, and conscience, but the knowledge of God 
obtained from this source does not support the revelation in Christ, ' 
but the revelation in Christ supports it. The first steps of all true 
knowledge of God must begin in Christ, and the greatest progress in 
this knowledge can never transcend him. He is the Alpha and the 
Omega, the beginning and the ending. The whole contest of this 
age in regard to acknowledging or rejecting belief in a personal God 
resolves itself absolutely into acknowledging Christ as the supreme 
Lord of the universe, over all God blessed forevermore ! 

As the person of Christ is the absolute revelation of God, so also is 
he the centre and source of the work of Redemption. There are 
many separate doctrines pertaining to soteriology, growing out of the 
work of Christ for man’s salvation, and it is often disputed which 
aspect of his work should be regarded as principal and central. His 
incarnation, his active and passive qbedience, his death on the cross, 
his resurrection and ascension, are all cardinal facts, but they all find 
their proper significance in his divine-human person. What he has 
done for fallen man receives its true value from what he is. The 
doctrine of the atonement has given rise to different theories : the 
primitive theory of an offering made to Satan, the Mediaeval Anselmic 
theory of satisfaction to God, and the modern governmental and 
moral suasion theories. Elements of truth are contained in all of 
them, but as held separately they become each one imperfect and de- 
fective. The central point from which to view them all, and to unite 
and harmonize the truth in them all, as well as to eliminate their 
errors, is the person of Christ as Redeemer, the generic Head of a 
regenerate race, in whom the separation between God and man is over- 
come and the true at-one-ment accomplished. 

Christ is not only the means of salvation, through whom redemption 
is made, but he is also the source of salvation, and it may be sug- 
gested that the metaphysical questions concerning the divine will and 
sovereignty as related to man’s salvation must here find their solution. 
The doctrine of the divine foreknowledge and foreordination is too 
clearly revealed in the word of God to be questioned and doubted, 
and the Reformed Church has no disposition to suppress it simply 
because human reason may not be able fully to comprehend it ; but 
the Christological principle leads us to regard this will of God not as 
abstract, not as before Christ and out of Christ, but, according to the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


493 

wording of the Reformed Confessions, in Christ he hath chosen his 
people from the foundation of the world. 

The harmony of the divine will and human will, involving the 
question of human freedom, is established primarily in the person of 
our Lord, and all the difficulties in reference to it must find their 
solution there. On the plane of abstract ratiocination logic ever tends 
to carry us either towards a determinism which, ends in fate, or towards 
indifferentism which lands us in mere blind chance. The two factors 
come together, the divine will and the human will, harmoniously in 
the person and work of Christ, and his life presents the actual solu- 
tion of the apparent contradiction between necessity and freedom. 
There ^he question may be studied in a living concrete way, and if 
the mystery still remains for human reason, the fact nevertheless chal- 
lenges our implicit faith. 

We might bring forward other examples to illustrate the manner in 
which the principle which makes the person of Christ central in the- 
ology, as he is the central Sun in the spiritual universe, serves to 
organize all separate doctrines of our holy religion in relation to this 
common centre, but these must suffice. 

In presenting this as a leading characteristic of German Reformed 
theology we mean not to claim it as peculiar to that theology. It is 
characteristic of the later orthodox German theology as a whole, 
which made coitimon cause against the assaults of modern rationalism. 
Nor do we mean to hold up German theology as free from serious 
faults as compared with the theology of other portions of the Reformed 
Church. The German Reformed Church in this country, while it 
has cultivated sympathy with the fatherland and sought to receive 
from it all that is good and true, values its Reformed birthright of 
freedom too highly to bow before any other authority than the word 
of God. We hail what is good and true in the progress of Reformed 
theology in Scotland, England, Holland and other Countries as well, 
for they all grow out of one great common heritage. Much less do 
we subordinate theology to any of the great systems of philosophy that 
have arisen in Germany in the modern age. Much that they have 
produced will stand as permanent acquisitions to philosophical science, 
but much has already passed away and much will yet pass away as 
mere hay and stubble. The data of Christian theology as given by 
revelation stands above all the deductions of mere reason. But the- 
ology never can ignore philosophy or science. Reason and natural 
truth are from God as well as supernatural revelation, and the truth 
■of revelation must continually authenticate itself more and more in 
the realm of philosophy and science as the true light that is to illu- 
mine all truth. Protestantism stands committed from the beginning 
to the position that Christian truth is able to permeate and mould all 
fornis and spheres of human thought without external, force or com- 
pulsion, and without resorting to any assumed human infallible author- 
ity, and therefore it must meet philosophy and science by the power 
of truth alone. The experience of the past affords good encourage- 
menr that the triumph over error is not uncertain. 


494 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


In accepting what we have designated as the Christological princi- 
ple in its theology, however, the German Reformed Church does not 
undervalue the importance which it has always attached, in common 
with all the Reformed Churches, to the formal principle of Protes- 
tantism, the Bible as the only rule of faith and practice, and next to 
this the authority of its Reformation Confessions as in harmony with 
the Reformed Confessions generally. 

“ Zwingli begins,” we are told in the Creeds of Christendom by 
pr. Schaff, ‘'with the objective (or formal) principle of Protestant- 
ism, namely, the exclusive and absolute authority of the Bible in all 
matters of Christian faith and practice. The Reformed Confessions, 
do the same ; while the Lutheran Confessions start with the subjective 
(or material) principle of justification by faith alone, and make this^ 
.‘the article of a standing or falling church.’” While both these 
divisions of Protestantism alike hold to the supreme autliority of the 
Scriptures, as above all human traditions, the Reformed Churches have 
always been distinguished for the emphasis they placed upon this 
truth. And the German Reformed Church claims here to stand fully 
abreast with her sister Reformed Churches. A distinction is, indeed, 
made between the objective facts of revelation and the written word ; 
between what is sometimes called the subject-matter and the written 
form of revelation; but while they are distinguished^ they are never 
separated. The incarnate word and the written word are in a pro- 
found sense one. 

There was, indeed, as we have already seen, a tendency in the sev- 
enteenth and eighteenth centuries to present the revelation in the 
written word in a somewhat one-sided way. The letter of Scripture 
seemed to be substituted in the place of the living Christ, and belief 
in its mere doctrines as orthodox was too much identified with that 
living faith which is wrought in the heart by the Holy Ghost. Faith 
thus became mere formal orthodoxy. And the defence of Christianity 
was made to rest entirely in the proof before the bar of reason of the 
inspiration of the Scriptures. This appeared particularly in England 
in the contest with deism; but it existed also in Germany, and it 
required a revival of the Christian life in both countries to direct 
attention to the difference between a formal, lifeless orthodoxy and a 
living, experimental Christianity. But while the Bible in this way 
may become a dead letter, and reverence for it turn into mere Bibli- 
olatry, the truth nevertheless remains that the word of God, in its 
true sense and meaning, in its internal life and power, is of funda- 
mental importance for the faith of the Church. And this, not merely 
because we are dependent upon the written word for our knowledge 
of the great facts of Christianity — for we can conceive of this knowl- 
edge coming down to us more or less correctly through an unwritten 
tradition — but because the Bible is the ever-living word of God, and 
has power through the preaching of it to beget faith in the heart 
through the operation of the Holy Ghost. 

As the written word stands in Christ the Incarnate Word, so Christ 


SECOND GEN DEAL COUNCIL. 495 

is also in the written word. “ My words, they are spirit and they 
are life.” It is hardly necessary to say, that it claims this life and 
power for itself in passages too numerous to mention. We must 
regard the Bible, therefore, not only as the record of revelation, the 
critical standard for all true faith and right practice, but also as carry^ 
mg in it a living power to beget and to nourish faith. It is not only 
necessary for theologians in constructing their systems of theology, 
but for all people in the beginning and maintenance of Christian faith 
and Christian life. Systematic theology must, therefore, find its. 
basis and source in Biblical theology, or in. the Bible. This position 
is accepted and maintained in the theology of the German Reformed 
Church. 

' She cannot look with indifference, therefore, upon the new contest 
that is being waged against the Bible from the standpoint of science. 
In one sense, it is an old contest that has been waged over and over 
again in the history of the Church ; but the new appliances that have 
been gained by the wonderful progress of science and worldly knowl- 
edge generally renders it in some sense a new contest. The contest 
is not between the Bible and science, but between the Bible and a 
misuse of the teachings of science in the hands of unbelief. More 
and more it has been made to appear that the light of the word of 
God illumines all earthly knowledge ; and as the Church apprehends 
more and more the hidden depths of that well-spring of heavenly wis- 
dom, its light will continue to shine with increasing splendor through 
the night of a fallen world until the heavenly day shall dawn. 

While then we characterize the theology of the Reformed Church 
as Christological, we may characterize it also as Biblical — Christ and 
his word, one and inseparable. 

One more characteristic of German Reformed theology to which 
we refer is what we may designate its churchly character, or the place 
and importance which it assigns the Church in the redeeming work 
of Christ. 

As to the general position of the German Reformed Church on this 
subject, we may say, that it is fundamentally in harmony with that 
held by the Reformed Churches generally. It recognizes the Church 
as the mystical body of Christ, which comprehends in its communion 
all true believers in all ages of the world. The Reformation teaching 
universally brought forward a distinction between what was designated 
as the visible and the invisible Church in opposition to the Roman 
view, which identified the two. This distinction may be made from 
different points of view. It may be made from the standpoint of the 
divine decrees, making the invisible Church to consist of the elect. 
It may be made in such sense as to undervalue the necessity or im- 
portance of the visible Church. In German Reformed theology it is 
conceived of rather in the sense of the ideal and the actual church. 
The fact itself of a distinction is recognized in the Protestant view as 
a necessary inference resulting from actual history. The Jewish 
Church evidently fell into error and corruption, and the Apostle 


496 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

Paul clearly distinguishes between the external Israel and the spiritual 
Israel. The Roman Church of the mediaeval period fell into error 
and corruption, and it became evident that the organization of the 
Hierarchy no longer properly represented and expressed the spiritual 
life of the faithful. The conclusion was rightly drawn, therefore, 
that a distinction must be made between the essence and the form of 
Christianity. Indeed, the Saviour clearly teaches that external mem- 
bership in the kingdom of God on earth does not always and neces- 
sarily imply participation in the spirit and life of that kingdom. 

But these two, the visible and the invisible, the internal and the 
external, or the ideal and the actual, must not be separated, in the 
spirit of Donatism, except so far as proper and wholesome discipline 
may be required to preserve the purity of the Church. The full and 
final separation cannot take place until the end of the world. Though 
the Jewish Church fell into error and corruption, yet salvation was of 
the Jews ; but the spiritual life of the old organization was taken up 
m the new form which the Church assumed in its Christian form. 
Although there is not a full parallel between the two cases, yet it is 
sufficient to show that the life of the Christian Church at certain 
epochs, in like manner emerges from the old, corrupt form, and 
passes into new without destroying the true historical continuity of 
the Church. Thus the Church continues as one organic body, reach- 
ing down through all the ages in real historical succession, and 
extends into all lands without losing its true spiritual unity. There 
may be different external organizations, while there is one organism. 

The importance attached to the Church by the Heidelberg Cate- 
chism appears in the fact that it is treated of in the second part, 
which expounds the way of redemption, and not in the third part^ 
which treats of thankfulness, from which we may infer that the Church 
IS not merely a union of those who, without it, have already received 
the gifts of divine grace, but that membership in it and the enjoyment 
of Its ordinances pertain necessarily to the reception and growth of 
the grace of salvation. This importance appears also in the place 
that is given in the catechism to infant baptism^ and in the attention 
paid by the Church, from the beginning, to catechization, and the 
meaning attached to the rite of confirmation in receiving catechumens 
communion in the Church, and admitting them to the 
Lord s Supper. It appears in the place that is given to the Apostles’ 
Creed in the teaching of the Church, recognizing the proper use of 
this form of tradition in the exposition of the Scriptures. It appears 
in the retaining of liturgical forms in the public worship of the sanc- 
tuary, m the observance of the leading Church festivals, and, in 
general, in the conservative spirit manifested in the manner in which 
ancient and venerable churchly usages are retained. 

more importance is thus attached to 
the Church in its visible character than the words of Calvin express 
so strongly, where he says of it, that - there is no other way of entrance 
into life, unless we are conceived of her, born of her, nourished at 


497 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

her, breast, and continually preserved under her care and government 
till we are divested of this mortal flesh, and become like the angels 

aimcrtvldrh^^*-' necessary, therefore, to believe that 

rh I n n • ^nd known to God alone, so this 

Church, which is visible to us, we are commanded to honor, and to 
maintain communion with it,” and that “out of her bosom there 
can be no hope of remission of sins, or any salvation ; ” but in actual 
fact and history, the Reformed Church of Germany is more churchly 
in doctrine, customs and usages, than other Reformed Churches hold- 
mg to the Presbyterian polity. 

acquainted with the internal history 
of the Reformed Church in this country, that this formed one of the 
subjects in the long theological controversy which has agitated that 
body, and which has now happily come to a close. In the remarks 
1 have made upon it, I have endeavored to set forth, not the view of 
any party or school, but what is now the attitude of the whole Church 
The controversy forms a chapter in the history of Reformed Theology!- 
m this country, which belongs to the past. The return of reconcilial 
tion and peace finds us a united Church— our unity, though strained 
and tested, has never been broken — and the good results are already 
manifest in the increased prosperity which attends the practical work 
■committed to her care. 

Our Church has inherited a precious legacy from her past history 
From the mountains of Switzerland, where the voice of Zwingli, and 
his fellow Swiss Reformers, first sounded the note of the Reformation • 
from her home in the Palatinate, where she was nourished under the 

m"? teachings of the disciples of 

Melanchthon and Calvin ; from scenes of persecution, where her 
people sealed their faith by martyrdom; and through the struggles 
and trials of her early settlers in this country, pilgrims from the 
fatherland, and exiles for conscience sake, she has gone forth and 
lived and prospered under the care of the great head of the Church 
■and she comes in this Alliance, through her humble representatives' 
to present her greeting in this joyous reunion of the Reformed 
Churches throughout the world. 


COMMITTEE ON CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS. 

The Council next resumed the consideration of the special re- 
port of the Committee on Creeds and Confessions. 

The Rev. Prof. Blaikie. The committee unanimously reo 
ommend the following action: Resolved, That a committee 
of divines from the various branches of the Reformed or Presby- 
terian Churches embraced with this Alliance be appointed to 
consider the desirableness of defining the consensus of the Re- 
formed Confession as required by our Constitution, and to report 

32 ^ 


498 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

to the next meeting of the Council.” And then follows the list 
of the proposed members of the committee. Perhaps I may be 
allowed to say that if the Council shall proceed to appoint a 
committee, I shall ask them to withdraw my name, which ap- 
pears on far too many committees, and to substitute for it one 
much better qualified — Prof. Rainy. 

The Rev. A. A. Hodge, D. D., of Princeton, N. J. — I take the 
floor at this time because it was by my motion yesterday that the 
vote was postponed upon this question. I am one — one of 
quite a number, I am sure — who originally doubted as to the 
wisdom of going further with this matter ; but I rise now for the 
purpose of withdrawing on my part all opposition to the resolu- 
tion, I would rather second it, and vote for it for this reason : 
You observe that the resolution is simply for the appointment 
of a committee to consider the desirableness of drawing out and 
stating the consensus of the Reformed Confession, and of re^ 
porting simply upon this question of desirableness to the 
Council which is to meet in Belfast four years from this time. 

I am sure that, as there is a difference of opinion amongst us, this 
matter ought not to be settled at this time, and that it can best 
be considered by this committee, and that no harm can be done 
by the committee continuing to consider it for four years. But 
I propose, not at my personal instance, but after conference withi 
Dr. Schafif and Principal Cairns, the convener of the committee, 
that there be added to it the Rev. Principal Rainy, the Rev. Dr. 
J. Marshall Lang, of Glasgow, the Rev. Dr. Nelson, of Geneva, the 
Rev. Dr. W. G. T. Shedd, of New York, and the Rev. Dr. Sloan,, 
of Allegheny. 

Principal Cairns. — I regret to say that I have a note from 
Prof Flint, expressing his inability to act on the committee,, 
thus : “ I shall not be able to give the time and attention which 
.would be proper and necessary. I confess that some of the rea- 
sons against the appointment of the committee appear to be 
weighty.” I would humbly submit that, in spite of this letter, 
inasmuch as Prof Flint will not be committed to anything, and 
can act according to his convictions, as all of us must do, we 
shall do ourselves great service, and do Prof Flint no injus- 
tice, by still continuing him on the committee. 


499 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

The additions moved by Dr. Hodge were agreed to- the 
ad^ted ‘^“"finned; and the report as so amended was 

The Council proceeded to a discussion upon 
BIBLE REVISION. 

not^he SCHAFF.-The Subject of Bible revision should 

not be passed over .n silence. There is a practical point here 
nvolved which it is miportant for this Council to cLsider at 
ea.t. The Council has merely moral influence.notauthorita- 
tive, and whatever authority it may acquire hereafter, must be 

acquired by its own merits, by hard work. But here is a prac- 
^ question for us which may give very useful work to it^ 

You all know that this revision of the English version of the 
Scriptures is not a work for scholars, but is intended for the 
churches, and for all parties in the churches using the present au- 
thorized version of King James. Sooner or later this revised 
version, which is made by representatives of all English-speakine- 
Protestant churches in England, Scotland, and in this countr}^ 
wdl come before the various Synods and General Assemblies 
w 1C are represented in this Council, for consideration. The 

completed. Two more sessions 
will finish It; they will be held in October in New York It is 
expected that next February the New Testament thus revised 
will be published by the University press of Oxford, and be sub- 
mitted to the various churches for their consideration. 

Now I respectfully submit if it is not wise and expedient for 
this Council to ask the different churches here represented to take 
this New Testament into consideration at the earliest possible 
opportunity. I profess I would like to see more Presbyterian 
churches take part in this great question. It is gratifying to 
know the fact that the Presbyterian Church, as a Church in 
-ngland, Scotland and the United States, has for the first time 
m history a formal share in the work of giving the word of 
God in the English language to English-speaking people 
Ihe present version was made by the Church of England ex- 
clusively before the Presbyterian Church was formally organized 


'500 ' 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


in England. Now this revision comes before the world as much 
a Presbyterian work as the work of the Church of England. 
And I therefore appeal to your self-respect, if I may say so, to 
father this child as early as you see proper, but at all events, to 
take the work into consideration. If you do not like it, of course 
you will reject it. It depends altogether upon the pious judg- 
ment of the churches whether this new version shall take a 
place along-side of the old, or in place of the old one we love 
so much. 

You need not be afraid that this revision will break up the 
sacred associations which cluster around our English Bible. It 
is the fundamental rule of the committees, in England and in 
this country, to retain the same idiom and vocabulary in the 
revision, and I think you will all be pleasantly surprised when 
you see the book — that it will read like the good old book, only 
a little better. 

The Hon. Judge Strong offered the following resolution, 
which was, under the rules, referred to the Business Committee : 

The Council, having had its attention called to the revision of 
the English Scripture now in progress, beg leave to recommend this 
work, when finished, to the careful and candid consideration of the 
various churches represented in this body. 

Next followed a discussion on 

PRESBYTERIANISM AND EDUCATION. 

The Rev. G. C. Hutton, D. D., of Paisley, Scotland. — The 
interesting and able paper that was read by Principal Kin- 
ross seemed to me to contain a very strong expression of ap- 
proval of the system of common school education which he 
described as prevailing in New South Wales, and implied a 
rather , strong condemnation of an opposite system which was 
called entirely secular. In Scotland we have had considerable 
controversy upon that subject. I cannot regard the system 
which he described as prevailing in his land, and which prevails 
elsewhere, and in some respects in Scotland also, as entirely to 
be commended. I think that it does not at all belong to the 
State to provide for the religious education of the people, either 
the children or the adults. The description which Principal 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 501 

Kinross gave of the New South Wales plan seems to show that 
It was a mutilated Scripture alone which was recognized in that 
system ; the whole Scripture was not recognized, but only some 
portions of it. Here, then, is the supreme authority in education 
refusing to recognize the full Scripture. 

Then as to the condemnation implied of what is called the 
secular system, I think that condemnation is not justifiable. 
The secular system is simply a system by which we divide the 
labor in education. It is not education, but a contribution to 
the schooling of the children. It is in itself a good thing, and 
it may be allowable for the State to say, we shall contribute. It 
is a good thing, and we shall insist upon the children enjoying 
it. In that I can see nothing contrary to the interests of reiigion. 
In that I can see what is entirely consistent with the honor of 
religion, and I do not therefore like at any time to hear it con- 
demned. 

It is supposed that in this system is danger to moral or indi- 
vidual freedom. Why, in all the relations of life, whether hold- 
ing office under the church or under the State, we retain an 
individual liberty which we cannot renounce, an individual 
liberty of discussion as to what we shall say to our fellow-men 
or to children whom we have under our church, and under such 
a system called secular. It only needs that there shall be the 
right man put ‘into position. He shall know what to say with 
the wisdom that the occasion demands. He is not shut up, and 
dare not be shut up, by any arrangement, against saying to a 
child that which he thinks needful in the interests of morality 
and of school discipline. I hold, therefore, that to deduce a sort 
of illustration of that kind, is really to caricature a system which,, 
if honestly carried out, may be very fruitful to the best interests, 
of common school education in the colonies and in other parts, 
of the world. I think a good healthy system of common school 
education, in which religious instruction is not made formally a 
branch, is lawful, is consistent with all the interest of religion, 
and is conducive to the glory of God. 

The Rev. James Dodds, D. D., of Glasgow. — I come from 
Scotland as well as Dr. Hutton, and we have met upon plat- 


502 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


forms and discussed this subject before. And although not upon 
many other points, our views here are as wide as the poles 
asunder. I believe in the old Scottish traditions — religious in^ 
structions in the schools, not confined to any particular hour of 
the day, but interpenetrating the whole work of the school. 
That made Scotland what she was in the past, and that has made 
her such a mother in Israel as she has become. 

We have to some extent had our own system mutilated. In 
1872, an act was passed which placed religion in a different posi- 
tion from what it had occupied before. The multiplication of 
our rival denominations in Scotland, and the difficulties which 
prevailed throughout the country in consequence, rendered it 
necessary that there should be some modification of the old 
system ; but we have not broken off altogether from the old 
traditions. 

The preamble of the act of Parliament, under which Scottish 
■education is conducted, contains this proviso : that religious in- 
struction shall be conducted according to use and wont in Scot- 
tish schools. Under that proviso of the preamble, in Glasgow, 
where I have the honor to be a member of the school board, and 
in other districts of the country, satisfactory religious instruction 
is given in the schools. However, there are other parts of the 
country where the same value is not attached by those who rep- 
resent the public to religious instruction, and I &m sorry to say 
that the unity of our system is to some extent broken ; but I 
should be soriy^ to be in this Council and not stand up and say 
that I thank God we still can act under the old traditions in 
connection with this new act. I thank God that in many parts 
of the country religious instruction is being given. There is a 
movement, too, in many of the churches for giving it more satis- 
factorily than is the case in some districts ; and I hope that this 
movement will grow and strengthen. 

In your country, I am sorry to find, you stand very much, in 
many of the States, in the position to which Dr. Hutton and 
others would fain bring Scotland. I hope, however, that you 
will be alive to the necessity of giving religious instruction in 
the schools; that you will not merely suffer the Bible to be read 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 503 

without note or comment. I asked in visiting one of your 
schools yesterday in Philadelphia, what was meant by this reading 
of the Bible without note or comment. Would it be considered 
lawful to give a poetical definition or geographical description 
when such is required to illustrate a passage? “ No,” the reply 
was , there must be no such thing. It would be considered as 
an infringement of the regulation which provides for the read- 
ing of the Bible without note or comment You may be thank- 
ful that the Bible is not proscribed in the schools.” But I do 
not think this is a satisfactory position for the Bible to occupy. 

Of course I am very well aware of the many difficulties that 
prevail in connection with this subject, and that make it so hard 
to legislate upon it; but I think that the Presbyterian Church 
should give forth no uncertain sound in the matter. If we 
were holding fast by the views of Knox and other reformers ; if 
we were using all our influence for God, to make religious in- 
struction regular and systematic in the schools ; then there would 
not be so many complaints as we have heard in this Council of 
the falling away of members of the working class and other 
classes of the community ; we would not hear such complaints 
of the inefficiency of our Sunday-schools : for it is only, I believe, 
when the Sunday-schools supplement the work of the week-day 
schools in this matter of religious instruction that the religious 
knowledge of the people will be placed in a satisfactory position. 

Rev. Dr. Milligan, Pittsburgh. — It is not in Scotland alone 
that this question of secular education is absorbing attention. 
It is a question that is agitating from centre to circumference 
this great country. Secular education not only means that sec- 
tarian and denominational education, but everything of a relig- 
ious character, should be excluded from the schopls; and the 
Book of God is the only book that is condemned by it as unsuit- 
able to be put into the hands of our children. This is only a 
part and parcel of the communistic infidelity which aims to 
sweep every Christian element out of our nation. It is an effort 
to divorce the community from God, from his religion, and from 
all that is holy in the history of our race. According to it we 
may not even interpret the meaning of the geographical terms ; 


504 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


everything that touches upon religion must be excluded. Why ? 
Because, forsooth, our public schools are Supported by the con- 
tributions of some that are unbelievers as well as those that are 
Christians. 

Now, I ask, for what purpose was the public school sys- 
tem inaugurated ? Why was the public school established 
in our country ? It was in order to prepare our children for 
being mature citizens and intelligent members of society; it 
was to educate them. And I ask you if a man is all made up 
of mere intellect? I ask you if there is not a moral and spiritual 
nature in man that goes to make the element of greatness ? I 
ask. If you deprive a man of moral culture and moral training 
along with his intellectual training, whether you do not only 
thereby prepare him to be the sharper scoundrel and the greater 
rascal ? The man that cannot write, cannot forge ; the man that 
is not capable of intellectual power and exercises will be in- 
capable of a thousand wickednesses that an educated man who- 
is taken away from Christianity and away from God will be capable 
of perpetrating. The question is simply here as our Lord has. 
put it : “ He that is not for me is against me.” And of all 
things, education that does not lead us toward God, leads us 
away from him. 

Without Christianity, what would our race be ? What is the 
world where Christianity has not penetrated ? Where has the 
liberty of the world been born and cradled and developed ? Has 
it not been where the Reformation was successful — in Switzer- 
land, on those Alpine heights ; in Scotland, on those moors and 
those rocky regions, where men were trained up in the knowl- 
edge and culture and fear of the Lord ? Was it not thence that 
our land got its grandeur and glory ? Martin Luther was just 
nine years old when this land was discovered, and for one hun~ 
dred and fifty years popery endeavored to colonize it, and failed. 
It was when the Puritans, the Scotchmen, the Hollanders, and the 
Huguenots, who were hunted from their own land by the fires 
of persecution, came to find an asylum here, that the tree of lib- 
erty was planted, and our nation derived the great central idea 
that made us capable of being a free republic. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 505 

Rev. Dr. Prime. — I am heartily in sympathy with the spirit of 
Dr. Milligan s remarks, and feel to the bottom of my soul the 
same sentiment in regard to the necessities of religious educa- 
tion; but I would regret extremely to have our friends from for- 
eign lands suppose that there is any city in this Union in which 
the law is so written, or so accepted, as to exclude religion from 
the schools in the sense in which he has conveyed it to this As- 
sembly. I think that the view which he has given would repre- 
sent us as a worse than heathen land. 

There is not any part of the country where we labor under 
greater disabilities on this subject than in the city of NewYork,^ 
where one-half of the population is Roman Catholic, where we 
have more Irish than they have in Dublin, and more Jews than 
they have in Jerusalem. And yet there is not a school in the 
city of New York that is conducted on the principles represented 
by my beloved friend. Dr. Milligan— not one. There is not a 
school in the city of New York where the Bible may not be 
read, and where such instruction may not be given as tends to 
the inculcation of sound principles of Christian morality — not 
one. And I have been in those schools myself with the Mayor 
of the city of New York when he read the word of God, and 
when I have followed with the same sort of an address as I am 
pleased to give to a Sunday-school when I address it ; and there 
we have sung, with Roman Catholic teachers and scholars, the 
choicest and sweetest of the Moody and Sankey hymns. What 
is done in the city of New York I suppose may be done in Pitts- 
burg, where Dr. Milligan lives, and in any other city in this 
country. 

Dr. Milligan. — Let me ask if the school-board of Cincinnati 
has not excluded the Bible from the schools, and if the Supreme 
Court of Ohio has not sustained that board ? 

Dr. Prime. — I speak for the city of New York ; Cincinnati 
must speak for itself. 

Dr. Milligan. — I hope that the editors of New York hear 
what is going on in our country. 

The Council adjourned, after devotional exercises, until this 
afternoon at 2.30 o’clock. 


5o6 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


September gth ^ 2.30 p. m. 

The Council was called to order, in the Academy of Music, 
by the Rev. James M. Rodgers, of Londonderry, Ireland, Pres- 
ident. 

After devotional services, the Rev. D. D. Bannerman, M. A., 
of Perth, Scotland, read the following paper on the 

GROUNDS AND METHODS OF ADMISSION TO SEALING 
ORDINANCES. 

The two meanings in which I shall chiefly use the word ‘‘ Church ” 
in this paper are those regarding which there is general ^reement in 
Reformed Christendom. 

1. The “Church” means in Scripture the whole company of the 
elect — “all who have been, are, or shall be gathered into one under 
'Christ the Head.”* * * § ^^Ecclesia universalis,'' says Luther, quoting 
'with ernphatic approval words of John Huss, which had been con- 
demned by the Church of Rome, est prcedestinatorum universitas."^ 

This “General Assembly and Church of the first-born, which are 
written in heaven,” all agree to call the “ Church Invisible ” in this 
sense at least that, although all its members are seen and known of 
'God, it is impossible that they should now be gathered into one place, 
or that each should be seen and known certainly by the eye of man. 

2. The word Church in Scripture means a society or fellowship in 
any place of professed believers, or “visible saints” — to use the old- 
fashioned phrase — meeting together statedly for worship, and visible 
in their associated capacity to the eyes of rnen.J It is not needful 
for our present purpose to inquire whether this society is to be con- 
fined to the single congregation worshipping together, or whether, as 
Presbyterians believe, there is Scripture warrant for. saying that the 
principle of representation may come in, and the unity and responsi- 
bilities of the Church visible be carried further. Nor need we refer 
now to that doctrine of the catholic visible Church, the kingdom of 
Christ on earth, which holds so marked a place in the Westminster 
•standards, and in the thoughts of the great ecclesiastical divines of 
the seventeenth century. § 

We have no gccasion in this paper to go beyond the two senses of 
the word now indicated, using it to denote, the whole company 
of those who are Christ’s ; and secondly — what all admit to be the unit 
at least, of the Church as manifested on earth — the worshipping con- 

* Conf., c. XXV., I. 

f Kostlin, Luther’s Lehre vender Kirche, Stuttg., 1853, p. 9. 

j Owen, “ Works ” (Goold’s ed.), xv., 252 f. 262, 320 f. Bannerman, “ The Church 
of Christ,” I. II f., 15. 

§ Walker, “ Theology and Theologians of Scotland,” Edinb., 1872. Lect. iv., 

Doctrine of the Visible Church.” 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 507 

gregation, gathered in the name of Christ, and joined together on the 
basis of some common relation to him. What kind of relation, and 
how to be tested, is what we shall have to consider presently 

Ihe Church, therefore, is essentially a fellowship— a commu7iion. 
t consists of those '‘called out” — as the name ixx%t;aia suggests— 
from the promiscuous multitude, and gathered together for common 
ends And in the first and highest sense the Church is essentially, 
and from its very nature as defined, a “pure communion.” 

Setting aside for the present such cases as that of elect infants, and 
Keeping to that of members in complete standing, the true Church as 
existing on earth is the fellowship of true believers with their Lord 
and with each other, and of such only. -All saints who are united 
to Jesus Christ, their Head, by his Spirit and by faith, have fellowship 
with him in his graces, sufferings, resurrection, and glory. And heins 
united to one another in love, they have communion in each other’s 

not a true believer, he is not of 
that fellowship. “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, ”he 
IS under the anathemaf of that “ holy catholic Church, which is- 
invisible. 

“The Church,” said Melanchthon,^ in that defence of the great 
Reformation Confession of Augsburg, which became itself a standard 
in the German Church, “the Church is primarily— before all else— 
the society of those who have faith and the Holy Spirit in their 
hearts.” “ Es weiss, Gottlob ein Kind von sieben Jahren,” Luther 
puts it in his emphatic way, “was die Kirche sei, namlich die heiligen 
Glaiibigen, und die Schaflein, die ihres Hirten Stimm horen.” § All 
Reformed Christendom holds that the Church, ‘in its ideal and in its 
true constituency — “ ecclesia qnoe re vera est coram Deo ” (Calvin) — is 
and must be a pure CQmmunion. 

But then it is as universally admitted that, in point of fact, that is not 
realized on earth. Whenever you pass from “ saints united to Christ 
by his Spirit and faith,” to “saints by profession,” from the very 
nature of the case, an element of uncertainty comes in, do what you will 
to avoid it. It is owned on all hands that, as there was a traitor among 
the twelve, and an Ananias and Sapphira in the Pentecostal Church, 
so there may be, and generally are, men and women not real believers 
in every worshipping congregation in this world, and that the solemn 
ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, “ the communion ” — which, from its 
very nature and name, ought to be the sign and embodiment of the 
truest fellowship — is actually partaken of by not a few who have no 
part or lot in the matter of salvation. 


* Conf., c. xxvi., I, 
t 1 Cor. xvi., 22. 

j Apol. Conf., Aug. iv. So in the early editions of his “ Loci : ” “ Ecclesia proprie 
et pnncipaliter significat congregationem justorum, qui vere credunt Christo et sancti- 
ficantur Spiritu Christi.” Cf. Jul. Muller, “ Dogmatische Abhrandlungen,” Bremen, 
1870, pp. 297. Krauss, “ Protestant Dogma von der unsichtbaren Kirche,” Gotha, 
1876, pp. 34-42. 

§ Art. Schmalk, cf. Calvin, Inst.., lib. iv. c. 1.3, 7. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


508 

Further, it is almost as generally allowed that this involves serious 
guilt on the* part of members or office-bearers, or both. 

Well, the subject set down for this afternoon calls us to consider : 
In what light are we to look upon this state of things, and how ought 
it practically to be dealt with ? If the Church on earth ought to be 
a ‘'pure communion,” a fellowship of true believers only, by what 
means is that to be brought about or aimed at ? Or, translating these 
questions into the ecclesiastical language of the Programme : What 
are the Scriptural grounds and methods of admission to sealing 
ordinances ? 

What that last phrase means I need not pause to explain in this 
Council. “ Sacraments,” as the Westminster Confession expresses it,, 
“are holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace, immediately in- 
stituted by God, to represent Christ and his benefits, and to confirm 
our interest in him; as also to put a visible difference between those 
that belong unto the Church and the rest of the world, and solemnly 
to engage them to the service of God in Christ according to his 
word ” — c. xxvii. i. And both the sacraments of the New Testament 
are rightly included by the Programme Committee in the designation 
of the subject, because the question of qualifications for membership 
in the visible Church is equally raised by both. Except as regards 
the relative order of the two ordinances — a point which, though it 
greatly disturbs our Baptist brethren,* happily creates no practical 
difficulty for us — to ask what is needful in an applicant for adult bap- 
tism is the same thing as to ask what is needful in an applicant for 
admission to the Lord’s table. 

With reference to baptism as dispensed to infants, the general ad- 
mission among competent theologians that adult baptism forms the 
normal instance of the administration of this, sacrament, f makes it 
suitable to treat the case of infants separately, and in the light of 
principles reached in discussing the general question. Many difficult 
and delicate practical points will thus be best approached. 

On what principles, then, ought sealing ordinances to be admin- 
istered? What is the mind of Christ, the Head, for his church, office- 
bearers, and members in this thing? For it is clear that two classes 
of questions naturally arise, questions for the Church or its representa- 
tives who admit in its name, and questions for the person seeking ad- 
mission to the communion of the Church. We may ask — ist. What 
sort of persons are the office-bearers justified, before God, in receiv- 

* Comp, on the one side And, Fuller, “ On Terms of Communion, Works,” Lond.,. 
1837, Vol. V., pp. 288-311 ; and on the other Robert Hall, “ On Terms of Commun- 
ion, Works,” Lond., 1831, Vol. II.' The question discussed is not, as might lie sup- 
posed from the heading, that of the qualifications for church membership generally, 
but simply that which divides the “strict communion Baptists” from those of that 
denomination who advocate “ free ” or “ mixed ” communion, the former party ex- 
cluding from, the Lord’s table all Christians not baptized by immersion at full age, 
and the latter admitting Christians baptized in infancy. 

f Cunningham, “Works,” Edin., 1863, II., 125!. Bannerman “Church of 
Christ,” IL, 108 f. 


509 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

ing to baptism or the Lord’s table? Or, 2d. What sort of persons 
are themselves justified before God in coming forward ? The two ques- 
tions are quite distinct : Was it right in Philip the Evangelist to admit 
bimon the Samaritan soothsayer to the communion of the church? 

It right in Simon himself to make the profession in con- 
nection with which he was admitted?* 

The subject is an important one, both from a theoretical and a 
practical point of view, as all must feel who have studied it, and the 
wide literature connected with it. It leads into many difficult and 
complicated questions in both spheres, which call for a clear under- 
standing and a firm grasp of the principles of God’s word bearing 
upon them, and no little Christian wisdom and faithfulness in apply- 
ing those principles. 

In what I say now I shall confine myself very much to the grounds 
or general principles of admission to sealing ordinances. The methods 
most suited to give effect to those principles may be better brought 
out in conference, or under the topic which is to follow, ‘‘ The Prov- 
ince and Use of Discipline.” 

Two things are obvious almost at a glance in reading the words of 
our Lord and his apostles regarding church membership, (i.) There 
ought to be discipline in the Church, a certain exercise of authority 
for the admission or exclusion of members, as, indeed, no society re- 
quiring common action for common ends can possibly subsist in an 
orderly way without it; and (2) There may be an excess of it. It 
may be exercised, even from praiseworthy motives, on wrong princi- 
ples and by incompetent hands, and the result be evil in the Lord’s 
eyes. 

For example, in Matt, xviii. 15, our Lord tells us how an offending 

brother, a fellow-disciple, is to be dealt with about his trespass, 
ending with ‘^but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto 
thee as heathen man and a publican.” And on the other hand, in 
an earlier chapter of the same gospel (xiii. 24-30, 36-43), ‘‘the 
kingdom of heaven,” the Church as manifested in this world, is 
likened to a field in which the owner sowed good seed, but an enemy 
mingled tares ; these representing respectively, as our Lord expounds 
it, “ the children of the kingdom ” and “ the children of the wicked 
one.” And when the servants appeal to the householder: “Wilt 
thou then that we go and gather them up?” his answer is, “Nay: 
lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. 
Let both grow together until the harvest;” clearly showing this, 
at least, that mistaken zeal for the purity of the Church’s membership 
might be ready to use means for that right end which were not right, 
which would do more harm than good, and were against the will of 
the Church’s Head. 

In point of fact, two extremes in this matter have been manifest in 
the history of the Church. 

I. There have been, and there are, communities, nominally Chris- 


* Acts viii. 5- 24. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


510 

tian, in which the greatest laxity and corruption of manners have 
widely prevailed, without any remedy being sought for, or any gen- 
eral wish for it being apparent. And there are other churches, with 
many signs of spiritual life, and very many most excellent and con- 
sistent Christians in their ministry and membership, where, at the 
same time, alongside of the former, we see many others whose lives 
are palpably of an opposite kind ; and the door of communion is 
practically open to any who desire, from whatever motive, to enter, 
and no attempt is made by the church — and perhaps, from its consti- 
tution and circumstances, no attempt is practicable — to exercise upon 
' those within its pale that ‘ ‘ godly discipline of the primitive church,” 
the absence of which the Church of England deplores every year in 
the preface to the Commination Service. 

Everything which exists generally finds some one, in virtue of that 
fact, to produce reasons for its existence and for its right to continue 
to be. But apart from that tendency — which is far from being 
without its advantages — principles which would open the Lord’s table 
to men not even professing to be Christians have been defended by 
some truly good and able men, who were not embarrassed in this 
matter by their ecclesiastical position, and who were of a thoroughly 
evangelical spirit. 

It may not, e. g., be so well known to all members from the other 
side of the Atlantic as it doubtless is here, that about the beginning 
of last century a theory of this kind was propounded by Mr. Stod- 
dard, the grandfather of President Edwards, and himself an eminent 
and pious man. He taught that “unconverted people, as such, had 
a right in the sight of God to the Lord’s Supper; ” that “ those who 
really rejected Christ, and disliked the gospel way of salvation, and 
knew this to be true of themselves,” might and should come to the 
sacrament, and be admitted by the church, on the ground that it is a 
converting ordinance, and that they desire to get a blessing from it. 
Through Mr. Stoddard’s influence these views were widely adopted 
by the ministers and people of New England ; and in 1750 Jonathan 
Edwards himself was actually deprived of his charge at Northampton 
for opposing this theory and urging greater purity of communion.* 
I must not pause now to point out how this theory of Stoddard’s was 
a natural reaction from the previous theory and practice of Inde- 
pendent churches in New England, but may just say in passing that 
as few evils in this world are without some compensating benefit, so 
the deplorable injustice by which Edwards was ejected from his min- 
istry at Northampton had two good results : it gave us his great treat- 
ise on “ Qualifications for Communion in the visible Christian Church,” 
and it helped at least to make him a Presbyterian. J 

*“ Works,” Lond., 1834, Vol. I., p. clvii. ff. 

f “As to the Presbyterian form of church government,” he wrote in July, 1750, to 
Dr. John Erskine, of Edinburgh, “ I have long been perfectly out of conceit of our un- 
settled, independent, confused way of church government in this land ; and the Presby- 
terian way has ever appeared to me most agreeable to the word of God and the reason 
and nature of things.” “ Works,” ut supra, p. clxiii. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 51 r 

extreme— that represented by the servants in the 
parable— has been more generally attractive to men of a devout and 
earnest spirit ; and it is easy to see why it should have been so. It is 
a true and lofty thought that the Church of Christ in its ideal is es- 
sentially a communion, of those ‘‘washed and sanctified and 
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our 
Lrod. It IS true that the hypocrite and the unbeliever have no right 
to join themselves, even in name, to its fellowship on earth, and that 
all lawful and scriptural means should be used to bring this home to 
the conscience of all such persons. “Do we,” a Scottish divine 
vvrote nearly 230 years ago, “in opposing your doctrine concerning 
the necessary qualifications of church members in relation to external 
church fellowship, oppose a thing because it is such as it ought to be? 
May, we but oppose you who make the door of the visible Church, 
straiter than ever the Lord made it, and so in effect disclaim the way 
allowed by God himself for ordering his Church as not wise enough,, 
nor accurate enough. Or do we set ourselves against a Church, such 
?? describe, consisting of all truly godly, so far as men can judge ? 
God forbid, and far be it from us. Were there such a Church in the 
world, U would be very dear and precious in our estimation, and we 
should bless the Lord for the riches and power of his grace bestowed 
upon them. We wish from our souls that our churches, and all the 
churches in the world, were of such a complexion and constitution. 
And we acknowledge that, as it is the duty of every professor in the- 
visible Church in the sight of God that they be, not only ‘ so far as 
men can judge,’ but in truth and in deed truly gracious, having true 
saying faith, repentance and sanctification ; so that it is the duty of 
ministers and of every one in the church, according to their station 
and capacity, to endeavor by all means instituted by God that it may 
be so. -{^^Examination of Mr. Lockyer' s Lecture at Edinburgh (1651) 
Concerning the Matter of the Visible Church.'' Edin., 16K4, 10-2 ‘ cf 
MMer ut sufra, i.) 

It is niost fit and right that Christian men and women should be 
deeply grieved .at every instance in which one called a brother or 
sister in the Lord has manifestly yielded to unholy impulses, and has 
brought reproach on the name of Christ and of Christian in such a 
way that even “ the love that hopeth all things ” must doubt, or more 
than doubt, whether the root of the matter were ever found in them. 

Unhappy instances of this kind may multiply in the experience of 
a Christian man ; they may seem to thrust themselves in his way, until 
he is greatly saddened and disheartened. Then perhaps he turn^ to 
others, in whose lives there are no positive offences of that sort ; but 
he sees them eager and absorbed in worldly things, with little appar- 
ent warmth or interest in the things of God j and he says within 
himself, hastily, but not unnaturally: “These, too, are sensual,, 
having not the Spirit.” Thus he comes to feel as if he could not 
trust those with whom he is joined in outward fellowship for sym- 
pathy in the spiritual matters which he has most at heart. He looks 


512 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


round him in the congregation on a communion Sabbath, and sees 
one and another there whose presence seems to him to make it not a 
pure fellowship in which the Lord’s presence and blessing might be 
•confidently and joyfully expected. 

It is an easy step from this point to the conclusion: ‘‘There is 
something far wrong in this state of things. Some different principle 
ought to be applied to secure that none but the truly converted and 
spiritually minded shall enter the church as members, or sit at the 
Lord’s table. Should not the church, or its representatives, lay it on 
their conscience to receive none to communion unless they are fully 
persuaded, on sufficient evidence, that this man is born again, and is 
a new creature in Christ Jesus? ” This is what is generally known as 
the Independent theory of admission to sealing ordinances.* 

And then a further question will arise for some minds : If the 
Church is essentially a pure communion, does not impurity in its 
membership, which might have been prevented, destroy the essence 
of a church, and turn away all divine blessing from its ordinances ? 
And ought we not to separate from any professedly Christian society 
which does not appear to us a pure communion in this sense ; and, if 
absolute purity cannot be attained on earth, at least “join the 
purest? ” Has the old warning no application here : “ Come out of 
her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye 
receive not of her plagues; ” “ Come out from among them and be 
ye separate, saith the Lord; and touch not the unclean thing, and I 
will receive you and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my 
sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” 

Many of us are familiar with such reasonings and their results, in 
the case of the Plymouth Brethren. 

Now, such a line of thought and feeling has undoubtedly much 
about it which ought to awaken genuine sympathy and respect. f I 
am convinced that the want of such sympathy and respect has greatly 
impaired the effectiveness of many a pamphlet against Plymouthism. 
If we wish rightly to meet error in doctrine or practice, the first thing 
needful is clearly to recognize to what truth or side of truth it allies 
itself in earnest minds, and what true spiritual instificts are seeking 
satisfaction in this way. 

Plymouthism, with its errors and its unhappy results, can be best 
met on the one hand by the- true scriptural doctrine concerning the 
'Church, and on the other by the practical manifestation of that spirit 
•of mutual help and fellowship, which ought to characterize all the 
members of the Church. It may be well for each of us to consider 
how far we, in our Church relationship, may have been lacking in 


* It is held by Independents under various forms, which need not be referred to 
here. The practice of very many Independent churches is substantially identical 
with our own. 

f Comp. Bersier’s interesting account of how he was led from the school of Vinet 
in this matter to the position which he now holds. — “ L’Eglise,” Paris, 1877, PP« 
'vi., f. 8-16. 


SECOND GENEEAL COUNCIL. 513 

sdW Thn^ '^hich there would naturally 

spring those words an#! deeds of frank and kindly Christian inter- 
course and friendship for which many are half consciously cravintr 
and the support of which some temperaments peculiarly miss 

ran^arise in^the mind^^^ PlyiLuthism natu- 

mno^n°“ f ‘''°“Shts clearly.for themselves, nor to recognize the 
importance of grasping the whole teaching of Scripture on anv sub- 
ject instead of simply one part or aspect of it. At the same time it is 
obvious dial the practical conclusion to which such a theory of “ pure 
communion points, and the attitude towards others which it aliLst 
necess. ates, have much about them likely to ally itself to human 
Christian instincts. “ Pure communion ” in 
the Plymouthistic sense, appeals not only to the zeal of a young ’con 
ver , but to hts natural self-confidence! his pronenl trswfeping 
Uiticism and h^ty inferences from half-seen truths, to the spirit ^haf 

irifaV hidt;!alo;sr; " ° 

s&rsS's” t .‘'K 

thrnmm,?nf° ‘considerations may be noted, which are of 

the nature of presumptive evidence against the theory of pure com- 
munion to which reference has been mtde. ' 

(ist.) It manifestly reduces the possibility of Church fellowship to 
If th purest," plainly means “Join the smallest." 

ralnllH h^”p‘tf ^ t'hurch is destroyed, or at least its purity fatally 
tainted, by the presence of an unworthy member in its fellowship 
one about whom there may reasonably be suspicions-as has bei!; 
often asserted from the days of Tertullian and the Novatians* onwards 
—then there is less danger of that with a hundred members than with 
hve hundred, with twenty than with a hundred, with ten than with 
twenty. Nay, of whom can a man be so sure as of himself, and per- 
haps one or two of his own family, who.se spirits for years he has had 
more op|wrtunity of trying than in the case of any beyond that 
circle. Once lay such responsibility for purity of communion upon 
a scrupulous conscience, and experience has amply shown what a 
future of constant divisions is before you, ending not unfrequently in 
absolute and literal individualism in religion. f 

For (2d) the testimony of history on the'subject is very clear and 
unmistakable. The views about pure communion now referred to 


1846, 1. 284; Neander, “ Church 


* Gieseler, “ Eccles. Hist.” (En^;. Transl.) Edii 
Hi.st.” (Toi-rey’s Transl.) I. 330 fif. III. 270, 34. 

it X theory, as Wood points out to CromweH’s Provost of Eton 

likely there never was in the world a true visible Christian Church, unless it wL 
that of the eleven after that Judas hanged him.self, nor ever shall be.” p. 84. 

33 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


514 

were far too obvious not to occur soon. Whenever Christianity 
ceased to be persecuted ; whenever men saw in any country that it was 
the winning cause, and social and other advantages were connected 
with it, there it speedily became manifest that some had found their 
way into the Church who were not of it. The same difficulties and 
feelings of distress arose in pious minds, and the same method of 
escape naturally suggested itself. The method has been tried, in fact, 
over and over again at intervals — sometimes pretty wide ones — for the 
last 1,600 years — now by those calling themselves the pure ones 
(dt xa^apdt) ill the third century; now by the Donatists in the fourth 
and fifth ; now by various of the smaller sects in Germany and Hol- 
land in the sixteenth century, and again by the “Seekers” and 
others under the English commonwealth in the seventeenth. And it 
has always wrought out its own refutation. The theory with its at- 
tendant practice, more or less strict, lived for a generation or two, 
was examined and rejected by the ripest Christian judgment of the 
Church of the time, and then gradually died out, disappearing so 
completely that when, a century or two afterwards, from the old causes, 
it sprang up again, it had generally been quite forgotten, and so came 
with the power of novelty to run the same cycle and end as before. 
Irs reappearance is not by any means among the worst signs of an age. 
Through the natural operation of human infirmities, it has often been 
associated with seasons of revival for which, as a whole, the Church 
had reason to give hearty thanks. It has emerged again in an aggres- 
.sive form in our own time. But nothing has been said in support of 
it by Darby, Macintosh, Davis or Kelly, so far as I have seen, which 
had not been said in substance and often almost in the same words — 
of which I could give curious illustrations — before by those, e. g., with 
whom Augustine contended in the fifth century, and those whom 
Richard Baxter in England, and Wood, of St. Andrews, in Scotland, 
had to oppose upon this topic in their day.* 

Every age, of course, must fight its own battle, but it may do so 
with better heart as it comes to know that it is really an old adversary 
whom it is meeting in a new garb, but no stronger than when he was 
<lefeated on the same ground long ago. And no age and no Christian 
-man, in facing any serious question of doctrine or practice, has any 
right to neglect the deliberate decisions of the highest sanctified judg- 
ment of the Church upon the same question in former generations. 
The promise of “ the Spirit of truth to guide into all the truth ” was 
not given for us and our generation alone, but has been fulfilled all 
along the way by whicli God has led his Church on earth. And it is 
well for us therefore to remember that once and again, and yet again, 
the verdict of history has been given upon this theory of “pure com- 


* J. N. Dirhy, “ What is the Church?” Lond. 1870. “The Doom of Christen- 
(iom.” “ What is the Church as it was in the beginning, and what is its present 
state.^’ What the Christian has amid the ruin of the Church,” etc. C. H. 
Macintosh, “ The Asseml)ly of God.” Davis, “Help for Inquirers.” W. Kelly, 
“lectures on the Church of God,” 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


515 


munion,” and has declared that, however plausible in some of its as- 
pects, it is radically unsound and practically unworkable. 

The question then is, what is the true and safe ground I'etween the 
two unscriptural extremes of lax discipline and neglect of the grave 
responsibilities which do lie upon the Church in this matter on the 
one hand, and on the other of using means with a view to purity of 
communion which are unwarranted and incompetent? In answering 
this question, it is of the first importance to keep clearly before us a 
distinction made at the outset. It serves, if rightly understood and 
applied, to clear up not a little confusion of thought upon this subject, 
to prevent many consciences from being burdened with painful respon- 
sibilities which they are not called to take upon them, and by assuming 
which they are brought into a wholly morbid state. And it tends to 
])ut the responsibility effectively upon those to whom it really belongs. 
I mean the distinction between the ground of admission to sealing 
ordinances “ foro ecclesice'' and “ foro DeiU to use the old for- 
mula. In other words, what according to Scripture will fully justify 
the Churchy or its office-bearers^ in admitting a man is one thing ; what 
according to Scripture will justify the man himself m the sight of God 
in asking admission is another and quite a different thing. 

As to the first, I believe that what Scripture requires is a serious 
and intelligent profession of faith in Christ and obedience to him, 
w'ith a corresponding conduct; as to the second, the 7‘eal existence in 
the man of what he professes — a true faith and sincere obedience. The 
Church is responsible only for what concerns the first-named qualifi- 
cation ; the man himself, and he only, for what concerns the second. 
That is to say, the gates of the kingdom of Christ on earth should 
be open to every one coming with a credible profession* of what is 
needful for entrance into the kingdom of Christ in heaven. 

This is, in substance, the answer given by the Reformed Church 
generally by the lips of all her leading theologians who have discussed 
this subject. f In all essential points it is just the answer of President 
Edwards in his masterly treatise on “Qualifications for Communion.” 

It seems to me that the lamented Dr. Charles Hodge — I speak with 
the greatest reverence for his memory — has been hardly fair to Ed- 
wards in the statement of his position given in the “ Systematic The- 

* By ^'■credible'’’ profession there is implied no judgment, whether of charity or 
otherwise, on the part of the minister or elders admitting the applicant, as to his 
real spiritual state, but simply a judgment as to certain facts, namely, as explained 
above, that the man makes this profession in an apparently serious spirit, that he 
has knowledge enough to understand what he is doing, and that there is nothing in 
his known conduct to give the lie to what he now says and does. cf. Durham, 
“Treatise Concerning Scandal,” Edin., 1659, 88 ff. Wood, ut supra, 29 f., 152 f. 

f So, e. g.. Prof. Wood, of St. Andrew’s, in his singularly clear and able reply to 
Eockyer, the first champion of the Independent theory of church-membership upon 
Scottish ground. The latter had given his lecture — published at Leith, in 1652 — 
the ambitious name of “A Little Stone out of the Mountain.” Hence, the quaint 
first title of Wood’s reply: “A Little Stone, pretended to be out the Mountain, tried 
and found to be a Counterfeit.” cf. Apollonii, “ Consideratio,” etc. Cap. I. “ De 
qualificatione membrorum ecclesiae,” Loud., 1644. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


516 

ology” (III. 569 ff.). ‘‘According to this theory,” Dr. Hodge says, 
“the Church consists of those who are ‘judged’ to be regenerate. 
None but those thus declared to be true believers are to be received 
as members of the Church.” Now, I admit that Edwards gives some 
ground for such a representation by a certain ambiguity in one clause 
of his thesis: “That none ought to be admitted as members of the 
visible Church of Christ in complete standing but such as are in pro- 
fession, aud in the eye of the Church's Christian judgment, godly or 
gracious persons.”* But this ambiguity is removed if we have due 
regard to the explanation of the statement which he himself gives. 
What the Church judges is not, according to him, that the applicant 
is regenerate, but simply that he makes a serious and intelligent pro- 
fession of faith and obedience, and that his outward conduct is agree- 
able thereto ; this, as he expressly says, whatever the private suspicions 
or fears of the minister, or any other, about him may be.f 

Edwards’ position, in fact, is thoroughly Presbyterian in substance, 
although with a tinge of the old Independent phraseology, very 
natural in a New England man. An additional proof of this may be 
found in his willingness to subscribe the Westminster Confession, J 
including, of course, its well-known definition of the visible Church 
as consisting of all those who profess the true religion, together with 
their children. 

With respect to the Scripture evidence for this view of the true 
grounds of admission to sealing ordinances, it is impossible to do 
more than indicate it in the most general way. It is derived from 
many quarters, and is of many kinds, direct and indirect. Strong 
arguments in behalf of the position now laid down may be drawn 
from general principles and considerations connected with the Scrip- 
ture doctrine of the Church, its nature and design. It is supported 
— as Edwards and others have conclusively shown — by the basis on 
which God placed his Church in the Old Testament dispensation, and 
by what is told us of the principles of Baptist’s ministry. But let us 
pass at once to the teaching of our Lord and the precepts and practice 
of his apostles on this subject. We must refer to a few passages only, 
and barely indicate the kind of proof which they afford. 

ist. As to our Lord’s teaching. 

I need not say here how unmistakably and emphatically he required 
a real spiritual change in all who would be his disciples indeed, and 
have place in his true and spiritual Church — “ Except a man be born 
again he cannot see the kingdom of God . . . Except a man be born 
of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” 
“Except ye be converted and become as little children ye shall not 
enter into the kingdom of God.” “Not every one that saith unto 
me. Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but he that 
doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” § 

*“ Works,” Loncl., 1834, I., 434. 

fid., 435 452, 475. 

I Expressed to Dr. Erskine in the letter already referred to, “ Works,” I. clxiii. 

^ John iii. 3 ff.; Matt. vii. 21 ; xviii. 3. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


5 ^ 


Nor is it necessary for our present purpose to refer to passages as to 
dealing with a brother who has trespassed, as to the keys of the king- 
dom of heaven, etc., which prove that discipline is to be exercised in 
the visible fellowship of believers on earth. The question before us is 
rather as to the limits of discipline, — the point at which, with respect 
to the applicant for communion or the member claiming full privi- 
leges, the responsibility of the church or its office-bearers ceases, al- 
though that of the man himself remains. 

Now* I need not prove, for it is admitted on all sides, that the 
Saviour in his teaching both states and takes for granted that, in 
point of fact, there will be always more or fewer unworthy members 
in the visible Church on earth. That, of course, does not settle the 
]joint. Who are to blame for their presence there, themselves or 
others? But it may be helpful to some minds to remember that this 
fact which so troubles them was clearly before the mind of the Head: 
of the Church from the first. Sad though it be in itself, it did not 
take him by surprise, nor does it defeat his purpose of blessing for his 
Church and by it. “ When once the Master of the house is risen up 
and hath shut to the door,” he told his disciples, “many” should 
“stand without and knock,” and plead in vain. “ We have eaten 
and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets ;” but 
he shall say, “ 1 know you not, whence ye are. Depart from me, all 
ye workers of iniquity.”* 

Nay, that very experience, painful as it must be to every spiritually- 
minded man, of close outward connection in solemn acts of worship 
with one of whom there is much reason to fear that he has no real in- 
terest in the things of God, was part of the daily life of the Saviour 
upon earth. And with him it was no mere dread or suspicion. While 
he sometimes apparently spoke of all the apostles, on the ground of 
their profession, as if all were true disciples (“Ye that have followed 
me, ye also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of 
Israel ”), at other times he showed that he knew well and felt pain- 
fully that there was a traitor even in the inmost circle of the infant 
church : “ Ye are clean ; but not all ;” “ Have not I chosen you 
twelve, and one of you is a devil ? ” 

But I must not dwell on this. I would draw attention for a moment 
or two to that rerparkable series of parables regarding the Church 
or kingdom of heaven as manifested on earth — those parables in 
which we see the wheat and the tares together in the field ; the draw- 
net, enclosing fishes good and bad ; the guests at the king’s supper 
worthy and unworthy ; the wise and foolish virgins together in the 
house, alike in name and outward preparation and avowed purpose. 
Now, in the teaching of those parables three things stand out clearly 
as to the fellowship of the Church on earth : (i) That there is an ac- 
tual mingling in it now of the worthy and the unworthy, and that it 
is not by the hands of men, but of angels or the Lord of angels, that 


* Luke xiii. 25-30 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


518 

the final separation is to be made: ^^They shall gather out of his king- 
dom all the stumbling-blocks ” (rtai/ra ra ozaj- 5 aXa) “ and them which 
do iniquity ; ” “ He shall thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his 
wheat into the garner."* (2) That the church or its office-bearers 
are implicitly or expressly forbidden to do, in the way of separation, 
what they may be disposed to think they might, and what possibly, to 
a certain extent, they could do. And (3) That the reason for this 
prohibition is that there are some kinds of separation for which their 
hands are incompetent, their eyes not sufficiently keen or sure, tmd in 
trying to effect which they would be certain to do harm, although 
seeking to do good. 

Thus, e. g., in Matt. xiii. 24 ff., the servants saw, as they believed, 
the tares. Should they not therefore go and gather them up? ‘‘ But 
he said. Nay ; lest while ye gather up the tares "—they might succeed 
in removing some of these — “ ye root up also the wheat with them." 
There could hardly be a more direct reply, by anticipation, to the 
arguments of those who urge that the Church on earth should be con- 
stituted upon the principle of admitting and retaining none but the 
regenerate, and that the office-bearers are bound to be persuaded in 
their own judgment that a man is truly converted before receiving 
or retaining him as a member in their fellowship. 

The only possible escape from the plain teaching of this parable is 
to assert that the argument proves too much ; that according to this 
view there should be no discipline in the church at all. But to make 
such an assertion is simply to evince ignorance of the first principles 
of sound and sober interpretation of Scripture. It is an axiom, ad- 
mitted by all who are com])etent to judge in the matter, that no par- 
able was ever meant to teach all truth. Each one is designed to bring 
out, in a vivid and impressive way, some special truth or aspect of 
truth, which again was meant to be supplemented by other parables 
or passages of the word. The duty of church discipline, of caring in 
a suitable way for purity of communion, rests upon its own full evi- 
dence. Here, and in other like passages, we learn an important co7n- 
panioft truth, namely, the danger of measures to which we might be 
prompted by a mistaken zeal for the honor of the Master. As Augus- 
tjne said in reply to Donatist advocates of pure communion : We 
ought to obey our Lord in the gospel, both when he tells us that he who 
will not hear the church should be to us as a heathen man and a pub- 
lican, and when he forbids us to gather out the tares, lest in so doing 
we root up the wheat also ; for both precepts may well be kept."f 

2d. The practice of the apostles shows how they understood the 
principles laid down by our Lord when, both before and after his 
resurrection, he “ gave commandments to the apostles whom he had 
chosen, speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God."| 


* Matt. xiii. 41 ; iii, 12. 

t Comp. Wood, ut supra, 163-6. Trench on the Parables,” 86 f. Muller f 
J Acts i. 2 f. > o - * 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL 


519 


We see in the Apostolic Church a vigorous and faithful discipline, as, 
e. g.y in the case of Simon Magus, but 110 test for admission beyond a 
profession, on the part of the applicant, of faith in Christ and a pur- 
pose to follow him. So with the 3,000 on the day of Pentecost, and 
with the 5,000 shortly after. So with the admissions under Philip at 
Samaria. No blame whatever seems imputed to the evangelist for re- 
ceiving the soothsayer into the church too hastily. On the contrary, 
we find him immediately afterward honored to receive the Ethiopian 
treasurer on a still shorter probation and on precisely the same prin- 
ciples. So with Cornelius at Caesarea, with the converts at Philippi, 
and many others. 

The difficulty which is apt to strike one in connection with these 
cases is, in fact, not as to the strictness, but the apparent ease, with 
which applicants were admitted. It might not be quite plain at first 
sight how, when professing converts were so quickly received to com- 
munion, there could be sufficient evidence, that their profession was a 
serious and intelligent one. When we consider, however, on the one 
hand, the peculiar circumstances of the times, that to profess Chris- 
tianity meant then to be ready to suffer or even to die for it; and, on 
the other hand, the simplicity and power of the apostles’ preaching, 
we shall see that there really was a reasonable guarantee that the ap- 
plicant understood sufficiently what he was doing, and was in earnest 
in the profession he made. But certainly there was no time for such 
lengthened examination and probation as could warrant the office- 
bearers of the church in saying of such as the Samaritan soothsayer, 
that he, in their deliberate judgment, was a regenerate man, and ad- 
mitting him on that ground. 

3d. And so also in the Apostolic Epistles. 

These are addressed to those ‘‘called saints,” “brethren in the 
Lord,” to “ the Church of God which is at Corinth,” “to them that are 
.sanctified in Christ Jesus,” “to them that have obtained like precious 
faith with us,” etc. And yet, at the same time, it appears from the 
same epistles that there are some in those churches of whom the apos- 
tle “stands in doubt, lest he has bestowed upon them labor in vain;” 
others “who have sinned already and not repented',’’ who have given 
way to gross disorders and heresies; and some retained in commun- 
ion, whom he has to enjoin the church at once to put out of their 
fellowship.* The fitting remedy for such a state of thing, where the 
evil has gone the length of “scandal,” i. e., open sin, or serious error 
in doctrine, is pointed out, viz., the faithful exercise of discipline; 
“we command you, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye 
withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and 
not after the instruction which he received from us.” “A man that is 
an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject.” “Them 
that sin before all, rebuke, that others also may fear.” But no change 


* I Cor. V. I ff. ; xi. 21 ; xv. 12 ; 2 Cor. xii. 20 f. ; Gal. iv. 1 1 ; v. 4. 


520 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


is indicated as to the principles of admission to membership, or doubt 
implied as to their sound^e.^s. 

Now, it is plain that the titles by which those apostolic churches are 
addressed, and the state of matters actually existing among them, are 
just what we should expect upon the supi)osition that the grounds of 
admission in each case had been those above stated. Their members 
had been received on profession of faith in Christ, and purpose to 
follow holiness. The Christian society or church in each place had 
been constituted on the ground of that profession ; and they are, 
therefore, addressed in terms of it. But it by no means followed that 
the actual spiritual condition of each of the members corresponded to 
the titles given to the church as a whole. ‘‘ In the superscription of 
letters to societies of men,” as President Edwards puts it, “we are 
wont to give them that title or denomination which properly belongs 
to them as members of such a body. Thus if we should write lo the 
Royal Society of London, or the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, 
It would be proper and natural to give them the title of ‘ Learned ; ’ 
for whether every one of the members truly deserve the epithet or 
not, yet the title is agreeable to their profession, and what is known 
to be aimed at and professedly insisted on in the admission of mem- 
bers. . . So It seems to be the manner of the apostles in their epis- 

tles to Christian Churches to address them under titles which imply a 
profession and visibility of true holiness.” “Not any pretended 
skill of the pastor's in discerning the heart, but the fersoii s o%vn 
serious profession iio\-iQ.trnmgyfi\\2XhQ finds in his own soul, after he 
has been well instructed, must regulate the public conduct with re- 
spect to him, where there is no other external visible thing to contradict 
and overrule it. And a serious profession of godliness, under these 
circumstances, carries in it a visibility to the eye of the church’s ra- 
tional and Christian judgment.”* 

I have thus briefly indicated some of the Scripture evidences for 
what I believe to be the true ground of admission to sealin''^ ordi- 
nances in the church. ^ The position advocated further contmends 
Itself by its great practical advantages, as all who have sought to act 
upon it know. 

To admit any one to communion on the principle of saying or im- 
plying that he was a converted person, in mv judgment, is what I 
should be very sorry to do, both for my own sake and for his, unless 
shut up to it by the plainest teaching of Scripture, and that, as we 
have seen, leads to a very different conclusion. 

I. For my own sake. 

All ministers and elders, who hold the view’s on this subject which 
I support, must feel that they have responsibility enough in doing their 
owm part towards applicants for admission, in dealing tenderly and 
yet faithfully wuth them, in avoiding what might flutter and perplex 
the young and ignorant, in putting the truth clearly and simply, in 
showing them about what a man is to examine himself, in using all 


Works,” I., 456, 475. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


5-1 


suitable means to bring them to a right spirit in dealing with the 
great question of their own salvation — in dealing with Christ, the 
Lord, for themselves. We should altogether refuse to be, or to seem^ 
responsible in any way — save as regards faithfulness in such prelim- 
inary steps — for their answer, for the conclusion that it is right for 
them to make a public profession of faith in Christ, and obedience to 
him. 

We may have our own impressions on the point. Of some we may 
stand in doubt, as they come forward ; upon others we may look with 
hope and confidence ; over others, again, we may have great joy of 
heart. It may be the duty of a minister to advise a man to wait, 
while it may not be his duty to refuse him access to communion, if he 
persists in his desire, and takes the full responsibility of his action. 

But it is the greatest relief to every true minister of Christ to feel 
that what he is called to make the ground of his admission of appli- 
cants, is not a judgment even of charity as to their spiritual state — of 
which God alone can rightly judge — but a judgment of facts, which 
we are competent, with due care and faithfulness, to judge upon, 
namely, that the applicant has knowledge enough to understand what 
he is doing, and that his profession is seriously made, with nothing in 
his outward life, so far as known to us, to bring discredit upon it.* 

2. For the sake of the applicant himself. 

I should be most unwilling, as a minister, to take any other position 
than that now explained. We avoid thereby not a few obvious dan- 
gers. Difficulties enough remain within the sphere left to the pastor 
in this matter, and mistakes may still be made. A young minister, 
especially, is apt to expect that all experiences of conversion and the 
Christian life are to be cast in one mould. But the limitation of his 
responsibility makes it less likely that weak but sincere believers will 
be rejected, and the wheat thus rooted up in the attempt to get rid of 
all the tares. ‘‘ Were this,” says Wood, “ made an universal rule of 
admission into church fellowshij), namely, a declaration of the exper- 
imental work in their heart, that they may be judged regenerate, 
verily, many an honest, gracious soul would never obtain such a judg- 
ment upon them while they live; there being many such who, put 
them to declarations of this kind, could say little or nothing. . . . 
Nay, it were in effect to erect a stage for hypocrites to out themselves 
upon, and to cast a stumbling-block in the way of honest hearts not 
indued with the gift of expressing themselves. • 

Certainly, by the position laid down we reduce, to a great extent, 
the temptation to insincere profession of experiences, which the ap- 
plicant knows will be expected, which a hypocrite will make readily. 


* Bannerman, “Church of Christ,” I., 79 f. 

f The well-known answer to the question in the Larger Catechism : “ May one 
who clouhteth of his being in Christ, or of his due preparation, come to the Lord’s 
Supper? ” is admirable in spirit, but difficult of practical application in particular 
cases. 

I Wood, ut supra, 147. 


522 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


and which one not wishing to be so may be pushed into by pressure 
of circumstances.* 

Again, if the minister or the elder’s judgment of the applicant 
being a converted person is the warrant for his admission, he will be 
very apt to rest in that afterwards ; the more so, it may be, the more 
elaborate the process by which the minister satisfies himself. 

Where the pastor takes the attitude already indicated, he is far more 
likely to reach the great end of rousing conscience, and of making the 
man or woman with whom he is dealing feel how solemn a thing it is 
to covenant with Christ, and how the duty and responsibility of it lie 
upon himself or herself alone. To have that individual responsibility 
earnestly and affectionately laid upon the conscience by a true minis- 
ter of Christ is the most awakening experience through which the 
applicant can pass. He is maue to realize that, while of such things 
as knowledge and outward conduct man may judge, as to the true 
qualifications in the sight of God, he that judgeth him is the Lord. 
When it comes to the turning-point of the whole matter. Is it right 
for him to call himself a disciple of Christ, to profess faith and obedi- 
ence? he is sent alone into tli’e presence of the King to find his answer 
there in secret on his knees. The profession involved in his coming 
to the table of communion is thus emphatically his own profession of 
the hope that is in him as to his personal relation to Christ ; and he 
makes it as such before the Lord and before his people. 

Instances will no doubt rise to the memories of many pastors here, 
in which young people were in this way aroused to a sense of spir- 
itual need, and led to seek and find a Saviour, and whose after-life 
proved the reality of the change which they then underwent, but who 
came to them quite ready to assent vaguely to any form of profession 
which the minister might put into their lips, and who would have 
said “ Yes ” to any leading questions asked. 

Appendix. 

Whose Children Ought to be Admitted to Baptism ? 

This, as Dr. Hodge truly says, is “a very delicate, difficult, and 
important question.” I can offer but a few notes, indicative chiefly 
of the kind of problems that arise in connection with it, and of the 
lines in which a solution has been sought. 

1. All Presbyterians agree that the infants of members of the visi- 
ble Church in full standing ought to be baptized. There is, further, 
very general agreement that infants should be baptized wlio are in 
such a position that members of the church can rightly stand to them 
so far in loco pare7itum^'' can become responsible for their Christian 


*“This accurate and pretended cleanly way of these brethren,” says Wood, in 
words which might seem written with an eye to more recent developments of the 
theory of pure communion, “ though it tend to exclude many who may he truly re- 
generate, yet may let in any unregenerate, if they can but play the hypocrite hand- 
somely, and have some book-learned knowledge.” 163. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


523 


education, and are willing so to do. This latter head includes such 
cases as those c*f orphans, children adopted in Christian families or 
by Christian missions at home or abroad. The question of the bap- 
tism of heathen children was before the Synod of Dort. A few years 
after Iloorabeeh, a leading theologian of the Dutch Church, discussed 
a number of points of this kind in a letter to John Durie. * The rule 
of the Church of Scotland in such cases is given, as follows, by Steu; 
art, of Pardovan :f “ In case of children exposed, whose baptism after 
inquiry cannot be known, the session is to order the presenting of the 
child to baptism, and the session itself is to see to the Christian edu- 
cation of the child. As also when scandalous persons (/. e.^ those 
out of communion for gross offences) cannot ])revail with any fit per- 
son, or rather relation, to present the child in their name, or when 
the relations of deceased parents refuse to become their sponsors, then 
the session is to order as is said.” 

Some interesting extracts are given by Dr. Hodge from the deci- 
sions of the Assembly of the American Presbyterian Chun h regarding 
the baptism of apprentices, “children of parents in servitude,” and 
heathen children. | 

But II. May those infants be baptized who are not in such plainly 
exceptional circumstances, who are children of parents themselves 
baptized and not under discipline, but not members in full standing? 

How, e. g., are ministers in the Highlands of Scotland to deal 
with parents outwardly consistent in life, and most regular in church 
attendance, who will on no account make the profession implied 
in coming to the Lord’s table? Hew are our Inethren in the 
Protestant Churches of France, Italy and Spain to deal with men who 
have discarded all faith in the doctrines of the Church of Rome, in 
which they were baptized, who are desirous that their children should 
receive baptism from Protestant pastors and be brought up under 
Christian influences, although they are not prepared to make or imply 
any positive profession of faith themselves? Are we to refuse to such 
men any recognized standing in the visible Church for themselves or 
their children ? 

It is obvious that the more strict the rules regarding admission to 
the Lord’s table, the more ])ressing in a practical point of view such 
questions become. It is natural, therefore, to find them em.erging at 
an early date among the Independent Churches of New England. 
About the same time, or somewhat earlier, they were fully discussed 
in Holland. We may note three of the answers then given to the 
question : May the children of parents baptized, but not in full com- 
munion, be received to baptism? 

I. Yes; on the ground of the parents’ baptisrn. The parents are 
members of the visible Church, although not in full communion. 


*“ Episiola ad celebertim, virum Job.” Durjeum, Liigdun Bafav., 1660,313-56. 
f “ Collections.” Edin., 1709. 124; Cf)nip. Act IV. of Assembly, 1712. 

1 Syst. Theol.” Lond. and Edin., 1873, III. 561 f. 


5^4 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Their standing as such was recognized by their baptism,' and has not 
oeen forfeited so long as they are not actually cut off from it in the 
exercise of discipline. They have, indeed, fdiled to improve their 
privileges as they ought, and are not yet qualified for admission to the 
l^ord s table ; but this failure in duty on their part must not be visited 
upon their children by denying them baptism. 

^ 2. Yes ; because baptism is but the initial sacrament. A higher 
standard of attainment and profession is needful for admission to the 
I-ord s Supper than m the case of one seeking baptism for himself, or 
at all events, for his children. This view was advocated in blolland 
m the seventeenth century. It was the theory popularly known in 
Mew England about the same period as the Half-way Covenant. It 
was decided in a Synod at Boston, where the question was fully dis- 
cussed, that ^ such baptized persons as, without being prepared to come 
to the Lord s Supper, were of blameless character, and would own for 
themselves their baptismal obligations, ought to be allowed to present 
their children for baptism.” 

The propositions on which this conclusion was based are given bv 
Hr. Hodge, who adds that this decision came to be approved by the 
genera practice of the Congregational churches of New England. 
Such also, he goes on, ‘‘it is believed, although on somewhat dif- 
ferent principles, was the general practice of the Presbyterian Church 
Ifistory within a comparatively recent period of its 

, Dr. Hodge himself appears to incline to this position. He quotes 
with approbation Dr. Cotton Mather’s defence of it. “Those ” he 
says himself, “ who, having been themselves baptized, and still’ pro- 
fessing their faith in the t^rue religion, having competent knowledge, 
and being free from scandal, should not only be permitted, but urged 
and enjoined to present their children for baptism, that they may be- 
ong to the church, and be brought up under its watch and care.^ To 
be unbaptized is a grievous injury and reproach, which no parent can 
innocently entail upon his children. The negi;ct of baptiS. which 
^ nf fi ™ appreciation of the ordinance, is one of the crying 

^ ates fh^t’- ^ clearly 

ihe same for participation in both sacraments are 

tne same. . . . Those, under the Christian dispensation entitled to 
bap ^m are entit^d to the Lord’s Supper. Tl4e who, unbaptild 
would be entitled to baptism for themselves, are entitled, and th/v 
only, to present their children for baptism. Baptism and the Lord’’^ 
Supper are not converting ordinances. They are to be administered 
only to those who profess to be Christians. ” § aministered 

In the H ighlands of Scotland, while the theory of Church member- 

*Hoornbeek, 315 f. Comp. Bersier, “ L’EgHse ’’ 14 f 

Church and its Polity.” Edin., 1870 21c f H n Hodge, «The 

t “ Syst. Theol.,” III. 567 ff. 572. ^ * 

t P- 579* „ p - 

^P -574 f. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


525 


ship is that of the Westminster standards, the practice is to a consid- 
erable extent akin to that of New England under the “ Half-way Cov- 
enant.” Many truly earnest and consistent Christians hold back there 
from participation in the Lord’s Supper, while receiving baptism for 
their children. No doubt with respect to them the position of the 
pastor may often be: “ These are communicants. I should 

have no hesitation in admitting them to full communion did they 
apply for it, although from special scruples and distrust of themselves 
they shrink from doing so.” * 

3. Yes; because both sacraments are seals of an external Q.QNQXiz.Xil. 
The visible Church is based upon this covenant, and it is to the Church 
visible that the sacraments belong. The conditions of entrance are a 
profession of historical or intellectual faith in the true religion, and an 
outward conformity to its rules. Applicants for the sacraments, 
therefore, do not profess to be Christians except in an outward way. 
They simply declare that they are not infidels or scoffers, and that 
they wish church privileges for themselves and their children. 

De March and Gomar advocated this theory in Holland. Vitringa 
and others strongly opposed it. De Moor gives a full account of the 
controversy. 

This was, in substance, the position of Stoddard, Blair and others 
in America in the eighteenth century, to which reference has been 
already made.f 

All who have given any attention to this subject must agree with the 
suggestion of the Theological Faculty of Utrecht in 1648 regarding 
one of George Gillespie’s famous CXI. Propositions, that further light 
was desirable on the question, “ How, and how far the power of the 
church has to do with (and its duty may be discharged towards) 
mcompleie mejjibers of the Church, so to speak ; that is to say, those 
baptized in infancy and all other catechumens, and even hearers.” 

The Rev. T. P. Stevenson, D. D., of Philadelphia, also read 
the following paper on 

BAPTISM: ITS AUTHORITY AND MEANING, AND THE 
PROPER SUBJECTS OF THE RITE. 

The use of water as an emblem of spiritual purification, and of 
washing as a religious rite, is not peculiar to Christianity. Herodotus 
tells us that the ancient Egyptians, if they came in contact with 
swine, deemed themselves defiled, and for cleansing washed themselves 
in the Nile.J Great .spiritual virtue is ascribed by the Hindus to the 
waters of the Ganges. These usages of widely separated people either 
point to some original institute of worship which antedated the dis- 


*Comp. Schleiermacher’.s “ Conception of an Outer and Inner Circle of ‘Aspirants ’ 
and Members of the Church.” Christliche Glaube, 2d Ed. I 148. 2 § 150. MUller, 
ut supra, 356 f. 

t Hodge, ut supra, 563-566. f Herodotus, Euterpe, 47. 


126 


THE PKESJ^YTERfAiV ALLIANCE. 


persion of the human family, or are to be taken as testimonies to the 
naturalness and inherent fitness of water as an emblem of spiritual 
cleansing. 

In connection with the true religion, the use of water is at least as 
old as the days of Moses and the Levitical institutions. I'he people 
^vere commanded to wash their clothes before meeting with God at 
Sinai. A laver was placed at the entrance of the tabernacle, and ten 
lavgrs, replenished continually from a brazen sea which held “ three 
thousand baths,” stood in the court of the temple.* Aaron and his 
sons were washed with water upon their induction to the priesthood 
and were required to wash their hands and feet as often as they went 
in to discharge the duties of their office. The very sacrifices were 
washed with water before they were laid on the altar. Iffie leper and 
whoever contracted ceremonial defilement, must bathe his flesh in 
water before he could approach the sanctuary, and these occasions of 
impurity were so numerous, and many of them so inevitable, that the 
requirement was an important sanitary regulation, as well as an im- 
pressive spiritual lesson. And when Moses had finished the announce- 
inent of the law, he took the blood of sacrifice, with water, and 
sprinkled both the book and all the people.” f These purifications 
were sometimes by immersion ; sometimes by pouring or sprinkling 
But they were all the expression of a penitent mind, of a desire for 
that pardon and cleansing which the washing at once symbolized and 

It rno-H° precedents appears 

at length the examp e of a stern prophet who preached the baptism 

The?’"" f to be baptized of him in Jordan, 

then, as ns short but fervid ministry drew to its close, came One 

baptize with the Holy Ghost, and who 
sent out his apostles to preach and to baptize. He, in turn, ere the 
heavens opened to receive him, laid on his disciples the great comm is- 
^ BAPTIZING them in the name of the 

bather, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” While, therefore the 
I ew Testament ordinance of baptism bears the broad seal of Christ’s 
express appointment, it was no new, strange, and unprecedenteT^- 
■stitution. It was not only in harmony with the ideas and feelings and 
‘ it was the continuation, with^some ' 

In ti existing ordinances of the Church of God 

In tins fact we discern the operation of a law which I notice and em- 
p lasize here that I may appeal to it again ; the law of gradual pro 
cesses in all the works of God. As the twilight attempem tCZZ 
of the rising sun, as spring interposes between February and Tun^e as 
the acorn does not in a day become an oak, nor the babe become a 
man, so-the colors of which the web of history is woven do not appear 
in clear, sharp lines and strong contrasts, but kindred colors are nLr 
est each other , and each blends into its neighboring hues. So the Old 
lestament dispensation was preparatory to the New, and the New is 


2 Chronicles iv. 5. 


t Hebrews x. 


17. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


527 


the complement of the Old. There was no violent transition from 
the one to the other. Ordinances which had foreshadowed the great 
sacrifice were, of necessity, abolished, for sacrifices are offered to God, 
and, when once adequate, need to be offered no more ; but even this 
change was gradual, and the whole Epistle to the Hebrews is an argu- 
ment to mitigate its unwelcomeness by proving that we still have an 
altar and a priest, none the less glorious that they are invisible in the 
heavens. Institutions, however, which dealt with man. in his constant, 
enduring needs, his need of instruction, of reformation, of worship, 
were, in all their essential features, retained. Among these was the 
washing with water for the putting away of sin. New Testament 
baptism cannot, therefore, be rightly studied apart from the similar 
Old Testament institutions out of which, historically, it arose. This 
fact helps at once to confirm its authority, to interpret its meaning, 
to fix the mode of its administration, and to determine the persons to 
whom it may be administered. 

The True Significance of Baptism. 

I pass next to consider the meaning and efficacy of baptism. 
‘•What mean we by this service?” What is accomplished by it? 
In answer to this question one voice rises distinct and positive, an- 
nouncing a lofty view of this ordinance and demanding acceptance 
for it under pain of eternal separation from Christ and his salvation. 
It is the voice of those who teach that regeneration is effected in and 
by the act of baptism. According to this view, the Spirit of God 
broods or moves on the face of the water in the baptismal font, as he 
moved on the face of the deep at the first creation, and there imparts 
spiritual life as he then brought life and order and beauty out of chaos. 
Quoting their own words, “ Water, sanctified by our Lord’s baptism, 
is the womb of our new birth.”* “Baptism,” says Dr. Pusey, 
“ hath the germ of spiritual life.” f It is that mystery wheieby we 
are made partakers of the Incarnation — baptized into the ‘ One Body, 
the body of our incarnate Lord.” I “ The partaking of the Incarna- 
tion and the Christian relation of sonship to God are imparted through 
baptism, and are not imparted without it.”§ “Regeneration is the 
‘ being born again of water and the Spirit,’ or by God’s Spirit moving 
again on the face of the waters, sanctifying them for our cleansing, 
and cleansing us thereby.” \\ This is not only the Romish doctrine 
of baptism. It has recently been revived and strenuously urged in 
the Church of England and her branches, and has even appeared 
among the Reformed Churches. It matters little to its advocates that 
the great Reformers and their immediate successors Archbishop 


* “ Tracts for the Times,” Vol. II., p. 43 * Y. edition, 
f “Sermon before the University of Oxford,” N. Y. edition, p. 5. 
X “ Tracts for the Times,” N. Y. edition, Vol. II., p. 44. 
aibid. p. 31. 


528 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Cranmer, Bishops Ridley and Latimer and Coverdale, and all the 
most eminent men in the early history of the English Church, and a 
great array of illustrious names along her path from then till now, 
Jewell and Whitgift and Usher and Hooker and Jeremy Taylor and 
Hopkins and Pearson and Burnet and Tillotson and Seeker— have 
earnestly repudiated the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, or that 
her Catechisms and the Thirty-nine Articles have pronounced against 
It. All the more earnestly do they and their sympathizers in other 
churches make their appeal to the word of God. And right gladly 
do we accept this appeal. Far be it from us to seek to overwhelm 
intense and sincere convictions by the citation of any lower au- 
thority. 

It IS, of course, altogether impossible, within the limits of this 
paper, to examine the several passages of the word of God which are 
supposed to teach this doctrine. But it is admitted that there is one 
ruling text, which, like a master-key throwing back the bolts of every 
lock, contiols the interpretation of the rest. The doctrine of bap- 
tismal regeneration stands or falls with our understanding of John iii. 

5 : “ Verily I say unto thee,* except a man be born of water and of the 
Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” 

These words were uttered in answer to the question of Nicodemus, 
“ How can a man be born when he is old ?” And when, to this reply 
of Jesus, the inquirer still responded, How can these things be?” 
the divine Teacher answered him with words not of further explana- 
tion, but of reproof : Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not 
these things?” 

The new birth of which Christ had spoken was a subject with which 
Nicodemus ought to have been familiar. And so, indeed, he ought, 

^ u- u ^ denoted simply that moral and spiritual change 

Which the truth, made effectual by the Spirit, works in the soul, en- 
ightening the understanding, quickening right emotions, and renew- 
mg the will. This change was indispensable to salvation under the 
Old lestament as well as under the New, and it behooved every “master 
m Israel to be able to point it out to others. But if our Saviour was 


1 .. , ^ xjuL 11 uui octviuur was 

here expounding the value and significance of the new, and, in this 


respect, altogether unprecedented ordinance of Baptism’ as an “over- 
whelming mystery” and “miracle.” havine^ a snpn’fir 


possiDie lor nun to know, and the reproof of the Master 



deserved. 


was not 



* “ Tracts for the Times,” vol. ii. p. 43. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 529 

^isite to salvation is, in its real nature, a moral and spiritual chanue. 
Whatever means may be used to symbolize or to effect it, it is agreed 
hat the change itself is a change in the judgments, desires, and voli- 
tions of die soul Itself. The very nature of this change admits for its 
accomplishment only a spiritual agent, the Holy Ghost ; and a spirit- 
ual tnstrumentahty, divine truth. The washing of the body with water 
can, in the very nature of things, have nothing to do with producing 
a moral cnange in the soul. And the principles of the divine govern- 
ment, under the remedial dispensation, require that the Spirit and the 
truth be left free — not tied to any ceremonial observance, but free to 
WOT t leir b essed effects in the human soul under all circumstances 
and even in the very hour and article of death. The solitary traveller 
breathing his last among pagans in a heathen land ; the explorer 
perishing on the burning sands of the desert ; the soldier dying un- 
tended on the field of battle, though he call to mind the teachings of 
his youth and the words of the blessed Evangel, cannot, on this view 
turn to God and be saved, unless he can find water and priestly, or at 
least Christian, hands to administer it to him, because, forsooth, this 
text ties the work of regeneration to the ordinance and the moment 
of baptism. The sentiment which excludes unbaptized persons — even 
infants— from burial in the ground where the. dust of the Christian 
dead repo.ses, is a not unnatural, inference from this doctrine. 

3. The change of the new birth which is here spoken of is elsewhere 
in Scripture constantly ascribed to the instrumentality of the word alone 
without reference to baptism : “Of his own will begat he us by ihe 
word of truth. . . . Receive with meekness the engrafted word, which 
IS able to save your souls.”* “ Seeing ye have purified your souls in 
obeying the truth through the Spirit, ... see that ye love one another, 

. . . being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible’ 
even the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. If the 
truth, revealed in the word and wielded by the Spirit, is the only in- 
strument of regeneration, it is easy to understand an allusion in some 
paspges, as in this from John, to the washing with water, which sym- 
bolizes the Spirit’s work. But if the washing with water be an insep- 
arable and indispensable instrumentality in our regeneration, it is im- 
possible to understand those passages — and they are a great multitude 
— from which all allusion to it is omitted. 

4 * The “kingdom of God,” mentioned in the text under consider- 
ation, has two forms of existence, one visible and on the earth, the 
other invisible and spiritual. The baptism with water is the appointed 
door of entrance into the one ; regeneration by the Spirit is the door 
of entrance into the other. Without baptism by water a man cannot 
become a member of the visible Church ; without the baptism of the 
Spirit he cannot enter the spiritual and invisible kingdom. Of this 
spiritual renovation, water-baptism is a symbol or type; and of this 
twofold form of his kingdom and twofold condition of admission the 


James i. i8, 21. 


34 


t I Pet. i. 22, 23. 


53 ° 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Master says — in words whose luminous simplicity rebukes the mystical 
)>erversion which they have suffered at the hands of some of his dis- 
ciples — Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot 
enter into the kingdom of God.” 

5. This interpretation will not abide the test of Christian experi- 
ence. Baptism does not, in point of fact, mark the line between the 
old. life and the new. The fruits of the Spirit — repentance and faith 
toward God — are found and are sought for before baptism, and appli- 
cation to receive this ordinance is evidence — in many cases most con- 
spicuous and decisive evidence — of a change of heart; evidence than 
which no better can be furnished after baptism. So, too, the sense 
of pardon, consciousness of God’s love, and joy in the Holy Ghost — 
all the inward testimonies of the Spirit that we are the children of 
God —are enjoyed by multitudes of God’s people before as well as 
after the reception of this rite. On the other hand, it cannot be 
claimed that all those who have been baptized, either in infancy or 
in adult years, have been regenerated. An infant thus renewed ought, 
as soon as it can perceive truth, to display a love for divine things, de- 
light in the knowledge of God and a cheerful readiness to do his will, 
not needing, with diligent instruction and solicitous reproof and pain- 
ful discipline, to be brought afterward under the power of the truth. 
Whether this be the uniform effect of the administration of this ordi- 
nance we cheerfully leave to the decision of those who have oppor- 
tunity to judge. 

II. There is another view of the meaning of baptism which, es- 
pecially in view of an inference which is drawn from it as to the 
mode of its administration, demands attention. It is the view of 
those who maintain that the ordinance of Christian baptism is expres- 
sive not only of cleansing, but of burial and. resurrection. “There 
is something in baptism that is calculated to be an emblem of a resur- 
rection as well as of a burial.”* Upon this view, I remark : 

I. It confuses the symbolical significance of the rite, and destroys 
its simplicity and expressiveness. It teaches that at least three dis- 
tinct ideas — in the hands of some expositors even more — are embodied 
and set forth in this ceremony: (i) Cleansing; (2) Burial; (3) 
Resurrection. This is in violation of one of the prime requirements 
in such symbol, that it have unity and simplicity. Practically it is 
found, moreover, that the popular apprehension, and even the pulpit 
expositions of the ordinance in the churches where this view is taught, 
tend powerfully to simplify its meaning by dropping out of sight the 
idea of cleansing, and giving exclusive prominence to the two cognate 
ideas of burial and resurrection. I'he sermons, hymns and prayers 
in connection with the administration of baptism in these churches 
bear ample witness to this fact. Furthermore, washing with water is 
symbolical of a spiritual fact ; the removal of our sinfulness and the 
renovation of our spiritual nature by the power of the Holy Ghost. 


* Carson on “ B.iptism,” p. 144. London ed. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


531 


Blit burial in baptism ” is symbolical, not of a fact, but of a purely 
figurative or emblematic thought, viz. : that in the hour of the new 
birth we die and rise again to newness of life. But that is only a 
figure of speech. I'here is no proper and literal sense in which we die 
Muth Christ and are raised again. This view, therefore, confuses the 
meaning of the ordinance, not only by multiplying the ideas of which 
it is the expression, but by making it partly the symbol of a symbol, 
partly the symbol of a fact. 

.a. Burial was no part of the meaning of the manifold washings of 
the Old Testament, though its advocates zealously maintain that they 
were performed by immersion, or submersion. 

3. This view has no support in the baptism of John, though the 
same teachers maintain strenuously the substantial identity of John’s 
baptism with Christian baptism. 

4. The idea of burial did not attach to baptism as administered by 
Christ and his disciples, for the burial and resurrection of the Lord 
himself— the historical facts on which this interpretation is based — 
had not yet taken place. 

' 5. This view is not warranted by any words of Christ in reference 
to this ordinance. His silence on this point is natural, if the original 
and simple meaning of washing with water, with which the church 
had so long been familiar, was to be retained ; but this silence is not 
intelligible, if our Lord was instituting a service, the chief part of 
whose meaning was wholly new. See how fully he expounds the 
meaning of the othey sacrament — the Lord’s Supper ! 

6. The whole support of this view is found in two passages of Paul, 
so nearly identical that they are practically one passage: “ Know ye 
not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were bap- 
tized into his death? Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism 
into death ; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the 
glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” 
Romans vi. 3, 4; also, Colossians ii. 12. On these verses I remark 
simply; (i.) They are susceptible of a natural and entirely reason- 
able interpretation, consistently with the view which regards baptism 
as the symbol of spiritual cleansing. The change of regeneration, 
.elsewhere likened to a new birth, to a new creation, and to a resur- 
rection from the dead, is, in a true and important sense, a dying to 
our former life, occupations and associations, and a rising to newness 
of life. Death, ravishing us away from this present world and bear- 
ing to the scenes of another life, is not a greater change than that 
which passes upon regenerate children of God. This work of the 
Spirit is symbolized by baptism. The grace which is thus conveyed 
to us is the fruit of the death of Christ. Therefore, by a true and 
most impressive figure, we are said in our baptism to be baptized into 
the death of Christ, and to rise to a new life. The view which 
regards the apostle as speaking of the spiritual significance of baptism, 
rather than as alluding to the mode of its administration, is, exegetic- 
ally, at least as sound and defensible as the other. These verses, 


532 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


then, being entirely capable of this interpretation, cannot be pressed 
» into the service of the other. Yet they are the only scriptural support 
for the view which regards baptism as symbolical of burial and resur- 
rection. (2.) That stress is to be laid upon the spiritual meaning, 
not upon the figurative allusion in these verses, is evident from the 
fact that in the next verse the figure changes again: “If we have 
been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in 
the likeness of his resurrection.” Rom. vi. 5. If the previous verses 
determine burial and resurrection to be part of the significance of 
baptism, this verse requires us to add to its manifold significations the 
further ideas of the planting and springing of the seed. From such 
complications we find relief only by adhering to the original, funda- 
mental and simple meaning of the rite. 

< Concerning the mode of baptism, I say nothing further than is 
involved in the foregoing observations as to its meaning, and pass on 
to consider 

The Proper Subjects of Baptism. 

The following proposition commands the assent of all Christians: 
“ Baptism is to be administered to all those who profess their faith in 
Christ and their obedience to him.” But the further proposition of 
the Westminster standards, that “ the children of those who are mem- 
bers of the visible Church are to be baptized,” is strenuously denied 
by a large body of our fellow-Christians. The truth of that proposi- 
tion rests on the following considerations: 

I. The children of believing parents stand, by virtue of that 
fact, in a special relation to God. God is the God of families, as 
well as of individuals. He clothes parents with their authority / he 
requires families to worship him ; he has made special promises to 
families which believe and obey him, and “ pours out his fury upon 
the families which call not on his name.” These promises, coupled 
with these conditions, are of the nature of a covenant, so that we can 
properly say that Christian families, as such, are in covenant with 
God. An interesting analogy lies at hand in the relation of nations 
to God. No piall part of the Scriptures is occupied with the revela- 
tion of the principles of God’s moral government over these larger 
societies. They are subject to his law, capable of obedience and of 
rebellion, rewarded and punished, pardoned when penitent, and de- 
stroyed when incorrigible, like any other subjects of his sway. Relig- 
ion is therefore inseparable from national life, if that life is to be 
righteous or secure, and nations which fear God and trust him are, in 
an important sense, in covenant with him. These social principles 
cannot be too earnestly contended for. They cannot be generally 
obscured or forgotten without social and public ruin. Over against 
them is the view which regards religion as a principle whose only 
sphere is the individual soul ; a principle which takes on no social 
form or manifestation, except in the Christian Church. This view 
when consistently held, denies the right of the nation and the family 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


533 

alike to worship God. According to this view the members of a 
family may properly pray together, as individuals who lodge together . 
for the night do well to unite in prayer, but not as an organic unity; 
standing in personal relation to God. According to this view the 
children of believing parents sustain no organic relation to God or 
to his Church different from that sustained by the children of thd 
unconverted. With the word of God in our hand it ought not to be 
difficult to determine which of these aspects of human society is the 
divine aspect. God’s covenant with Abraham was “ with him and hiS. 
seed after him.” The severest charge against Israel which Ezekiel 
was commissioned to utter was this ; “ Thou hast taken thv sons and thy 
daughters whom thou hast borne u 7 ito me, and these hast thou sacri- 
ficed unto them. . . . Ihou hast slain ;;{y children.” Ezekiel xvi. 
20, 21. Take now these facts and principles: Christian families as’ 
lamihes are in covenant with God ; God claims the children in such . 
families as his children ; the family is, practically, whatever may be' 
our theories, the unit of organization in the Church as in the com- 
monwealth, lying as it does at the foundation of them both. These' 
principles furnish strong a pi'iori or presumptive evidence that the' 
children of believing parents are to be acknowledged as members of; 
the Christian Church. 'd 

2. Children were members of the Church during the Old Testa-' 
ment. The covenant with Abraham, by which he and his posterity 
were constituted a visible society with definite relations to God, ex- 
])ressly included his seed, and the seal of membership in that society' 
— circumcision — was impressed thenceforward upon his infant chil- 
dren. Here there is no question. But it is denied that the Abra- 
hamic society was a Church at all ; and it is further denied that the 
New Testament is historically the same organization with which that 
covenant was made. The people of God under the Old Testament, ' 
it is said, were not a Church, but only a nation, under a peculiar and' 
exceptional religious constitution. It is true they were a nation ; but' 
that there was also a true Church enfolded within the national' 
organization, yet distinct from it, is evident from the fact that citizen-' 
ship in the nation did not carry with it admission to all religious 
privileges. These privileges were forfeited by many causes which did’ 
not work exclusion from the pale of the commonwealth. The provi-' 
sion, “ that soul shall be cut off from the people,” as annexed to cer- 
tain moral and ceremonial offences, did not mean either banishment' 
or death, but exclusion from the congregation of the Lord and the 
courts of the tabernacle. 

If the people of God, moreover, were not a Church, and the true 
Church, how shall we understand the promises of world-wide enlarge- 
ment and unprecedented prosperity which were made to them? It 
was declared to them, in their organic or corporate character, “Thou ' 
shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left ; thy seed shall 
inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. . . , 

O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted ! Behold, I 


534 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


will lay thy stones with fair colors and thy foundations with sapphires. 
. . . The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the bright- 
ness of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about and see ; all they 
gather themselves together, they come to thee. The abundance of 
the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall 
come unto thee. The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come 
bending unto thee, and all they that despised thee shall bow them- 
selves down at the soles of thy fflet, and they shall call thee The City 
pf the Lord, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.” Isaiah liv. lx. 
If these promises were made to the nation, they can only be fulfilled 
by the universal expansion of that national, organization until it fills 
the earth and includes the whole human family. And by the same 
argument the identity of the New Testament Church with the Church 
of the Old Testament dispensation is put beyond question. If these 
glorious promises of universal enlargement and unparalleled prosperity 
were made to an organization whose existence terminated with the 
introduction of the new dispensation, when were they fulfilled? How 
can they ever be fulfilled? How can the New Testament Church be 
the heir to this inheritance, if no organic identity subsists between 
her and the people of God in former days ? What becomes of the 
covenant with Abraham: “In thee shall all families of the earth be 
blessed ; ” and of Paul’s declaration, “ If ye be Christ’s, ye are Abra- 
ham’s seed and heirs according to the promise? ” Therefore we con- 
clude that the Church as a visible society is one under both dispensa- 
tions, and her children, therefore, were expressly recognized as 
members, for a period of two thousand years. 

3. No change in the constitution of the Church, ordaining the 
exclusion of children, was announced by Christ. We are justified in 
asking for the record of a change so fundamental and far-reaching in 
the very structure of the covenant society. It is incredible, moreover, 
that such a change was received with silent acquiescence by all the 
adherents of the new economy ; that a change so vital should have 
left no trace of the discussions or the conflicts to which it must have 
given rise. Can we suppose that the discontinuance of circumcision 
leaves so broad a mark upon the pages of Paul’s epistles, and that the 
exclusion of the children of all subsequent generations of believers, 
'through the whole period of childhood, from the pale of the visible, 
left none at all ? The silence of the New Testament Scriptures re- 
-specting infant baptism is a matter of small moment. The funda- 
mental question is. Are our children with us members of the visible 
Church? That they were so recognized by the apostles, in the 
ab.sence of any record to the contrary, is as certainly to be believed as 
that missionaries sent out by a Presbyterian church, knowing the con- 
stitution and law of their church on this subject, would receive the 
children of believers into the churches they would form, or that mis- 
sionaries from Baptist churches would exclude them. 

4. The historical proof that infants have been commonly admitted 
to baptism in all ages of the Christian Church scarcely admits of the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


535 


brief citation which alone is possible here. A council of sixty-six 
bishops or pastors, at Carthage, in the year 253 after Christ, expressly 
decided that it was not necessary to postpone the baptism of infants 
till the eighth day after birth, as some, following the law of circum- 
cision, maintained. Augustine, in his controversy with Pelagius, 
asks why infants are baptized if they have no sin ; and Pelagius re- 
sents, as a slander, the imputation that he discountenanced the baptism 
of infants. The Waldenses, who, through the dark ages, maintained in 
so great purity the true religion, administered the seal of baptism to 
infants. Of this fact, their confessions and the records of their histo- 
rians leave no doubt. The baptism of the infant children of believers 
has been the general custom of the Church of Christ, with rare excep- 
tions, from the apostolic period to the present day. Children have 
been members of every form of social organization which God has 
ever instituted among men. They are citizens in the commonwealth. 
Let a babe be ravished from its cradle by a foreign power, and all the 
forces of the nation move for its recovery as promptly as for the 
proudest statesman in her council chambers. Children trod the path 
of Old Testament history with patriarchs and prophets, members like 
them of the Church of the living God. We have reason to believe 
that a great majority of the inhabitants of heaven are, and to all eter- 
nity will be, children ; that the streets of the heavenly Jerusalem will 
be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof. 


A babe in heaven is a babe forever. 

. . . . Babes, though part 

Of the true archetypal house of God 
Built on the heavenly Zion, are not now 
Nor will be ever, massive rocks rough-hewn, 

Or ponderous corner-stones, or fluted shafts 
Of columns, or far-shadowing pinnacles. 

But rather as the delicate lily-work 
By Hiram wrought for Solomon of old, 

Enwreathed upon the brazen chapiters. 

Or flowers of lilies round the molten sea. 

The only organization, not of a purely human character, in heaven 
or on earth, from which infants are sought to be excluded, are those 
Christian churches which do not recognize them as members. The 
attempt does not .succeed. The mistaken views of men cannot alter 
the truth or subvert the arrangements of God. These brethren can 
no more keep children out of their churches than they can out of 
their homes. They may refuse to enroll their names in their books, 
and withhold from them the seal of the covenant, but their children 
are born in the Church, and their membership is not made void, nor 
are the blessings connected with it prevented, by the temporary 
obscuration of this important truth. 

If the line of argument we have followed is the true support of 
Infant Baptism, it "yields the unavoidable inference that only the 
children of believing i)arents are to be baptized. The indiscriminate 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


536 

administration of baptism to all infants for whom it is desired disre- 
gards the only grounds on which infants have the right to be baptized 
at all. 

The Rev. Prof. Jonathan Edwards, D. D., LL. D., of Dan- 
ville, Ky., read the following on 

CHURCH DISCIPLINE : ITS PROVINCE AND USE. 

In the following paper a few remarks will be offered to the Council 
on the subject of Church Discipline : its Province and its Use. The 
statements will be general, with but little discussion of particular 
points or questions. 

At the outset a few explications — mere truisms, indeed — may be 
allowed by way of definition. 

Discipline, in general, is the practical application of law. Law is 
here considered in its relation, to individuals — not classes nor masses 
— and may include order and instruction. 

Discipline pertains to a state of pupilage. Whoever is in any sense 
a disciple is amenable to discipline. 

Discipline presupposes government; that is, an acknowledged supre- 
macy, regal or popular, as the case may be, and derives from it both 
its dignity and its type. It is one of the functions of government, 
representing, however,, not so much its majesty as its mercy. 

In its relation to law, discipline indicates, not the penalty, but the 
educating power and righteousness of the precept. Its stringency is 
not punitive but corrective and preventive. Even excommunication, 
as Calvin says, is not anathema. 

Government without discipline, if this be conceivable, is majesty 
only in name, a mere vaporing pretense without assimilative or execu- 
tive force, and without the power to do good. 

Law, apart from discipline, if this be conceivable, is theory without 
j)ractice, advice without urgency or illustration. 

Discipline without government is plastic force without .a model ; 
without law it is tyranny and unreasonable caprice. 

Thus government, law, and discipline are inseparable. They imply 
each other. Their interests are common. Whatever interferes with 
the due exercise of discipline militates against the dignity and the 
])eneficence of both government and law. Whoever undervalues, 
neglects, or is recreant to discipline is in so far injurious to govern- 
ment and law, and unfaithful to the obligations of good citizenship. 
Discipline is the duty and the hope of ail who would enjoy the bene- 
fits of society and of instruction. 

Discipline is of necessity inherent in every association or organiza- 
tion authorized among men, especially those which exist by divine 
warrant, viz. : the Family, the State, and the Church. In each of 
these great institutions the ends sought to be attained are substantially 
the same, viz. : unity, assimilation, and peace^ To each, discipline 
is a law of very life ; without it each would lose its value, even if, for 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


537 


all that is normal and beneficent, it did not perish from the earth. 
The case in regard to the church is very clear indeed, d'he church is 
a tamily and also a state ; and shares with all families and states the 
right and need of discipline. But, in addition, discipline has been 
committed to her by her loving Lord and Redeemer. She is specially 
commissioned and endowed for its exercise.- Discipline is her special 
duty, the token and the measure of her love to God and man, to 
truth and peace. To be lax and inefficient in this is to be unfaithful 
to her spouse and untrue to her mission, and is the sure token that 
her candlestick is soon to be removed. All the history of recreant 
churches which have been disowned and forsaken of God and all the 
warnings to the seven churches of Asia have equal reference to neg- 
lected discipline. f 

Ihe points thus far made are, briefly, that discipline is inseparable 
from the idea of a church ; that it is neces.'ary to the continued exist- 
ence of the church, and that it is the church’s special, solemn duty, 
a form of homage and worship to her Lord. 

The ends for which discipline is to be exercised are “the removal 
of offences ; the vindication of the honor of Christ ; the promotion of 
the purity and general edification of the Church; and also the benefit 
of the offender himself.” Dis. 1 . 2. 

For the accomplishment of these ends the Church is endowed with 
a two-fold power, that of rank and that of jurisdiction. 

The power of rank, as here used, is general or special, according as 
discovered in the membership or in the ministry. An eminence 
attaches to every member of the Church of Christ. All are kings — 
all are priests. This their Royal Priesthood is available for purposes 
of discipline. Hence, they are found looking, “ every man not on 
his own things, but every man also on the things of others” (Phil, 
ii. 4)'; ‘Cooking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God” 
(H'eb. xii. 15); “exhorting one another” (Heb. x. 25); “able also 
to admonish one another ” (Rom. xv. 14). • . 

There is also, and more ostensible, a power of rank belonging to 
the office of the ministry which is effective in discipline. They bear 
the title (Bishop) ’ which implies official and continued oversight, 
'bhey are justly held responsible for spiritual declension and disorder 
(Ezek. xxxiv. ; Rev. ii. 2). T'heir ministrations are all, directly or in- 
directly, disciplinary. Alike in the casual interview, the pastoral 
visit, the sermon is the element of discipline discernible. 

For the purposes of this paper no further mention need be made of 
these general and special forms of the power of rank, save to remark 
that every church-member and every minister should bear in mind 
the influence and the responsibility of their rank and office, their 
“high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” 

Formal discipline, in Presbyterian polity, or actual process, as it is 
termed, is in each congregation referred to the session, otherwise 
called the Parochial Presbytery, a kind of standing organization for 
the purpose; and it is carefully ordered that in the .composition of 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


538 

this body the dignity of both the membership and the ministry should 
be united. Here begins and thus is constructed the power of juris- 
diction. The session is the primary church court. As to constituent 
elements all others are like it, and the power of jurisdiction which 
resides in them all is based upon this double foundation, and is exer- 
cised with a double, concurrent right. Conversely, this secures to 
every subject of discipline the right to be tried by a plurality of judges, 
and these representing all the orders in the Church. Experience has 
shown that this is in the interests of both liberty and equity. 

The right of an accused church-member to complain or appeal 
under a sense of grievance or injustice is, of course, sacred. The 
unity of the Church and the vital relations which subsist between the 
members, as set forth in i Corinthians^xii. 12, 14, 27, render this, in 
the abstract, unquestionable. The exercise of the right, however, is 
limited by the patience of the Church and the claims of other ques- 
tions, not to speak of the restriction arising from denominational 
divisions. The peculiarities in the matter and form of appeal and 
complaint severally are not essential. They are largely matters of 
usage in different countries, and, provided the end be attained ot 
effectuating an adequate representation of the case to the higher courts 
and to larger districts of the Church, they may be allowed to vary. 

The province of discipline includes only what is overt, but extends 
to both words and deeds, example and influence. Words, that is, 
doctrinal sentiments, must tally with “the form of sound words.” 
The proximate standard of orthodoxy among Presbyterians is, of 
course, the Confession of Faith and Catechisms; that which is ulti- 
mate and controlling is Holy Scripture. The Confession of Faith is 
accepted and used as a true extract of Scripture, formally applicable 
to cases as they arise. It is not an open question, among Presbyte- 
rians, what is truth. The ministers have, without exception, under- 
written the Westminster standards as containing the system of doc- 
trine taught in the Holy Scriptures. For them — for their conscience 
and for their office — these are truth. Deviation from this system of 
doctrine is heresy, and this is matter for discipline. Heresy is dis- 
traction to the Church. It involves alienation of affection, conflict 
of sentiment, division of effort. It is a great and ruinous evil — and 
a great sin as well. It indicates decline in personal piety. It is, in 
its pride of opinion, largely of the nature of rebellion against God 
and the truth. It argues dishonesty. It is no less than dishonest to 
continue one’s name in subscription to a creed which one no longer 
accepts, and to receive from a church rewards of place or of pay for 
service, when such service does not include the defence of her Con- 
fession of Faith, and when it is not rendered “ heartily as to the 
Lord.” Heresy is to be proceeded against with discipline on the 
basis of its unsoundness, its injuriousness, and its dishonesty, all 
which are in contravention of ordination engagements. 

Of course, no one expects that there ever will or can be absolute 
unanimity in sentiment or uniformity of statement; and, of course, 
this paper does not propose to visit with inquisitorial severity mere 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


539 


discrepancies with the standards in thought or word. Tliere always 
will be special cases to be treated specially and indulgently. There 
are men of genius whose eccentricities demand that they should be 
measurably a law unto themselves. There are venturesome men who, 
pushing in all directions, like the ram in the prophet’s vision, strain 
the formulas of orthodoxy to their utmost tension. There are men 
of sprightly fancy and affluent diction who disdain the plain, homely 
words of Scripture and of the Confession. There are men who have 
picked up something like a Brazilian or Cape May pebble, and finding 
it susceptible of some polish and sparkle, mistake it for a gem of the 
first water, and are ever pointing out how defective and how imprac- 
ticable is the original circlet of truth worn by the Church in that it 
did not from the beginning include their jewel, and does not now re- 
ceive it, on the same strand with the others. There are men who 
have a great deal of human nature in their composition. Like the 
man in the old Latin play, nothing human is ever alien to them. 
They elevate to the highest position the several achievements of the 
reason. They exaggerate human philosophy, human science, human 
legends and traditions. If, between such parties and the Confession 
of Faith there be some occasional friction or even jostling, they may 
yet be borne with. Their peculiarities do not necessarily infer heresy, 
and, while they tax patience, they also furnish amusement, and at 
least save the Church from stagnation. 

Of cour.se, as these terms indicate, discipline for heresy is confined 
mainly to the ministry. Whatever crudity or even error of opinion 
may obtain among private members of the Church, is construed and 
is provided against as an imperfect discipleship. What is needed for 
them is, simply, better instruction. If, as is sometimes, though rarely, 
the case, a private member must be disciplined concerning his opin- 
ions, it must be rather with reference to that arrogant restlessness in 
the diffusion of error which disturbs the peace of the Church than to 
the error itself. Private members are not properly called upon to 
subscribe any formulas of doctrine, but merely to profess such as coir- 
nect with the essentials of personal experience and discipleship. 

Conduct, too, falls within the province of discipline. Not only 
immoralities, but improprieties are to be corrected. The drift of 
each one’s life and example, the general character of one’s association 
and influence, are to be reached and regulated by Christian principle. 
“ The doctrine of God our Saviour ” is to be adorned “ in all things.” 
Men are known by their company. Christian men define their posi- 
tion as in Psalms cxix. 63, “I am a companion of all them that fear 
thee, and of them that keep thy precepts.” And it was no imperti- 
nent challenge with which Peter was assailed (Acts xi. 3), “Thou 
wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them.” 

Discipline must not be hasty. Both the dignity and the delibera- 
tion proper to such a solemn transaction forbid haste. Justice to the 
accused party requires that ample time be allowed for traversing both 
the indictment and the testimony. Time is also required for the case 
to gain a certain amount of definiteness and notoriety, and secure — 


540 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


what is very important — the concurrent judgment of the people. 
In default of available evidence, the church must wait — and may wait 
ill faith. In all such instances the Head of the Church is holding the 
case in his own hands. 

All olfences are not to be disposed of in the same manner. There 
is a legitimate distinction to be drawn between private and public 
offences, and there are two sorts of each of these. A private offence 
may be so called either because known to but few persons, or because 
it is personal and committed against an individual. A public offence 
may be such, either because known to many or because committed 
against a public person, a family, a state, or a church. Personal 
offences are to be first referred to the power of rank for adjustment, 
and, failing this, to the power of jurisdiction, vide Luke xvii. 3, 4: 
“If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, 
forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, 
and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent, thou 
shalt forgive him.” Matt, xviii. 15-17: “Moreover, if thy brother 
shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and 
him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But 
if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in 
the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. 
And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Church. But if 
he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man 
and a publican.” Public offences, of whatever sort, are to be re- 
ferred to the power of jurisdiction only. 

As to the great regulative principle in the administration of disci- 
pline, some valuable remarks of Augustine, cited by Calvin, “Insti- 
tutes,” Book IV., chapter xii., section ii, are here in place: 

“All pious order and method of ecclesiastical discipline ought con- 
stantly to regard the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace; which 
the apostle commands to be kept by mutual forbearance ; and without 
the preservation of which, the medicine of chastisement is not only 
superfluous, but even becomes pernicious, and consequently is no 
longer a medicine.” 

Again : “He who attentively considers these things neither neglects 
severity of discipline for the preservation of unity, nor breaks the 
bond of fellowship by an intemperance of correction.” 

He concludes with Cyprian : “ Let a man, therefore, in mercy cor- 
rect what he can ; what he cannot, let him patiently bear and affec- 
tionately lament.” 

If, therefore, discipline honestly prosecuted fail, as it sometimes 
does, at once to remove a scandal, or to purge an offence ; if the 
people suspect that the church courts use too little diligence in the 
correction of evil; or if the ministers feel that in a given case pru- 
dence has grievously restricted power, it does not follow that* church 
discipline is useless, or that the Church is corrupt, or that anything 
better can be done or gained by withdrawing from her communion. 
It follows only that the Lord reigns, and that, in the case supposed, he 
has not yet revealed his arm or declared his counsel. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 541 

Of the restoration of those who “bring forth fruits meet for re- 
pentance; of discipline as a special means of grace to those by 
whom it is administered, and of discipline as a transaction of peculiar 
solemnity, it would unduly lengthen this paper to speak. 

The aim of discipline has already been stated. This indicates its 
adaptation, and this, again, its use. By the blessing of Christ and 
the working of his Spirit, it accomplishes its object. It promotes 
unity, order, and peace. It makes real to the consciousness of indi- 
vidual -rnembers, and manifest to the view of the world, that the 
church is one in interest, sympathy, and duty. It constrains the 
membership “ to walk by the same rule ... to mind the same thing,” 
It straightens the ranks of the moving sacramental host, furbishes 
anew their weapons, and quickens their march. It gives note of alarm 
as to the nearness and subtlety of error and sin, and makes life and 
duty more serious. It assimilates the church membership to one an- 
other, to the Spirit of Christ, and to the laws of his spiritual king- 
dom. It promotes a healthful mutual subordination, and an intelli- 
gent public spirit in church affairs. 

Discipline has many evils and hindrances to contend with — some 
of which may now be considered. 

I. Not a little of its moral value is lost for want of such interde- 
nominational comity as establishes the discipline of each in the con- 
sent of all. There is a sad lack of formal comity between the denom- 
inations ; but little recognition of either each other’s ordination or dis- 
cipline. Indeed, many of these bodies exist in a state of reciprocal 
censure, not to say excommunication, each refusing to hold with the 
others either correspondence or communion. Upon the general 
subject thus presented, it may be remarked : 

(i.) The existence of distinct denominations in the Church of 
Christ is probably unavoidable. ’ The development of other new ones 
may yet be looked for. 

(2.) The existence of these denominations is not in itself a sin ; 
the evil and inconvenience of their separateness may be reduced to a 
minimum ; and the rise of new denominations, may be anticipated 
without fear or regret. If those churches which are of the same fam- 
ily as to government could, by mutual agreement and without sur- 
rendering their distinct organizations and autonomies, be grouped to- 
gether for general aggressive church work, this would go far to relieve 
the difficulty of the case. There would then be, in Protestant Cliris- 
tendom, three groups of churches (the Congregational, the Prelatic, 
and the Presbyterian) — among which denominational strife and the 
nullification of each other’s discipline had ceased ; while between the 
groups it might not be difficult to establish relations of at least re- 
spectTul Christian recognition and correspondence. Then, should 
new denominations arise, the necessary general consent might be se- 
cured for their being ranged severally, in fraternal, co-operative rela- 
tions with the group to which they belong — much as in this country 
territories develop into and by act of Congress are admitted as in- 
tegral States of the Union. 


542 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


(3.) As to our own Presbyterian group of Churches, there need be 
no waste of either wisdom or words. This Council is not called upon 
to consider the right or the reason to be of any of these. But it is 
conceived to be no violation of propriety if this paper suggest to each 
and to all representatively present, Sirs, ye are brethren. The pecu- 
liarities which ye profess and prefer sufficiently explain your being 
apart, but the discipline which formally debars you from either co- 
operation or communion is both unlovely and unwise. “ Come now, 
and let us reason together.” Holding the same symbols of ffiith and 
order, have ye not reached a period in your history, a stage in your 
growth, when ye can fully and heartily recognize your mutual piety 
and Presbyterianism ? Cannot the walls of partition now or soon be 
taken down ? “ When shall it once be ? ” 

Possibly the suggestion is premature — possibly even romantic — but 
the fact remains that, for want of such comity, discipline suffers. 
The standard of both orthodoxy and order is unsettled and uncertain. 

2. Another hindrance to discipline in the Church is a double mis- 
apprehension concerning it — partly, that it arises in some occasional 
exigency of the Church — partly, that it is measured by the controlling 
interests of the Church. These vague notions restrain all concerned 
from the due exercise of discipline as though it were a personal quarrel 
occasioning disturbance. It is difficult to secure a just appreciation 
of discipline except — First — be referred to the kingly office of Christ. 
Jesus reigns, and king is his title of office. He is not" merely eminent 
or supereminent and all-excelling, as Agamemnon was king of men. 
He is not merely one who deserves to be a king, or one who may or 
shall one day be a king. He is king, and his kingly office is as really 
and as constantly needed in man’s redemption as his" offices of prophet, 
to cure human ignorance, or of priest, to atone for human guilt. 
Church discipline does not arise upon occasion. It is a permanent 
institution, a divine ordinance, the token of Christ’s kingly, as preach- 
ing is the token of his prophetic presence. 

Second— to the Church, not as a mere society whose controlling policy 
is ever varying, but as a true kingdom, correlative to Christ’s kingly 
office. It is not the invention of men. It does not stand in their con- 
sent. It is an organization both great and strong, and discipline in the 
Church is but the voice of “ the law of the spirit Of life in Christ Jesus.” 
“ It must needs be that offences come,” but it were an unwise negli- 
gence to be surprised at their coming, and it were unfaithfulness alike 
to Christ and to his people not to deal with them. Discipline is not 
a disturbance of the peace of the Church. Offences are disturbances 
— discipline is the Church’s attempt to restore and to keep peace. 

3. Church discipline suffers, as do all governmental institutjons, 
from human insubordination and perverseness. Still do men arise’after 
the order of Diotrephes, who love to have the pre-eminence. Still 
does fierce and fiendish communism speak evil of dignities. These co- 
operate to bring discredit upon discipline and to hinder its processes. 
More mischievous than either of these, and more difficult to cope 
with, is rationalism. Rationalism is all for progress, and claims for 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


543 


itc several innovations and changes that they are simply steps of pro- 
gress — this being used as the synonym for improvement. Discipline 
is represented as absurd old-fogyism, unfriendly to human improve- 
ment. Rationalism makes loud pretensions to liberalism. It repu- 
diates Church bigotry; it denounces spiritual tyranny. It exalts to 
infallibility the reason of man, while discipline is again caricatured as 
an usurpation. It is enough to reply to charges like these, that disci- 
pline in the Church is not that undue exercise of power which is 
tyranny — not that unreasonable adherence to obsolete tenets which 
is bigotry — nor that stupid persisting that “the thing which hath 
been is that which shall be,’'’ which is (perhaps) old-fogyism. The 
questions raised by rationalism do not connect directly nor only witli 
Church discipline, but involve the entire Christian system of both 
doctrine and order. The conservatism of the Church is conceded. 
It is proper that with such a scheme of truth in her hands for preserva- 
tion and for publication she should be slow to sanction innovations in 
either forms or formulas. The presumption is always against novelties 
in religion. The true is not new — the new is probably not true nor 
right nor good. Yet there is nothing herein to restrain progress. or 
to punish free thought. That advancing civilization of which the 
Church is the author may be allowed to suggest, here and there, a 
grace of manner, of rhetoric or of art. Advancing science may be 
allowed to suggest some deeper meaning, some richer interpretation for 
words, idioms, incidents. There may be variations in religion, even 
as there are in music; but those of religion, like those of music, must 
still preserve and must indicate the original theme, the key and the 
leading note of each measure. There has always been that elasticity 
in religion which kept pace with advancing science and civilization. 
The scientific allusions of Scripture are not displaced by the latest 
discoveries. It is possible that both Job and David knew less of 
material nature than many a modern scientist, yet there is nothing in 
their writings to betray either ignorance or error. 

It may not be amiss to remark further, that a class of difficulties in 
actual process might be prevented by a better study of canon and 
ecclesiastical law, and a careful avoidance of complication with the 
forms of civil law. And with this we close. 

The Rev. John H. A. Bomberger, D. D., of Collegeville, Pa., 
read the following paper on 

REGENERATION. 

The subject now soliciting consideration may seem, at first view, to 
intrude itself rather abruptly and illogically upon the notice of the 
Alliance just at this time. A little reflection, however, may reverse 
this impression. It may not, indeed, come in as opportunely and 
forcibly as Paul’s inspired and marvellously fitting parenthesis in that 
master-piece of heavenly logic, the Epistle to the Romans. It wholly 
shrinks from any such pretension. And yet, if, amidst our just 
admiration of many of the papers which have thus far intensely 


544 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


engaged our thoughts and deeply moved our hearts, we pause to ask 
where we are, and what we have been doing, instead of regarding the 
theme which now pleads for a hearing as out of place, its earnest 
consideration may be pronounced not only logically admissible but 
theologically imperative. 

No one who gave due attention at least to those papers read which 
treated of the most vital and fundamental doctrines discussed, could 
fail to mark that each assumed a cardinal fact or truth which could 
not then be dwelt upon, and yet which lay as a fundamental dogma, 
at the basis of the entire argument. If in any instance the assumption 
was invalid or false, the argument reared upon it must falter and fall. 
The truth or the fact so assumed was that of Regeneraiion. 

Let me briefly illustrate the matter. Take the plenary inspiration 
of the Bible so ably presented, and, I think, unanswerably vindicated 
last Friday morning. It was proven beyond dispute that the divine 
word written comes to man not as the hesitating utterance of human 
opinions and counsels, but clothed from its grand opening sentence 
to its closing ‘^Amen ! ” with authority from God which demands 
unquestioning submission and suffers no doubt. But of what avail the 
celestial light, brighter than that of the sun, which shines through all 
its revelations, promises and precepts for eyes blind from the birth ; 
or its self-authenticating facts and truths for hearts as hard and dead 
as stones ? And how shall the power of spiritual vision be restored to 
those blind ages, how shall the stony heart be turned to flesh, except- 
ing through a spiritual Regeneration ? 

Themes discussed by other papers read, especially those relating to 
the atonement, and to. worship, furnish even more impressive illustra- 
tions of the same fact. All presuppose and take for granted that in 
some deep and vital sense, those on and in whom the benefits and 
blessings of the economy to which they all belong are to display their 
wondrous efficacy, and find their most gracious ends, must be fitted 
for such effects by being first made subjects of quickening renewing 
grace. And the more fully those several papers were appreciated, the 
more readily will the need of some definite testimony on our part in 
regard to the doctrine of Regeneration be conceded. 

Apart, however, from its claims because of its relations to other 
doctrines pertaining to the material and formal principles of our faith, 
I may justly urge reasons for bearing such testimony in this case, 
intrinsic to the subject itself. Like every other cardinal doctrine of 
evangelical Christianity, each generation of believers holding them, 
must, to hold them heartily as well as intellectually, reach convictions 
of their truth by processes of personal experience as earnest and vital as 
those through which* the first full persuasion of their truth was attained. 
The articles of a creed may be mentally learned from a book, or by 
oral tradition. They may be held by mere intellectual assent, and 
indorsed or avowed as naked verities satisfactorily demonstrated. But 
to believe them with genuine gospel faith, such as can and will with 
a full soul declare : “We believe and are persuaded ” — they must be 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 545 

learned by heart — by a broken heart and a contrite spirit, into which 
as it bends in meek docility at Jesus’ feet g7'ace and truth stream to 
be absorbed there as the nourishing food of its renewed vitality 
Only the seeing eye can know what vision is. Only the hearing ear 
can know what music is. Only the tasting mouth can know what honey 
io. And so to know aright what Christ and his truth are we must attain 
to the knowledge by the method most intensely personal and experi- 
mental. It was manifestly thus that the great and good men of the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to whose pietv and learning the 
Reformed Churches are indebted under God for the^treasures they have 
bequeathed in the doctrinal symbols, and in the theologies of those 
days, attained to the clear and cheering certainty of faith which attests 
its presence and vitality in all their writings. They spoke by the book 
—but by it as that which, like the projihet’s roll, they had ‘‘eaten, 
and found in their mouths like honey for sweetness ” (Ezek. iii. 3). 
“That which they had heard, which they had seen with their eye^, 
which they had looked upon, and their (own) hands had handled, of 
the word of life, they declared unto us” (i John i. i, 3). And they 
could declare it with the trumpet-tongued emphasis and assurance 
which so notably characterizes the doctrinal testimony of those days, 
because they had so learned the gospel. 

^ Need the inferential lesson be pointed, that to apprehend, appre- 
ciate and maintain the same faith with like clear unwavering convic- 
tions now, it must be learned in the same way? Or that other 
equally obvious admonitory lesson, that the cause of much of the 
wavering, hesitating half-heartedness, much of the “spiritual dis- 
lodgement,” “eclipse of faith,” much of the tendency to revise, to 
modify, and reconstruct our ancient creeds, much of the “ broad-mar- 
gined,” kindly accommodating, in omnibus cariias theology, troubling 
the Christianity of modern times, may be found in the fact that our 
old confessions and their declarations of faith have been read and 
pondered only in a formal, dialectic, critical way? Studied as fossils, 
it is no wonder they have seemed to be only like dead men’s bones,, 
or the dried sinews of the oxen slain at Gideon’s sacrifice. 

If the old gospel faith in its pure integrity shall be loved with the- 
old fervor, and vindicated with the energy, vigor, and success which 
“ subdued kingdoms, . . . stopped the mouths of lions, . . . (and) 
turned to flight the armies of the aliens,” it must be learned in the 
old way, in spite of all the obtrusive arrogance of the “ latest dis- 
coveries,” whether in the fields of Teutonic idealism, Gallic posi- 
tivism, British agnosticism, American materialism, or a demi-deified 
aesthetics. 

Admitting these premises as fairly applicable to all the articles of 
our common Reformed faith, the doctrine now claiming consideration 
may justly ask to be dealt with in harmony with them. As set forth 
in our standards, as taught in our Catechisms, and as seeking our, 
warm assent and honest, zealous advocacy, it asks to be studied in the- 
light and by the aids in and by which those studied it who there speak 
35 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


546 

of and inculcate the doctrine. What, then, is Regcneratioti according 
to the word of God, as apprehended and believed by the Reformetl 
Church ? 

A luminous hint of our faith regarding the fundamental doctrine 
has doubtless been discerned in the significant assumption of many ot 
the essays and arguments already submitted to the Alliance, of the 
great gospel truth which has always been emphasized by Reformed 
Confessions, and taught by Reformed theologies, that redemption is 
not an economy or a covenant of grace which deals with man in a 
merely forensic, formal, commercial way, offering and applying salva- 
tion as it were ab extra. On the contrary, its great ultimate purpose 
with regard to man is rightly conceived and claimed to be to beget 
and build up in him a life in essential correspondence with its own 
living heavenly source and nature. Under this economy, true god- 
liness is not, primarily and chiefly, a dead name, but a vital power; 
not a sensuous form, but a spiritual fact. Its Christianity is not a sar- 
cophagus, however elaborately hewn and gorgeously decorated by re- 
ligious art. Its church is not a charnel-house of baptized corpses, 
though most profusely adorned with floral crosses, fragrant wreaths, 
and thornless crowns. It is a living temple, and as such must be 
built of “lively stones.” 

That this view of redemption by an expiatory vicarious atonement 
through Jesus Christ has been distinctively and prominently character- 
istic of the Reformed system from the first, could be demonstrated by 
volumes* of proof ; and there is nothing in its doctrine of imputa- 
tion, or of justification, or of any other article of its faith, that in the 
least conflicts with .that view. This fact refutes a score of calumnies 
often reiterated against our faith. 

But where shall the material for the spiritual house contemplated by 
the economy of grace — the living stones for the living temple to be 
reared — be found ? How shall they be obtained ? The vicarious 
atonement of that economy, considered separately ox per se, makes 
full provision for the salvation of man as a guilty and condemned sin- 
ner, .as legally and judicially “ dead in trespasses and sins.” This, 
however, constitutes only one part or side of the effects of the Fall 
and the penalty of sin. That Fall and penalty involve the sinner at 
the same time in spiritual, moral death, and in all the corruption, de- 
basement, and disabilities of his inmost personal* life which such a 
death entails, and entails not only judicially, but by the natural and 
inevitable operation of the law of man’s being as a rational, moral 
person. 

Here, then, the case, viewed in the clear light which the Scriptures 
bring to bear upon it, reveals another exigency to be provided for, if 
redemption shall prove truly effective of its purpose. The sinner must 
not only, as guilty and “condemned already,” be rescued from the 


* See Niemeyer’s “Reformed Confessions;” Ileppe’s “Ref. Dogmatics;” El>- 
rard’a “K. w. Dogm.-Geschichte; ” the works of the early Reformed theologians. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 547 

dreadful penalty resting upon him in this respect by an adequate vica- 
rious satisfaction, but, as spiritually and morally dead in regard to all 
his highest, holiest, and most truly vital relations, he 7nust be vesiot'cd 
to life — to life in its only true heavenly sense. 

And here it is that the economy of redemption, displaying its mar- 
vellous, divine adaptation to all the extreme needs of sinful man’s lost 
condition, reveals its provision, on the basis of the piacular ato7iement, 
and as an integral part of the scheme of saving grace, for the dead 
sinner s resuscitation, for the depraved sinner’s purification, for the 
carnal sinner’s regeneration. 

If now this necessarily hasty review of the leading facts and truths 
with which our subject stands antecedently connected serves its pur- 
pose, it will prepare the mind for a clearer appreciation of the several 
essential points included in this fundamental gospel doctrine ; will 
enable us to detect and shun some specious errors which have sought 
to supplant it ; and supply means of vindicating it against assaults of 
scepticism and infidelity. 

The leading points in the doctrine are : 

1. By the judicial and ethical effects and consequences of the Fall, 
man individually, and human nature in its totality (generically), was 
subjected to a (psychico-ethical) spiritual state and character which 
rendered it, per se, incapable of any good and inclined to all wick- 
edness,” and therefore unfit for the kingdom of God,” and even 
inimically averse to the grace it brought to fallen man. 

2. The evil into which man thus wilfully plunged by his own dis- 
obedience and apostacy from God, corrupted and depraved the in- 
most centre of his being, the elemental constituents of his personal 
life, his reason, affections, will, conscience, entailing upon all not 
only the loss of his original uprightness, but a servile, helpless subjec- 
tion “ to the law of sin and of death.” Hence, in order to render it 
psychically and ethically possible for man personally to appropriate 
the grace of redemption — or, in Bible language, truly to “ see ” and 
really to “enter into the kingdom of heaven” — he must undergo a 
total radical change in regard to all of him and all in him that has 
been so affected by sin. 

3. The nature (so far as this can be brought within the grasp of 
the mind) and extent of the remedial change thus demanded are set 
forth in the Scriptures by the use of terms and phraseology which, 
though clogged with the imperfections of human thought and speech, 
and not fully adequate to the new service in which they are employed 
in their transfer from a physical and secular to a sacred and spiritual 
sphere, are sufficiently clear and explicit. It may be certainly as- 
sumed that they are the best for the purpose which the language neces- 
sarily used in the case supplied ; and that if interpreted according to 
those laws of thought and speech which God, who made man rational 
and endowed him with the gift of speech, imposed, they will furnish 
all the knowledge needful for a right understanding of the doctrine 
taught. 


548 . THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

Those terms and phrases are so familiar that it would be needless to 
cite them here, excepting to have them definitely under our eye for 
our present purpose. They are such as “born again” (or “born 
from above”), “begotten,” “created,” “quickened” (/. e., “made 
alive”), “raised” {i. e., resurrected from the dead), “being re- 
newed,” “being turned,” “converted,” putting in man “ a new 
heart,” and others of similar import, but more fully descriptive of the 
thing designated. It would be instructive to consider each of these 
terms separately in their bearing upon the subject before us. But time 
for this fails us. Through all their variety, however, of formal expres- 
sion and implied metaphor (for they are obviously concrete and fig- 
urative, and not abstract terms), it will be readily discerned that they 
agree in teaching, under different aspects, the following general truths : 
First, that the change wrought in Regeneration affects the inmost vital 
spring and centre of man’s being as a spiritual, rational, ethical person. 
Secondly, that it is a change wrought in full harmony with the original 
generic constitution and ethical nature of man as a distinct order of 
created being. Thirdly, that it is a change wrought by God, by his super- 
natural divine influence operating upon man in harmony with the ethical 
[)ersonal character he possesses by the design and will of his Creator. 
And finally, that whilst the grace effecting this result works an illumi- 
nation of the understanding, .turning its natural darkness into light — 
a cleansing of the heart, turning its carnal lusts into holy love, and a 
conquest of the rebellious will, bringing it into glad submission to the 
will and law of God — it does so by reaching back of these faculties 
of the human soul into the basis and centre of their unity and life, 
into man’s inmost personality, and renewing, spiritually reviving, or 
resuscitating, recreating, re-begetting and regenerating that — but 
doing what is thus done on and in that human personality. Hence, 
it is ml the purpose or aim of gospel regeneration to beget or create 
a new order of beings in the intelligent universe of God; an order, 
for instance, compounded of the substances of two previously distinct 
natures now to be organically fused into one ; or constituted by an 
infusion of the substance of the nature of God into that of man, and 
so transforming man into a substantially new creature — a tertium quid, 
a being of a theanthropic nature unlike anything in heaven or earth ; 
but realizing that false and antiscriptural conceit of ancient Buddhism 
and some modern speculations, viz. : the final and fullest manifesta- 
tion in time of the eternal God-head. So far from all such “vain 
imaginations” (to give them no more specific designation) is the 
truth, that the Scriptures always and everywhere assume and assert the 
unbroken and unchanged personal identity of the regenerated, as pre- 
served through all the w'onderful spiritual changes of the heavenly 
work. Need corroborative illustrations of this fact be adduced ? The 
mere mention of it must suggest so many as to make their statement 
seem almost ridiculously superfluous. And yet not only Ebrard and 
Hodge, but older Reformed theologians, even back to Ursinus, Bub 
linger and Calvin, found occasion for rebuking the opposite view. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 549 

especially as advanced under a specious modification of Eutychi- 
anism.* 

But whilst regeneration is not, on the one hand, a transmutation of 
man into another order of being, as just stated, so, on the other hand, 
it is not merely a reformation in the common moralistic sense. It 
involves, necessarily, the most thorough ethical reformation that can 
be conceived of, so that whoever imagines himself ‘‘born again,” 
whilst he still lives and delights in sin, deceives himself. Little, if 
any less, deluded, however, are those who think that because they 
have been led to see the wrong and folly of sin and error, to change 
their manner of life, profess assent to the Christian faith, and observe 
divine ordinances in fellowship with a church, they must of course 
belong to the number of the truly regenerate. Theoretically this error 
has but few formidable advocates, for it is too glaringly at variance 
with any intelligent view of the constitution of man, of the essential 
nature of true piety, and with the sad experiences of human life. It 
is to be feared, however, that practically too many nominal Christians 
are under the blinding and perilous bondage of this delusion. Of the 
notion of an ecclesiastical Regeneration, or Regeneration as a change 
of formal relation, as from the world to the visible Church, it is 
needless to speak. 

4. As to the special divine agency in Regeneration, it is declared 
to be pre-eminently the work of the Holy Ghost., and is ascribed to 
him. This is in notable agreement with what the Scriptures teach, 
as shown above, of its peculiar nature, and is corroborative of the 
sense in which it is called a creation. It is “ the Eather Almighty,” 
who at the beginning “created the heavens and the^^rr/Zz” out of 
nothing. But in this new creation, this renovation, Regeneration of 
what had been' broken, ruined, depraved In man through sin, it is the 
distinctive office of the Holy Ghost, as the Spirit of Christ, effectually 
to apply the redemption by Christ to the end it contemplates. In 
every case the source of efficacious power and grace is the Triune 
God-head. But the Scriptures refer distinctive offices to the several 
persons of the God-head, which significantly reveal the special char- 
acter and quality of the gracious work ascribed to each. As, there- 
fore, the new creation in Christ Jesus is not one of the psychical 


* It would be no difficult task to show that the error animadverted upon here is, 
in all its premises and assumptions, as unphilosophical, notwithstanding its preten- 
tious profundity, as it is unscriptural ; indeed, that it is the former because it is the 
latter; for the truth of God is the only genuine philosophy, even as his “wisdom is 
higher than the wisdom of men.” The entire organic theory of the relation of God 
to the universe, of the Creator to the creature, whether in regard to things physical 
or psychical, carnal and sensuous or spiritual, the world or Christianity, is not only 
false, but, in comparison with the doctrine of the word of God, superficial and 
shallow. All pantheising schemes are (see Christlieb’s “Modern Doubt,” etc.) ; 
and, after having for a time deceived men by their audacity, are found to be so. 
Organic laws, organic life — that is, laws and life working by organs, and dependent 
upon organic functions, are far from being the mightiest or best. 


550 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

substance of man, but of the spiritual quality and character of that 
substance (depraved by sin), it is ascribed to the operation of the 
Holy Ghost. And it is held to be his by such direct omnific mt^r- 
position, that every claim oi co-efficient human synergism is excluded. 

5. This brings us to the next important point, the means employed 
by the Spirit in Regeneration, and this as necessarily involving the 
relation between it and conversion^ if indeed modern theology, yield- 
ing to pressure from without, has not gone too far in discriminating 
between the two parts of the process. • 

That, ordinarily, means are used by the Spirit in this work is so 
explicitly taught by the Spirit himself, and is so commonly and un- 
hesitatingly admitted by our standard authorities, that the citation of 
proofs is needless. A few exceptional cases, as the Regeneration of 
infants, admit of special explanation. But, not to allow these to 
divert attention from the main matter, it is of greater importance to 
note the nature of those means and the method, oi. their application, as 
both these characteristics cannot but throw additional light upon the 
jtsglh For we thus learn not only "what the means are, but 
why just such particular means and methods have been chosen and 
constantly used. And this may be ascertained from the Scriptures 
in two ways : 

Firsts from the express command of Christ in regard to the work. 
The Regeneration of men should be effected by the Holy Ghost 
through the gospel. Hence, the great edict of the King of grace, by 
which he ordained his earthly ministers and prescribed their primary 
function : “ Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel unto every 
creature.” Hence, also, that special commission fully accordant 
with this one, issued three years later by the Lord from heaven to 
regenerated Saul : “I send-thee to open their eyes, and to turn them 
from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God \ that 
they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them 
that are sanctified by faith that is in me.” Thus of God’s own 
sovereign choosing, and by his own supreme appointment, was “ the 
gospel to be the power of God unto salvation unto every one that 
believed.” And only unto them who so “received him, gave he 
power to become the sons of God,” who were “ born not of corrup- 
tible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and 
abideth forever. . . . And this is the word which by the gospel is 
preached unto you.” Wherefore, another inspired apostle testifies : 
“ Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should 
be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures.” “The good seed is the 
word of God.” 

But, secondly^ the same fact may be learned from the manner in 
which those to whom the Lord originally gave his commandment to 
use this means obeyed it. It is expressly declared, as though with 
divine foresight of some future attempt to pervert the import of the 
great commission in the interest of hierarchical sacerdotalism, that 

they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


551 


them and confirming ihe word., with signs following.” How uni- 
formly and zealously they all did so, is shown in Acts throughout. 
How far one of them,' and that one the most blessed of all in the vast 
fruits of his labors, went in executing his apostleship in this sense, 
may be inferred from that declaration of his which, to some modern 
minds, has seemed so hyperbolical that they can hardly read it with- 
out stammering, viz.; the notable declaration of Paul — ‘‘For Christ 
sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.” 

That in all this “ the gospel” and “preaching” are put in anti- 
thetical distinction from the ceremonial ordinances of Christianity is 
so obvious in every view, that the unanimity with which Reformed 
theologians always have assumed it is readily appreciated, and that 
the only surprise is, that it should ever be otherwise understood and 
explained. 

It should not be necessary to add, however, that by the “gospel,” 
or the gospel preached, as the chief means of regeneration, is not 
meant the bare statement of certain gospel truths and facts as mere 
verbal communications of knowledge to the intellect of man, appeals 
to his feelings, and moral influences bearing upon his will. No Re- 
formed confessions, and no theology of the Reformed Church of any 
recognized authority, ever taught such a view. It is utterly at vari- 
ance with the doctrine of that Church concerning the Scriptures, as 
the ever inspired word of God. That word and the Spirit who gave 
it are considered inseparable, and thus it is the means used by the 
Holy Ghost which operates the wondrous result. 

What then ? Are the sealing ordinances of no account in the gracious 
transaction ? Especially, is no place to be given to the sacrament of 
baptism as a medium for the conveyance of grace, and an instrument 
in the hands of the Holy Spirit for the purposes of divine grace? 
Far from it. The Holy Ghost, v»'ho works regeneration in the heart 
by the gospel, confirms the work by the use of the sacraments “as 
holy signs and seals appointed of God- for this end, that by the use 
thereof he may the more fully declare and seal to us the promise of 
the gospel, viz., that he grants us freely the remission of sin and life 
eternal for the sake of that one sacrifice of Christ accomplished on the 
cross.”* Such signatory virtue as certainly pertains to the sacraments 
as the Lord ordained their use, and so far they are to be faithfully 
observed as grace-bearing, that is, means or media of conveying the 
grace which God is pleased to work through them ; all that, but mo 
7nore. And whoever denies this to them, takes from the word of God. 
Whoever assays to add more, presumes to supplement what God has 
made complete. The dreadful ])enalty in either case is known. But 
their sealing virtue in every particular is made dependent upon suita- 
ble conditions. No seal is put upon an empty casket ; it would be 
worthless there. No signature is affixed to a blank bond or covenant ; 
it would have no force or meaning there. So the sacraments pre- 


* Heidelberg Catechism, Question 65. 


552 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


suppose the presence of grace already wrouglit in the subject in whom 
they are employed by the Spirit for its fuller confirmation in and unto 
the regenerate. Wherefore, baptism is called “ the washing of regen- 
eration ” and ‘‘ the washing away of sins,” by a familiar metonomy, 
on account of this ethical as well as ceremonial relation to the work ; 
which may be found fully explained by our Reformed fathers three 
centuries ago, whose writings also anticipate and refute all the sophis- 
tries employed in support of the error of baptismal regeneration. 

But does not the Holy Ghost effect the result by employing a germ 
of supernatural quality and power, obtained from a source outside of 
humanity, miraculously and mysteriously inserted in and added to the 
native substance of the soul,* and operating in it with quickening, 
new-creative energy to the production of a regenerated life ? And is 
not water baptism the formal sacrament, the medium and channel, 
“the golden pipe of the sanctuary,”, through which this germ or 
seminal substance is conveyed? 

Or, to borrow another style of speech, does not the Holy Spirit 
work the great change in man by communicating to the substance of 
the soul a new vivifying life-principle derived from the glorified hu- 
manity of Christ, and thus begetting the soul in Christ unto good 
works? And is not here, at least, baptism the channel of the convey- 
ance of this quickening principle ? 

In the sense in which such questions are put by those holding the 
views they virtually represent, they must be answered with a prompt, 
emphatic negative, especially so far as they fix the medium of the as- 
sumed conveyance. And as regards the use of such terms as germ, 
seed, or principle of life, whilst they may be allowed with proper quali- 
fications to express a truth, experience teaches the necessity of cau- 
tion in admitting them, lest by their too free acceptance a vital truth 
should be betrayed, and noxious error insinuated in its place. The 
treacherous iota of the Arian heresy suggests a solemn warning here. 
“ Christ is our life.” And all the grace the Holy Ghost imparts was 
])rocured by him, and flows from him as the fountain-head. This is 
not mere metaphor ; it is fact. But it is fact under a metaphor, and 
the figure of speech must not be perverted by an interpretation which 
would make it teach a doctrine at variance with the entire tenor of 
the gospel, and subversive of the evangelical faith. Christ is not our 
life in any pantheistic sense. Nay, the mystical union established 
between the regenerated soul and him is not even a hypostatical 
union of their two natures. Man is not deified by regeneration. In 
it men become Christians, but are not made Christs. 

6. In regard to the method adopted by the Spirit in the gracious 
work, or ho7v he accomplishes it through the gospel, we meet with 
no essentially greater difficulty than invests all inquiries after first 
principles of power, and life, and the inner relations of causes and 
effects. It will suffice, therefore, to answer in the Lord’s own words : 


* “ .Wilberforce on Baptism,” p. 43, and all writers of that school. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


553 


^‘The wind bloweth where it listeth, thou hearest the sound thereof, 
but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. So is every 
one that is born of the Spirit.” There is, however, one fact here de- 
serving distinct emphasis — it is that the divine method in this case, as 
in all else pertaining to the effective application of redemption, is in 
entire unison with what God himself made man to be. 

From what has been said, and we think upon convincing evidence, 
concerning the means used in regeneration, and the method of their 
application, as well as from the commonly admitted effects of the 
work, it is easy to see how Reformed confessions and theology, at 
least those of earlier times, were led to regard and treat it as nearly, 
if not quite synonymous with conversion, and to employ this term as 
covering both facts and truths. Plausible reasons are indeed given 
for so distinguishing between the two as to represent the one as ex- 
pressing what God does in the case, and the other as indicating what 
man does. But it may be fairly questioned whether this distinction 
has not been pressed too far, and whether, after all the inner relation 
between both is not so close and vital as rather to justify the older 
method as being at once more strictly scriptural, and therefore more 
truly philosophical and scientific? Certainly there is room and rea- 
son, in view of evangelical as well as theological interests at stake, for 
a careful reconsideration of this point. Our earliest theologians were 
not ignorant of the claims which might be urged in favor of the dis- 
tinction referred to, but intelligently preferred the method they 
adopted. 

To complete the task attempted in this essay, it would be proper to 
enumerate the leading effects of regeneration upon the subject of 
grace. But our prescribed limit has been already exceeded, and 
those effects must be left to be legitimately inferred. 

Summing all up then into a single proposition, regeneration maybe 
defined as that act of the Holy Spirit working by gospel means upon 
the inmost personal life of man, by which that life is rescued from 
the power and corruption of sin, renewed in righteousness and holi- 
ness in Jesus Christ, brought into living spiritual union with God in 
Christ, and thus radically changed in the tenor and nature of its 
thoughts, desires and will. 

Or, to adopt a briefer statement, the authorship of which will prob- 
ably be recognized by many, ‘‘ it consists in a change of the corrupt 
mind and will into that which is good, produced by the Holy Ghost 
through the preaching of the law and the gospel, which is followed by 
a sincere desire to produce the fruits of repentance, and a conformity 
of the life to all the commands of God.” f 

After devotional services the Council adjourned until 7.30 
o’clock this evening. 


* Ursinus. 


554 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


September 2gth, 7.30 p. m. 

The Council was called to order by T. W. Taylor, Esq., of 
Toronto, Canada, President, and the session was opened with 
devotional exercises. 

The Rev. Prof. William Gregg, D. D., of Toronto, Canada, 
read the following paper on 

SABBATH OBSERVANCE. 

Assuming that the Sabbath is a divine institution, and of perpetual 
obligation, and also that the first instead of the seventh day of the 
week is now to be observed as the day of weekly rest, I intend to refer 
to some of the ways in which our religious interests are secured by the 
observance of the Christian Sabbath. There are important benefits 
of a temporal kind which result from Sabbath observance. It tends, 
for example, to promote health and strength both of body and mind, 
to secure domestic happiness, and to advance national prosperity. 
These are benefits which are well worthy of consideration ; but I con- 
fine myself at present to those which are of a religious nature. There 
are two advantages of this kind to which I intend to advert, viz., in 
the first place, to the value of the Christian Sabbath as a standing 
monumental evidence of the truth of Christianity, and especially of 
the resurrection of Christ ; and secondly^ to its usefulness as a means 
of sustaining and developing Christian life. 

I. In the first place, the observance of the Christian Sabbath con- 
stitutes a standing monumental evidence of the truth of Christianity, 
and especially of the resurrection of Christ. It is a central article 
in the creed of Christendom, that our Lord Jesus Christ, having died 
for our sins, rose again from the dead. According to the teaching of 
Scripture, this great fact gives assurance of the divinity of Christ, of 
the completion and acceptance of his work of redemption, of a future 
judgment, and of the eternal blessedness of believers. We are further 
taught that if Christ be not raised, our faith is vain. Such being the 
importance of the resurrection of Christ, it is reasonable to suppose 
that the first day of the week, on which he is recorded to have risen 
from the dead, would come to have a peculiar significance in the 
minds of Christians, and that, either with or without express com- 
mand, they would regard it with peculiar honor. No recorded fact 
could claim to be more worthy of honorable commemoration than the 
fact of the resurrection. On the other hand, if we should find that, 
in point of fact, the early Christians did observe the first day of the 
week with special reference to the resurrection of Christ, that they 
transferred to it the sacred honors with which the seventh day had 
been formerly regarded, that everywhere and continuously they thus 
observed the first day of the week, it would surely be a warrantable 
conclusion that they had the best reasons for believing in the reality 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


555 


of the resurrection. In no other way could their general observance 
of the Christian Sabbath be explained or accounted for. The fact 
of a nation or community observing merely one day in each year, in 
commemoration of some remarkable event, is strong evidence of the 
reality of that event ; but far stronger would be the evidence of the 
event, if one day in each week were set apart in memory of it, and 
observed from the time of its alleged occurrence. Now, we claim 
that there is satisfactory evidence that from the apostolic age the first 
day of every week has been generally observed by Christians with 
special reference to the resurrection of Christ, and that a convincing 
proof or confirmation is thus furnished of the reality of this event. 

What is the evidence which can be adduced that the first day of the 
week was observed by the early Christians with reference to the resur- 
rection of Christ? It is to be found partly in the New Testament 
Scriptures, which, not to speak of their inspiration, are at least as 
reliable as any other ancient records, and partly in the uninspired 
writings of the early Christian fathers, and the records of the early 
Christian Church. The New Testament Scriptures contain but few 
notices of the observance of the Christian Sabbath ; but all these 
point to its observance with special reference to the resurrection of 
Christ. In the gospel by John we read that on the evening of the 
first Christian Sabbath, when the disciples were assembled, the risen 
Saviour appeared to them, and showed to them his hands and his side, 
and that they were glad when they saw the Lord. John further in- 
forms us in his gospel that when the disciples were assembled on the 
next first day of the week, or the eighth day, the Lord again appeared 
to then-^, and for the special benefit of Thomas, repeated the evidence 
of his resurrection. The first day of the week was thus associated, in 
the minds of the disciples, with the fact of the resurrection. John 
still further informs us, in the book of Revelation, that he was in the 
Spirit on the Lord’s day; and, in the light of what he records in his 
gospel, it is reasonable to conclude that this was the first day of the 
week, and that this was called the Lord’s day, because on that day 
our Lord arose from the dead. No other day was so well entitled to 
be called the Lord’s day as the first day, the day of his resurrection ; 
and accordingly, as we shall afterwards see, the early Christian writers 
understood the Lord’s day to be the same as the first or eighth day of 
the week. In the Acts of the Apostles we read of the disciples at 
Troas coming together on the first day of the week to break bread, 
and of Paul’s preaching to them on that day. We find, also, that in 
one of his epistles, Paul instructs the Corinthian Christians to make 
collections for the poor saints on the first day of the week. The 
meeting of the disciples at Troas on the first day of the week, and 
the choice of the same day as the day for making charitable contribu- 
tions, can be most satisfactorily accounted for on the supposition that 
this day was observed by the disciples in honor of our Lord s resur- 
rection. . 

In the early Christian writings and records we have more distinct 


556 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


testimonies to the fact that the early Christians were accustomed to 
observe the first day of the week with special reference' to the resur- 
rection of Christ. Thus, in the Epistle of Barnabis, written probably 
about the beginning of the second century, we have these words: 
“We keep the eighth [that is, the first] day with joyfulness, the day 
also on which Jesus rose again from the dead.” In one of the epis- 
tles attributed to Ignatius, which, if not written by him, was, at all 
events, in existence at an early date, the following exhortation is 
given : “ Let every friend of Christ keep the Lord’s day as a festival, 
the resurrection day, the queen and chief of all the days.” Justin 
Martyr, in his first Apology, written about the middle of the second 
century, thus writes: “Sunday is the day on which we all hold our 
common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having 
wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and 
Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead.” 
Irenaeus, as we learn from Eusebius, wrote a letter to Victor, Bishop 
of Rome, at the close of the second century, in the name of the 
church in Gaul, over which he presided, “in which he maintains the 
duty of celebrating the mystery of the resurrection of our Lord only 
on the day of the Lord.” About the same time, also, as we further 
learn from Eusebius, there were synods and convocations respecting 
the paschal controversy, and these “ all unanimously drew up an eccle- 
siastical decree, which they communicated to all the churches in all 
places, that the mystery of our Lord’s resurrection should be cele- 
brated on no other than the Lord’s day.” It may be added, that 
according to the testimony of several early Christian writers, it was 
the common custom in the ancient Church to pray in a standing 
posture, on the first day of the week, in honor of the Saviour’s resur- 
rection, and that Christians were forbidden to fast on the Lord’s day, 
inasmuch as fasting would be inconsistent with the joyous feelings 
which should be associated with the day on which our Lord arose 
from the dead. 

It thus appears from the New Testament, and other early writings 
and records, that it was the common practice in the ancient Church 
to observe the first day of the week with special reference to the resur- 
rection of Christ ; that from the time of Christ and his apostles, and 
during the early centuries, week after week, year after year, continu- 
ously, and everywhere, the Christians commemorated the fact of our 
Lord’s resurrection — commemorated it with a frequency and, it may 
be added, with a solemnity with which no other great event has ever 
been commemorated. Are we not warranted to infer from this fact 
that the early Christians believed, and that they had the best reasons 
for believing, in the resurrection of Christ? And as the Christian 
Sabbath has been continuously and universally observed from the 
early centuries till the present day, are we not warranted in regarding 
it as a standing monumental evidence and confirmation of the great 
central fact, otherwise so abundantly attested, on which our faith and 
hope depend ? 


557 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


ChVistkn in the second place to the observance of the 

Christian Sabbath as a means of sustaining and developing Christian 

ground of evidences of various kinds, 
and through the illummation of God’s Spirit, a man has accepted the 
truth as it is in Jesus, it is easy to understand how well fitted Sabbath 
observance IS to strengthen his faith, and to develop in him all the 
graces of the Christian character. On that day he lays aside all 
worldly employments, withdraws his mind from worldly anxieties, and 
J Contemplation of the great facts and 

doctrines of Christianity, as well as to the exercises of prayer and 
praise. The result is tliat not only does he receive spiritual blessings 
m direct answer to prayer, but the studies, in which he engages, serve 
to strengthen his faith. The strongest evidences of the truth of 
Christianity are found in the reasonableness of its doctrines, in the 
purity, of Its morals, in the sublime views it gives of the character of 
God, and in the adaptation of the salvation it reveals to man’s felt 
wants and necessities. The more, therefore, the Christian meditates 
on these topics, he becomes more and more convinced of the Divine 
origin of our holy religion. He feels also more intensely the con- 
straining influence on his heart and life of those strongest of all mo- 
tiv^ to holiness, which spring from God’s love and mercy manifested 
m Christ. no day were specially set apart for religious exercises 
it is most likely that the mind would become, to a large extent ab- 
sorbed with worldly affairs. As it is, the special exercises of the 
weekly Sabbath serve to build up believers in faith and love; and 
it may be affirmed that, as a general rule, in proportion to the 
sancUty with which the Sabbath is observed, will all the graces of 
the Christian character be developed during the other days of the 
week. 


As in relation to personal piety, so also in relation to family religion 
me Sabbath secures important religious advantages. In well-ordered 
Christian families the worship of God is attended to in the morning 
and evening of every day — all the members of the household joinino- 
together in praise, in prayer, and in the reading and study of God’s 
word. Incalculable are the benefits which result from such daily ex- 
. ercises. But amidst the pressure of worldly employments, it is difficult 
for jmrents to devote sufficient time on every da.y to the religious 
training oj their children and domestics. The return of the weekly 
Sabbath affords amjder opportunities. On that day, when worldly 
employments are laid aside, the head of a family can devote more 
hme and attention to the religious training of the members of his 
household, who are thus more likely to become intelligent, active, and 
consistent members of the Church of Christ. Here it may be ob- 
served, that the religious training of children in families on the Lord’s 
day IS the more necessary, at the present time, in consequence of the 
fact that in many of our public schools the attention of the young is 
almost exclusively devoted to such kinds of learning as may fit them 
merely for worldly employments. It is thus the more necessary that 


558 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


on one day in seven they should be specially instructed in that 
knowledge which maketh wise unto salvation. 

In connection with the training of the young in families, reference 
may be made, to the opportunities which the observance of the Lord’s day 
affords for the work of Sabbath-school instruction, which has been pro- 
ductive of so much benefit to the Christian Church during the present 
century. It has been calculated that at the present time about one mil- 
lion and a quarter of Sabbath-school teachers are engaged in impart- 
ing religious- instruction to about twelve millions of Sabbath-school 
scholars. It is impossible to form an adequate conception of all the 
good which is thus effected, not only to the scholars, but also to their 
teachers, to their parents, and to the church at large. It is to be re- 
membered, also, that in connection with Sabbath-schools there have 
been called into existence numerous tract, missionary and temperance 
organizations, which have contributed largely to promote the interests 
of religion. It is further to be remembered, that in connection with 
Sabbath-schools there have been called into existence innumerable re- 
ligious periodicals and other religious publications, which have 
been of incalculable benefit as a means of disseminating Christian 
truth, and awakening Christian zeal and activity. Now we may 
claim for the Sabbath that to its observance all these advantages 
are due. 

In still further illustration of the manner in which Sabbath observ- 
ance is a means of sustaining and developing Christian life, we may 
refer to the ministrations of the sanctuary, and especially to the 
preaching of the gospel on the Lord’s day. When Christians of every 
rank and class join together in the same exercises, in the house of 
God, on every returning Sabbath, they are reminded of their common 
hopes and fears, duties and privileges, and are thus taught to regard 
themselves as members of the same family. They are thus more likely 
to become united in the bonds of Christian brotherhood, and to be 
stimulated to united efforts in the service of their common Lord. In 
answer to their united prayers, showers of promised blessings descend 
upon themselves and upon the whole Church of God. The preaching 
of the word is a specially effective means both of converting sinners 
and edifying believers. When ‘‘the world by wisdom knew not God, 
it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that be- 
lieve.” As regards the preaching of the word, it is very evident that 
its efficacy is very closely connected with the observance of one day 
in seven for special religious exercises. But for the Sabbath it is not 
likely that congregations would long continue to meet with regularity 
to hear the living voice of the ambassadors of Christ. In point of 
fact, in those countries and communities in which the Sabbath is 
neglected there are few who attend upon the preaching of the word. 
•On the other hand, reverence for the Sabbath is associated with at- 
tendance upon the sanctuary and the hearing of the word ; and who 
can estimate the amount of spiritual good that is done by the preach- 
ing of hundreds of thousands of sermons to millions of hearers on 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


559 

every returning Lord’s day ? The sermons of one single Sabbath 
would constitute a large library of theology and exegesis, of instruc- 
tive and devotional Christian literature which, as coming in earnest 
tones from the glowing hearts of living men, is fitted to tell with the 
greatest and most beneficial effect. 

Nor does this literature vanish with the passing Sabbath day. Some 
of the most valuable Christian books and tracts consist of sermons 
which, in printed form, are addressed to vaster multitudes than could 
assemble within any edifice, and thus continue to be addressed to 
successive generations. It is to be remembered also that, in connec- 
tion with the ministrations of the pulpit, a demand for other kinds of 
Christian literature is created and supplied. Ministers of the gospel 
feel their need of various kinds of Christian literature in the prepara- 
tion of their sermons, and their hearers also feel their need of similar 
help in their study of what they hear, and also in their private study 
of divine truth. The needed help has been provided for both, in the 
writings of learned, gifted, and pious men. Apart from Sabbath 
preaching and Sabbath congregations, a truly valuable Christian lit- 
erature could scarcely exist or be sustained. On the other hand, the 
vast extent and valuable character of the existing Christian literature 
are very largely dependent on the pulpit ministrations of the Sabbath. 
In harmony with this statement, I may venture to assert it as a simple 
matter of fact that, in those countries and communities, and in those 
times, in which the Sabbath is most neglected, the so-called Christian 
literature consists mainly of cold, dry, unedifying, oftentimes serni- 
infidel, although it may be learned disquisitions about the letter of 
Scripture and the externals of religion; while, on the other hand, 
where the Sabbath is most faithfully observed, and when the house of 
God is thronged with attentive worshippers, the ministers of religion 
are stimulated to produce, and do produce, in most abundant measure, 
that best kind of Christian literature which, dealing with the marrow 
of divinity and the spirit of the gospel, not merely enlightens the 
understanding, but most powerfully affects the heart and conscience 
and the whole spiritual nature. 

But I cannot dwell longer on the religious benefits which result 
from Sabbath observance. I trust, however, the brief illustrations 
which have been given may, by the blessing of God, tend to make us 
more thankful for the divinely appointed day of sacred rest, to awaken 
us to more earnest efforts to guard it against every kind of desecra- 
tion, and to deepen our conviction that it is at once our duty and our 
privilege to sanctify the Sabbath by a holy resting all that day, even 
from such employments and recreations as are lawful on other days ; 
and spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of 
God’s worship, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of 
necessity and mercy;” in accordance with the declaration, which is 
just as true in the present dispensation as in Old Testament times: 
“ If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleas- 
ure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the 


560 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

Lord honourable ; and shall honour him, not doing thine own ways, 
nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, then 
shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride 
upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of 
Jacob thy father ; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. 

The Rev. Hervey D. Ganse, of St. Louis, Mo., also read the 
following paper on 

THE SABBATH’S CLAIM ON CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCES. 

By nothing else does the cause of Sabbath observance suffer so much 
as by the denial which Christian men have made of the abiding au- 
thority of God’s Sabbath law. The most offensive attacks upon the 
day of rest of course proceed from the haters of all religion. But the 
boldness of such men is greatly encouraged by the fact that religion 
itself, in the person of many of its most influential teachers, has loosed 
the bonds of conscience, and left the Sabbath with no rights. 

Multitudes of Christians who were trained to revere the day avail 
themselves of this new-found license ; and, when the very keepers of 
the sacred enclosure break down its hedges, no wonder that the “wild 
boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the beast of the field doth 

devour it.” . . 

It is not rash to say that the arguments, whether ethical or exegeti- 
cal, which have tended to this result, are as false as they are specious, 
and admit of reply at every point. But what then? Reply main- 
tains debate; and it is the fact of Christian debate about the present 
authority of Sabbath law that leaves inclination free to trample the 
day. 

Is there no way of arresting this bad change? Is Sabbath obliga- 
tion so cloudy a thing that when its outline is once confused it can 
never be restored? So far from that, it is hard to see how arty good 
and reasonable man can look at the Sabbath institution in its own 
proper quality and relations and yet doubt its abiding divine authority. 

There are three obvious facts, unconfusable by any sophistry, which, 
when laid together and weighed by common sense and candor, estab- 
lish the Sabbath’s enduring claim oq every Christian conscience. 

I. The first fact is that the Sabbath institution exists. Throughout a 
very great part of the civilized world, one day in seven call it Sab- 
bath, Lord’s day, Sunday, what you will— releases the bulk of the 
people from common toil, and gives them scope for some other human 
occupation. The usage is not limited to any class of religionists. 
Unbelievers, atheists, and even Jews, in spite of their special tradi- 
tion, in large measure observe the concerted rest-day. 

Nor is the usage popular only. The legislation of many of the 
wisest, freest, most industrious nations on earth guards that seventh 
day of rest with laws and penalties. If we except the Family and 
Civil Government, no other institution is so conspicuously distinc- 
tive of Christian civilization as the weekly rest-day. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 561 

II. The second fact is this : The existing Sabbath usage has some 
most valuable adaptations in it. It is nut a mere yoke fastened on 
reluctant necks ; nor is it a great conventional whim. It is an intel- 
ligent usage by which men agree to serve themselves. Indeed, many 
of those who deny to it any divine origin, are foremost in asserting 
it5 usefulness. They trace it to the quarterings of the moon ; and 
develop it from among the superstitious rites of remote ages, on the 
Darwinian principle of the survival of the fittest. The rites have not 
been serviceable to the advancing generations and have fallen away. 
But the rest-day has, and so it abides. 

For the present we will not quarrel even with such a statement ; for 
our argument at this point has nothing to do with the past. We are 
studying the institution as it exists among us. 

What, then, does this surviving fit thing fit? Mqre than I can, at 
this time, tell of, or significantly hint at. It fits a tired man’s natural 
longing for chcinge and rest. It fits the imperative needs of his 
body, whose tissues waste too fast under any form of unremitted 
labor. It fits his self-respect, by securing to him a frequent whole 
day of cleanly exemption from the grime of toil. It serves domestic 
order by allowing the homes even of the poorest to take on their Sun- 
day aspect of quiet and tidiness. It meets the needs of domestic 
affection by permitting the father to gather around him, by daylight 
and in leisure, the whole family, which for the rest of the week he: 
sees by snatches, or not at all. It gives scope to the mind by releasing 
it so often and so regularly from the thoughts of mere work, and suf- 
fering it by observation of nature, by reading, hearing and meditation, 
to acquaint itself with a world of truth, from which the perpetual 
laborer is shut out. 

It invites to religious thought and duty, which, though they belong 
to the field and the workshop, and to every place where a good man 
can ever be, deserve a sphere of their own, as safe as possible from 
common distractions. 

It is the indispensable condition of un-ited worship by a whole com- 
munity, and of all those advantages which such worship brings to per- 
sonal character and public order. By making use of the Bible, and 
of preaching, this public Sabbath worship has long been and is the 
special educator of Christian communities in religion and morality, 
and in all those matters, intellectual or aesthetic, abstract or practical, 
which stand related to them. 

In particular, the weekly day of rest supplies a most necessary op- 
portunity for the religious education of the young in the family, the 
Sunday-school, and the church. 

By the fact that the Bible and religious duty demand for their just 
exposition so many kinds of learning, the preaching Sabbath has set 
p the immense majority of those institutions to which Christendom 
owes both its higher learning and the whole spirit of popular educa- 
tion. If in America, in particular, the Sabbath could be abolished, 
the present munificent stream of educational endowments would 


562 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

shrink as a spring torrent does in summer. The facts that can be 
(Rioted against this statement are notorious by their singularity. 

In thus nourishing religion and intelligence^ the Sabbath is a chief 
nurse both of liberty and of the morality by which alone liberty is 

safe. ^ , I.- -u r 

And it is the chief nurse of charity. By the contact which it el- 

fects of Christ’s gospel with the hearts of intelligent and sympathetic 
assemblies, it maintains a widespread power of benevolence which is 
like a force of nature. It is like the sun gathering up the clouds from 
the face of a continent. 

In all these ways the Sabbath fosters the widest human syrnpathy 
and sense of brotherhood. By community of faith and worship and 
active benevolence, it integrates neighborhoods and nations and the 
race. “ The blue sky bends over all.” The spiritual day reaches as 
far as the natural one ^ and faith and love, being keener than eye- 
sight, sweep over the partitions of nature and the worshipping nation 
— the worshipping world is one. 

Such an alliance and conference as this is both a.sign and a means 
of good feeling between peoples near and remote. After these acts 
of Christian fellowship we would be sorry to see our sons and brothers 
fighting ; and the men whom such a conference includes and repre- 
sents are not without influence in their several nations. But without 
a Sabbath such an alliance would be as impossible as without men. 
It is the ‘Sabbath with the gospel that long ago made the union which 
we are here tardily declaring ; and it is the Sabbath, with its prayers 
for all the saints, that shall strengthen the bonds that bind us now. 

And there are saints for whom we jiray no longer. They have 
entered into rest ; Guthrie, who w'as in Scotlan.d ; Tholuck, who was 
in Germany ; Duff, who was in India ; Bushnell, who was in Africa ; 
Adams, who was in America. The pilgrims who shall visit the scenes of 
their several labors shall need to travel far. But the Sabbath dissolves 
the veil that hides the invisible glory, and they all are near. We look 
up toward the face of Christ, and the great array of these heavenly 
worshippers shines down upon us. One heaven for our Christian 
dead makes one earth for the living ; and the Sabbath is the open 
door between the two. 

All this is a scanty recital ; but the things which it recites are the 
best and dearest that are known to men. There is no excellent human 
interest so personal and private, so public and universal, that the 
Sabbath wisely kept does not greatly serve it. It would be as easy 
to make an inventory of what the Sunday daylight does in the world 
of matter and life, as an inventory of the blessings which Sunday rest, 
well used, brings to the world of men. 

Add to all this the direct and peculiar bearing of Sabbath duty upon 
every man’s personal relations to God in Christ, and thus upon his 
preparation for the life immortal, and all Christians at least will admit 
that the Sabbath institution as we have it is, by its known results, of 
incalculable value. 


5^3 


SECOND GENED JL COCNC/E 


III. The third fact now is this; that thirty-four centuries ago 
Moses, in giving laws to the men of his race, made recital of a brief 
and comprehensive code, said to have been proclaimed in the hearing 
of all the people by the voice of God himself. Nine-tenths of this code 
concerned those universal duties toward God and man which lie at 
the loundation of religion and society. 

The tenth law, announced with special solemnity in the midst of 
the others, enjoined the keeping of a weekly day of rest and religion 
It will not be questioned that, so far as this code of the “Ten Words ” 
or the Decalogue, has been known among men, it is, save only in the 
matter of the Sabbath law, the world-accepted code of axiomatic 
morality. 

1 he introduction of the Sabbath law into such a code is for two 
reasons very remarkable. 


hirst, there is no proof nor probability that at that time the usage 
ol a weekly rest-day had m any practical way attested the immense 
value that was m it. Though we insist, as many of us will, that the 
Sabbath was ordained from the very beginning, it was only in a settled 
society such as the Israelites were yet to form that the institution 
could have scope for its mast beneficent work. It was for such an un- 
developed usage, then, that a place was made in the midst of duties 
that are obvious and universal. 


A second fact makes this selection the more remarkable. Moses 
was a voluminous legislator of religious rites and of civil and social 
laws. Sacrifices, feasts, purifications, tithings, marriage, inherit- 
ance, avenging of injuries. Sabbatical years and jubilees — these and 
such like things are elsewhere set forth by him with the solemnity 
and iteration which prove their sacred importance to his system. But 
into this God-given code of the Decalogue not one of them comes. 
Only the law which is to develop the undeveloped Sabbath. 

Now, of the actual origin of that code, unbelief will take one view 
and belief another. 


An unbeliever will deny the miracle of the audible voice of God, 
and will ascribe the code to Moses. But then he will give Moses 
credit for the wisdom and foresight which his code evinces. This is 
what P. J. Proudhon, the French socialist, does in his remarkable 
essay, “ La Celebration du Dimanche.” With analysis, very acute as 
far as it goes, he discusses the indispensable social advantages of the 
weekly rest-day, and loads with praise the Hebrew legislator who 
knew human nature so well and planned for it so admirably. It never 
occurred to this unbeliever that, liecause the particular one-seventh 
part of time now used for a rest-day is not the very same one-seventh 
which Moses prescribed, the credit of our modern usage was to be 
denied to Moses. He would have thought it as manly to evade an 
inventor’s patent for a clock, by keeping the patented movement and 
canting the dial-plate. Make Moses the inventor of the Hebrew Sab- 
bath, and no laborer in Christendom ought to wake to his Sunday 
rest without blessing the name of Moses. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


5^>4 

But Christians believe that it was the wisdom and the very voice 
of God which put into the midst of the moral Decalogue, not the 
passover, nor circumcision, nor the law of sacrifice, nor any other 
thing that bore a national or local flavor, except only the Sabbath. 

One fact, then, is plain beyond question, that God, in that age and 
for the Jews, counted the weekly rest-day to be of special impor- 
tance. 

But we have just been seeing that for our age and for us the weekly 
fest-day is of special importance. In the light of these twin facts, 
the effort of any teacher or school to sink the Sabbath where it stands 
iii the Decalogue to the level of a Jewish ceremony, deserves no 
respect at the hands of men who can reason without prejudice. 

If the usage of the weekly rest-day had taken no more root in the 
world than the Day of Atonement, or the Feast of Trumpets, then, 
indeed, we would have been shut up to their conclusion; and could 
only have wondered that the direct act of God had put the clay 
among the diamonds, and had given the perishable Sabbath its central 
setting amid the lustre of imperishable duty. 

But the Sabbath has not perished, nor lessened, but grown. 

It grew, though slowly, while Judaism lasted. In its characteristic 
and indispensable human serviceableness, it has grown immensely 
more since Judaism was abolished. 

When, in the days of Nehemiah, it rallied and guarded the feeble 
National life ; when the father of the Maccabees made it the battle- 
cry with which the people rose in triumph against their Syrian tyrant; 
when, in the time of Christ and after, it made the synagogue, with 
its Hebrew Scriptures, first the school of the apostles, and then the 
avenue of their access to Jews and Gentiles ; will any Christian refuse 
to believe that God from Sinai foresaw and meant that the Sabbath 
should do all this? 

To-day it is not the synagogue, but the Church. It is not Jeru- 
salem, or Antioch, or Corinth — it is Berlin, and London, and New 
York, and San Francisco, and Melbourne. It is the frontier village 
and the miner’s camp. It is the mission -station among the heathen 
abroad, and the mission-school among the heathen at home. And the 
weekly rest-day gives scope for all. Did not God from Sinai foresee 
this too ? Had he eyesight for Palestine and fifteen centuries, and 
blindness for the rest? 

Sometimes a painter, while yet unknown to fame, will work out his 
masterpiece, and write his name upon a corner of the canvas, and 
wait. By and by men find his work, and find him in it. 

God is no candidate for men’s applause. Yet he often curiously works 
in secret the “ substance, being yet unperfect ; ” which he afterwards 
brings out into daylight. And there is daylight now on that strange 
and rigid law set like a keystone in the arch of the Decalogue. Upon 
that very arch, with its keystone in it, the Christian ages have built 
up w'or.ship and piety, civil and domestic order, wealth and knowl- 
edge, character and power. It is Christianity’s Arch of Triumph— 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


565 


the visible monument of Christ’s work on earth. With every genera- 
tion it rises higher and higher, dilating like a fabric in the sunset sky. 
Overtopping its splendor stands the cross, and through the arched 
portal which still pierces it, believing men — a long procession — walk 
into heaven. On all its front blazes one name — one triune name — 
Jehovah. 

We quote the Bible often to sustain the Sabbath. I summon the 
Sabbath to prove the Bible. If any one doubts the being of a God 
of law and of loving foresight for men, and doubts his gift of a reve- 
lation, let him compare that scene before Sinai, when the rude horde 
of Egyptian freedmen received anew among their fundamental law^ 
the law of the weekly rest-day, with the outcome of that special law 
in the present condition of our race. 

A just deduction of the Sabbath of Christendom from its remote 
beginning in the command of God ought to convince an atheist. 

That any Christian reasoner should so obscure the essential identity 
of the Sabbath institution through all these ages as to unmake this 
natural argument from the divine foresight, is both a blunder and a 
crime. 

But how could there be foreseen identity of the institution, without 
an equal identity of law ? God is not fickle. God’s moral law is 
God’s moral choice of what men shall do in their fixed human rela- 
tions. That choice, when once declared in regard to relations which 
are universal, binds men in those relations in every land and to the 
end of time. 

If the Sabbath had been made by God for certain men because they 
were Jews, only Jews would be put under obligation by Sabbath law. 
But in so far as the Sabbath was made for Jews because they were 
men, all men that know of the Sabbath law are bound by it. 

Christ gave us that argument when he said “ the Sabbath was made 
for man ” — for the Jew man, if any one dwarfs his meaning to that 
measure ; but even then for the huihanness that was in the Jew. And 
since we are as human as he, and the Sabbath fits us, to that extent 
God made it for us. 

To that exact extent, therefore, namely, of the universal human fit- 
ness of kee])ing a weekly rest-day, it is futile to say that the apostles 
have abrogated Sabbath law. What would such a saying mean ? That ' 
the apostles conceived the whole Sabbath usage to be unwholesome 
and effete, and so wished and advised that men would have done with ' 
it? Assume such an apostolic'intent, and it failed. And yet, if that 
really was the apostles’ intent, it ought not to fail, for we all believe 
in their inspired authority. Let any good man, then, set out to carry 
such a supposed apostolic intention into effect. Here is the holy con- 
vocation in Church and Sabbath-school — a plain inheritance from the 
Hebrew Sabbath. Let us abolish that. Here is the Sal)bath silence 
on the humming wheels of Birmingham and Lowell; upon-the un- ^ 
yoked ox in the Sabbath pasture ; upon the laborer and his book in 
his Sabbath home. Let us change all that. Let us make up an im- 


566 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

posing committee from . among those Sabbath-breaking corporations 
which have the true apostolic idea, and go to the tender-hearted 
masters who jjerpetuate the Hebrew superstition, and teach them 
better. We can say: “ If you find it profitable to work a rnan and 
hi> children seven days in the week, and, being able to force him to it, 
still suffer any notion about a Sabbath to restrain you, you are a 
traitor to Christian principle and apostolic law. 1 hat old restriction 
is done away with by the death of Christ. He was said, indeed, to 
proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to 
them that are bound.’ But this Sabbath law of obligatory rest for 
men-servants and maid-servants is one of those ancient prisons, and 
we masters are the prisoners who have been bound in it. Now that 
we have our gaspel freedom, let us use it, and bind our servants tight. 
We can run our engines when we will, and those little engines of 
brain and nerves — we can run them too.” 

Did the apostles mean that ? ^ j , • 

The human right of weekly rest had been twice given by God him- 
self. First, in the constitution of humanity, bodily and spiritual ; 
second, in express law. And those men of God no more took it 
within their province to annul that right, than to pronounce adultery 
to be purity, or murder love. No more was it any part of their 
province or official function to teach, according to the imagination 
of some, that while a certain fitness of the Sabbath usage may still en- 
dure, God’s law for the usage is withdrawn. God’s law, I repeat it, 
is God’s known choice of acts to be done. God never can choose 
that wrong be done ; God never can cease to choose that right be 
done. The right being once proclaimed and abiding, it would be no 
part of Godhead, nor even of true manhood, to abandon it to its fate, 
it is true, indeed, that the less clearly the immediate subjects of his 
legislation can understand their duty, the more stringently may God 
see fit to enjoin it. The Israelites just out of Egypt might need to 
have their Sabbath distinguished by special formalities, and guarded 
with fearful and imminent penalties. And if after ages of their ex- 
perience, the working of the weekly rest-day has been so illustrated 
that the Christian races cannot but recognize its excellence, that clear 
discovery may make less necessary the striking forrns and the impend- 
ing penalties. But it does not unmake God’s choice. It only gives 
it a human following. The greatest absurdity ever taught in Christian 
morals has, I think, been taught on this subject and to this effect: 
That men’s consent that a rest-day is necessary under Christ’s law of 
love sets aside for them the divine prescription under which the rest- 
day began ; so that in proportion as men’s interest in what God has 
appointed increases, God’s own interest in it diminishes, until when 
men learn that they cannot do without it, God ceases to care whether 
they keep it at all ! 

Let us understand that God has set up law, not on a perch, but on 
a throne. The bosom of God is her seat. 

These, then, are the three facts which, in proof of Sabbath obliga- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


567 

tion, stand forth together like the base, the shaft, and the capital of 
an immovable column. The Sabbath institution exists. It is of in- 
dispensable importance to men, society and the race. The unchange- 
able God once pronounced for it in intelligible law: 

“ Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou 
labor and do all thy work ; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the 
Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, 
nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy 
cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the 
Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and 
rested the seventh day : wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath 
day and hallowed it.” 

It is as easy for a candid man to distinguish between that part of this 
whole law which is of perpetual authority, and that which is local and 
temporary, as to distinguish between a stream and its banks. The 
banks are local, for they remain behind; the stream flows on. 

Where our western rivers run through low, wide bottoms, it is com- 
mon to build up an embankment against the stream to hold it to its 
course. The awful ceremonial sanctity of the seventh day was the 
embankment by which God held together the stream of Sabbath duty, 
while it skirted for fifty generations the broad morass of ignorance 
and paganism. But Christianity is a table-land, and that once 
reached, the stream was sure to have banks of its own. But by that 
time the formalistic Jews were persuaded that the very essence of the 
stream lay in the embankment. All along upon top of it they 
had heaped up their slavish traditions ; and in that shape they were 
bent upon carrying it up and down, like a Chinese wall, all over the 
Christian highlands. It was this that the apostles by God’s Spirit 
forbade, and the two-storied embankment of ceremony that once was 
right, and superstition that never was, came to its end. But the 
God-directed stream ! That found an opening through the hills — a 
deserted sepulchre marked the place — and it still flows on, not now a 
canal betwixt straight and rigid walls, but a river, and free — free tr) 
flow ; not free to stop. Shame on the Christian men who would step 
it ! With God’s word and God’s Spirit in it, it is the nearest earthly- 
symbol of the river of the water of life. Its fountain is in the throne 
of God. Its waters, compared with other streams, are clear as crystal ; 
and on either side of it is the tree of life vvdio.se leaves are for the 
healing of the nations. 

Yet Christian men make it serve their uses like a common river. 
They cover it with barges of traffic and gayety. They crowd it with 
the piers of their thundering bridges. They dam it with causeways 
and turn it into sluices to drive their mills and water their pleasure- 
gardens. And over many a tired laborer, who would sit down on its 
margin, to bathe his brow and drink, tliey lift the lash of capital, 
more cruel often than that of slavery, and force him avv^ay. 

Do they dream that there shall be no reckoning? Shall some jial- 
tering arguments about ancient ceremony unmake the lasting reality 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


568 

of thing'3? Is rest a ceremony? Is worship a ceremony? Is a poor 
man’s day with his iamiiy, and his own soul, and with God, a cere- 
mony ? If the cries of the laborers, whose hire is kept back by fraud, 
are entered into the ears of the Lord of Hosts, shall he be deaf to 
the cry of that inceasing generation of men who, within the sound of 
church bells, are, for the "sake of dividends, degraded below the pos- 
sibility of piety, by endless work? 

I shall be told that this argument is too general. Show us, they 
say, chapter and verse for our several Sabbath duties to ourselves, our 
families, our servants, our clerks, our neighbors, and the world, and 
we will honor the law. If that demand be valid, selfishness has won 
the day, and Christianity is dead. 

Duties that are narrow and specific can be mapped out. If the 
question be, how ought a good man to treat a neighbor who has fallen 
among thieves, our Lord’s sweet parable will furnish a detailed reply; 
and yet in no such detail that the acts of the Good Samaritan may 
not ne^d to be greatly varied. 

But as the field of duty grows wider, detail in the law becomes im- 
possible, and principle takes it place. Chapter and vepe cannot be 
given for a thousandth part of a mother’s particular duties toward her 
child ; or of a good citizen’s duty towards his towns-people and his 
country. It is the glory of Christianity that it displaces the schedule 
performances of other systems with the responsible life of love — love 
working not above law, but under it ; love expanding law to God’s 
great meaning, and after the spirit of Christ. ^ The New Testament 
thus succeeds upon the Old as the perfumed air in the house of Simon, 
the Pharisee, succeeded upon the alabaster box in which the ointment 
of spikenard had been kept. The fragrance did not say, “ Give me 
fixed wires to run on, and I’ll fill the room.” That is not the way of 
fragrance; nor is it the way of love. 

The Sabbath is, on its face, appointed of God in the interest of 
rest and religion. That fixes its principle. This principle, once con- 
served in rigid law, has, under Christ, expanded into the largest com- 
pact of piety and benevolence known on earth. While the day dom- 
inated the duty, the usage was Jewish and confined. When the mere 
day, by the direction of inspired apostles, fell back to a level with 
other days, then the indispensable duty chose, under a risen Redeemer, 
its own day, and dominated it ; and Sabbath duty and privilege be- 
came thenceforth the heritage of the world — of all ages and occupa- 
tions— of all races and generations. The Sabbath, under Christ, is a 
universal partnership for the advancement of piety toward God, and 
of every interest of men that can flourish in the light of God’s coun- 
tenance. 

Will you put in a book a set of rules for serving all these interests? 
No book would contain them. And if it did, would rules make a 
Sabbath for Christians? Christians must mean to make it. They 
must see its scope and do their best with it. The first of Christian 
duties is to discover duty. And thus it comes to pa:>s that a man’s 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL.. 569 

treatment of the Sabbath’s claims exactly gauges his moral intelli- 
gence and character. He brings the Sabbath to his bar, and chal- 
lenges Its right to be. He mistakes; it is the Sabbath that is sifting 
him. He stands in the light of Sinai, and of the world’s history and 
needs, and says: “I see no reason why I should limit my Sunday 
work or Sunday pleasure, or the work that others do for me.” 

He has graded his moral intelligence. Human need in himself and 
others is more than he knows of. Christ’s living scheme of pity and 
grace is larger than he can see. He has graded his benevolence. He 
has no brotherly compassion for the men that are low down and are 
struggling upward. He has graded his conscience, and has proved it 
to be callous to the plainest appeals of experience and of God. 

True Sabbath-keeping is chiefly a delight; but it is also a disci- 
l)line. It crosses at many points natural inclination and convenience. 
And herein it most exalts us. It was from heaven that the Son of 
God responded to. the need of men ; and, coming, he died for the 
world in its remotest generations. The most Christlike, common thing 
on earth is the spirit of intelligent and self-denying Sabbath-keeping, 
by which a man, not in the interest of himself only, nor of his chil- 
dren, nor even of his country, but with large apprehension of that 
leverage of long ages by which God has been lifting up a ruined 
world toward heaven, and so with tender sympathy for strangers of 
other races, and for generations not yet born, gives to God’s day of 
holy rest the most that one man can — the whole influence of his 
hearty duty and his pure example. 

The Hon. William E. Dodge, of New York city, read the 
following on 

THE CHURCH AND TEMPERANCE. 

It is now about a half-century since the first active and united 
efforts in the interest of temperance commenced in this country. 

Then our population was about twelve millions, and mostly Ameri- 
can in birth and feeling. 

Then the use, more or less, of various kinds of intoxicating drinks 
was almost the universal habit; among the farmers when gathering 
their crops, and at the table, its use in the form of cider and spirits 
was the general custom ; in cities and towns there were very few 
families that did not have it in some form on their tables and side- 
boards'; it was offered to friends on almost every occasion, as a token 
of hospitality, and its use was considered a necessity. 

The manufacture of cider and spirits of various kinds was on a very 
large scale for the number of inhabitants. Intemperance was increas- 
ing to an alarming extent. 

Public attention became aroused, and some of the best men in the 
country began to consider the duty of united effort to stop its 
progress. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


'570 

Such men as Justin Edwards, Nathaniel Hewitt, Lyman Beecher, 
S. V. S. Wilder, Chancellor Walworth, E. C. Delavan, Bishop Hop- 
kins, of Vermont, and many others, commenced active efforts. 

Sermons, addresses, tracts, etc., were published and widely cir- 
culated ; societies were organized in different places all over the New 
England and Middle States, and the published statistics of intem- 
perance aroused and alarmed the best portion of our citizens. 

Many banished the decanters from their tables and sideboards, 
while farmers and artisans largely gave up the use of intoxicating 
drinks in the conduct of their business. 

There have been special periods when the attention of the whole 
country was arrested and fresh interest excited. 

Such were the wonderful movements known as the Washingtonian 
and the E'ather Mathew movements, and the special efforts among 
Sabbath-schools known as the Cold-Water Army and Bands of Elope. 

A vast amount of statistical information has been obtained, and the 
best pens in this and other lands have been enlisted in the cause. 
The quantity of temperance literature which has been published and 
distributed all over the land is very large. 

In the smaller towns and villages, and in the agricultural districts, 
the change is increasingly apparent. The public have come to un- 
derstand the subject better, and the principle of prohibition is 
growing more and more into public favor. 

Wherever it has been tried, as far as it has been faithfully enforced, 
it has proved the most successful of any attempt to stay the progress 
of this awful evil. 

The great interest continued amid the labors of Cxough, Dow, and 
many others up to the commencement of the war, but the all-absorb- 
ing influence of that event for the time turned attention from the 
temperance reformation, and it has hardly regained in this country 
the position it had secured before the war. 

The consumption of intoxicating drinks is, perhaps, as extensive 
to-day as ever, particularly in our large cities, and there has never 
been greater need of the active, self-denying work of the Church. 

Passing through our cities, towns, and villages, and noting the vast 
number of places for the sale of intoxicating drinks, and the increase 
of crime and ruin resulting, we cannot wonder at the oft-repeated 
question, “What, after all, has the temperance reformation accom- 
plished?” We answer that but for what has been done, the ruin and 
wretchedness resulting from intoxicating drinks would have been far 
greater. 

We must remember that the population of our country has increased 
from about twelve millions, when this effort was commenced, to forty- 
eight millions, and that this vast increase has been largely the result 
of the importation from other lands of those who have brought with 
them the customs and habits of their own countries. 

The introduction here of lager-beer, as the result of the large 
German emigration, has done more than all else to increase the use 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


571 


of intoxicants, and its vast consumption is not now confined to the 
foreign population, but it is taken by large numbers of native 
citizens. 

. Its use has been greatly augmented by the oft-repeated assurance 
that, while it was an invigorating and pleasant drink, it was not 
intoxicating, and its general adoption would take the place of the 
other injurious alcoholic drinks. 

The real fact is that in our climate, and among our more excitable 
temperaments, it is also found to be the most frequent introduction to 
the use of the stronger drinks, and itself causing intoxication of the 
worst kind. 

The immense emigration from the lower classes of Ireland has been 
another cause of the increase of intemperance. But for these with 
their love for whiskey, and the Germans with their lager, the cause of 
temperance would long since have attained a successful position. In 
the city of New York, with 10,000 places for the sale of intoxicating 
drinks, full seven-eighths are kept by foreigners. 

It is estimated by returns from the Interior Department that in the 
United States there are 5,652 distilleries, 2,830 breweries, and 175,- 
266 places where intoxicating, poisonous liquors are sold, involving a 
direct outlay and waste of not less than ^700,000,000, and an indirect 
loss, in the cost to the country of crime and pauperism, of ^700,000,- 
000 more. To this annual financial loss add the destruction of not 
less than 100,000 lives. 

The following I take from a daily paper : “ The 10,000,000 barrels 
of beer sold last year would have filled a canal twenty-one feet wide 
and five feet deep, extending from New York to Philadelphia, and it 
would take a pump throwing thirty gallons a minute running night 
and day over twenty-one years to pump it out. It was all swallowed, 
however. ' ’ 

This vast business and terrible loss have all grown up under the 
fostering care and license of the national and State governments. 

While we admit the appalling results of the manufacture and sale 
of intoxicating drinks, we have heard them so often described that 
we have come to consider them a matter of course, and their mention 
has practically ceased to have any effect. 

If we could fairly understand the nature and effects of this fearfully 
destructive malady ; could we fully realize that we have in the midst 
of us that which destroys more lives and causes more suffering and 
misery, than any epidemic that ever visited our land, and that it is 
entirely within our power to check its progress, to stop its devasta- 
tions, would we not use the most efficient means to accomplish an enjd 
so grand and beneficent? Would we not be ready and willing to deal 
with it as we do with those terrible epidemics which at times desolate 
our country? 

And yet we are doing little or nothing, and hold our peace while 
the authorities of the land are giving license and securing revenue for 
the sale of that which is increasing and spreading this worst of dis- 
eases. 


572 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


The past has proved beyond dispute that the remedy of total 
abstinence and prohibition is the only thing, under God, which can 
stay the pestilence. 

Wherever it has been faithfully tried it has been successful, apd 
there is a growing feeling that the law should prohibit the sale in 
every State and locality where the majority shall decide by popular 
vote that no license shall be given. This feeling is gaining favor in 
England as well as in our own country, and wherever it has been 
thoroughly tested the result has been at once a decrease in crime and 
increase in the comfort and prosperity of the people. 

We are here as the representatives of the Presbyterian Church ; we 
profess to be actuated by the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, 
‘‘self-sacrifice for the good of others.” Now, after fifty years of 
careful study of this subject, I have no doubt that it is in the power 
of the Presbyterian Church in the United States sO to affect public 
sentiment that within a comparatively few years the laws and constitu- 
tions of the several States and of the General Government shall be so 
amended as to provide for the exclusion of the traffic, by popular 
vote, from all our States, cities and towns; and public opinion shall 
come to consider the granting of license at all as a license to evil, 
as we now would consider the licensing of gambling-houses, the sale 
of lottery-tickets, or houses of ill-fame. 

It is a fact, so commonly known that we lose sight of its truth and 
force, that three-fourths of all murders, crime and pauperism directly 
result from the manufacture, sale and use of intoxicants. 

We, as Christians, have in our hands the only true remedy — the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ — and, therefore, should by example and united 
action so mould public opinion that the licensing of this abominable 
traffic should be impossible. 

There are to-day thousands, yes, tens of thousands, of members of 
the Presbyterian Church who not only use themselves but offer to 
others that which they must know is causing ruin and misery to their 
fellow-beings. They think lightly of their influence, or content 
themselves with the idea that they are not their brothers’ keepers, 
while professing to be governed by the principles of Him who denied 
himself even unto death to save others. 

The time must come when Christian men shall so consider duty in 
this regard that it will be understood that no Christian can maintain 
his standing in the Church who will manufacture, sell or use intoxicat- 
ing drinks, or who will vote for any party who favors the idea of 
income from the license to sell poison. 

I have no doubt that the money expended by members of the Pres- 
byterian Church in the United States for intoxicating drinks amounts 
every year to more than all the receipts of our Home and Foreign 
Missionary Societies; and the total amount expended for drink In 
the United States, if devoted to the payment of our national debt, 
would pay it in four years. 

The day is coming when the traffic in intoxicating drinks will be 


SECOND GENERAI. COUNCIL. 


573 


classed with the slave trade as carried on by many professing Chris- 
tians in England and America a hundred years ago. 

Notwithstanding all these discouragements;, the friends of temper- 
ance are still actively at work, and more has been done in the careful 
examination of the subject in ail its different aspects than ever 
before. 

In the whole history of the temperance reformation there has never 
l>een as much accomplished as in the past ten years in the preparation 
and publishing of books, lectures and tracts by some of the best 
authors in our own and other countries. Among these are : 

“ Our Wasted Resources,'' by Dr. Wm. Hargreaves. 

“The Text-Book of Temperance," by Dr. F. R. Lees. 

“Talks on Temperance" and “ Temperance and Legislation," by 
Canon Farrar, D. D. 

“ Gospel Temperance," by Rev. J. M. Van Buren. 

“ On Alcohol," by Dr. B. W. Richardson, F. R. S., LL. D. 

“Medical Use of Alcohol," by Dr. B. W. Richardson, F. R. S., 
LL. D. 

“ Moderate Drinking, For and Against," by Dr. B. W. Richard- 
son, F. R. S., LL. D. 

“ Temperance Lesson-Book for Schools," by Dr. B. W. Richardson, 
F. R. S., LL. D. 

“Alcohol as Food and Medicine," by Ezra M. Hunt, M. D. 

“ Beer as a Beverage," by Rev. G. W. Hughey. 

“Alcohol and the Human Brain," by Rev. Joseph Cook. 

“ Temperance and Republican Institutions," by. Rev. Joseph 
Cook. 

“ Alcohol and the State " and “Alcohol in the Church," by Judge 
R. C. Pitman. 

These and hundreds of others, with lectures, tracts, etc., are puB 
lished by the National Temperance Society and Publishing House, 
thus furnishing as never before an extensive temperance literature 
ready at hand for intelligent work. 

Never have there been such decided efforts as now by the friends 
of temperance in England. They are beginning to understand that 
their country cannot longer endure the worse than waste of seven 
hundred millions of dollars annually spent for drink, and a sum fully 
equal to sustain the resulting pauperism and crime. 

The recent triumph in Parliament of the measure of Sir Wilfrid 
Lawson has been hailed as a signal victory by the friends of temper- 
ance all over the world. Sir Wilfrid, in a recent letter, says of it: 
“ Not only has the House of Commons by a substantial majority de- 
clared that localities are entitled to the power of protecting them- 
selves from the invasion of liquor shops, but the Prime Minister him- 
self, although he voted for the motion for the Speaker’s leaving the 
chair, and not for my amendment, virtually gave a very -cordial 
support in his speech to the principle embodied in the local-option 
resolution ; and if they deal with it in the manner indicated by Mr. 


574 the PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 

Gladstone, we shall secure legislation of the kind you and I have so 

long advocated.” „ , , , 

This principle of the suppression of the traffic by the popular vote, 
either through constitutional amendments, State and national, or by 
local prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquors, is the question 
which the friends of temperance in this country are bouVid to press 
till public sentiment shall secure the result. 

Having had business interests for many years in the northern part 
of the State of Pennsylvania, I learned that there had been a great 
change in one county, which, when I first knew it, was noted for its 
intemperance, and wrote to Hon. H. W. Williams, one of the Supreme 
Court judges of the State,_ and long an elder in the Presbyterian 
Church, asking for particulars, and received the following reply: 
“ The county of Potter, to which you refer, is in this judicial district. 
The county town is Coudersport. The history of the traffic in intoxi- 
cating drinks during the early history of the county was like that in 
the counties adjoining, except that drunkenness was, if possible, more 

prevalent. , , . 

“About twenty years ago attention was drawn to the subject, and 
the people elected associate-judges pledged to refuse all applications 
for license. These officers were elected for five years. When that 
time had elapsed the issue was again made upon the election of asso- 
ciate-judges, and decided as before by the election of the anti-license 
ticket. Before this second term expired the county was represented 
in the Legislature by the late Hon. John S. Mann, who procured the 
passage of a law prohibiting the granting of any license within the 
county, which law is still in force. For twenty years there has not 
been a licensed hotel or restaurant within the confines of the county. 
There are enough of both at all suitable places for the accommodation 
of the public, but in none of them is there a public bar. The sale is 
conducted, therefore, at great disadvantage clandestinely, and is very 
limited in amount. As to results, I can say that, while the county 
has been steadily growing in population and business, pauperism and 
crime have steadily decreased. For the past five years the county 
jail has been fully one-half the time without any other inmate than the 
keeper and his family. Twice within the past ten years I have, at the 
regular terms of court, discharged the jury on the second day of the 
term, without their having been called to consider a single case of 
any description. The effect of this system is felt in many ways: taxes 
are reduced, the business of the criminal courts greatly diminished, 
industry and sobriety take the place of idleness and dissipation, and 
intelligence and morality are advanced. 

“But one effort has been made to repeal this local law, and that 
failed by reason of the decided protest of a majority of the taxpayers 
of the county. I am glad that you are going to try and stir our 
church on this subject. Vice of any sort only asks of the churches to 
be let alone; grant to it toleration and it will take care of itself. 
Virtue must be aggressive or nothing.” 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


575 


This experience in Potter county might have been that of every 
county in the State, if the same means had been used. 

In most of the counties in the State of Maine the same result has’ 
been followed, and in many of them there have been empty jails. 
The experiment in Maine has been eminently successful, notwith- 
standing the rum interest has ridiculed it and tried to prevent its 
adoption in other States. 

Though the illicit sale of liquor is carried on to some extent in the 
large cities, owing to lack of efficiency in the officers of the law, 
yet tlie State, as a whole, is a temperance State, a77d p7'ohibitiou 
IS a success, and not a failure. Before the passage of the Prohibi- 
tory Law Maine was a drunken State. There was one drunkard to 
every fifty-five of her population. One million gallons of "spirits 
were distilled annually, and her liquor-bill was ten million dollars 
yearly. 

Now there is not a distillery or brewery in the State, the secret 
sale is only a small fraction of the former quantity sold, and the 
death-rate from drunkenness has been reduced from one in every fifty- 
five to one in three- hundred of her population. 

^ All this is the result of years of hard, persistent, patient, progres- 
sive work. 

The name of that noble Christian patriot, Neal Dow, will ever be 
remembered in connection with this work. 

In Vineland, N. J., with a population of over ten thousand, the 
inhabitants of all shades of politics have united in banishing all intox- 
icating drinks. There has not been a criminal case within twelve 
months. With a quiet and prosperous community, they have become 
a standing reproof to those villages around where liquor is sold. 

St. Johnsbury, Vt., is called by a prominent visitor ‘^a working- 
man’s paradise.” “ Why,” he asks, is this place so clean, the peo- 
ple so well dressed, housed, and fed? Why are the little folks so hale 
in face, so smart in person, and so neatly dressed? All voices, I am 
bound to say, reply: These unusual but desirable conditions in a 
workman’s village spring from a strict enforcement of the law pro- 
hibiting the sale of any species of intoxicating drinks.” 

A village with all the aspect of a garden ; a village in which many 
of the workmen own their houses ; a village of five thousand inhab- 
itants, in which the moral order is even more conspicuous than the 
material prosperity ; a village in which every man accounts it his 
highest duty and personal interest to observe the law. No authority 
is visible in St. Johnsbury; no police walk its streets; there is nothing 
for a policeman to do. Six constables are enrolled for duty, but the 
men are all at work in the scale-manufactory, and only don their uni- 
forms on special days to make a little show. 

Over and over again it has been the same in every place where it 
has been fairly tried. 

In this connection allow me to quote from the report of the Com- 
mittee on Intemperance to the Convocation of the Province of Can- 
terbury, made in 1869 : 


57 ^ 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


‘‘Your committee, in conclusion, are of the opinion that, as the 
avowed object of licensing the sale of intoxicating liquors is to supply a 
supposed public want without detriment to the public welfare, a legal 
power of restraining licenses should be placed in the hands of the in- 
habitants themselves, who are entitled to protection from the injurious 
consequences of the system. Such power would secure to the districts 
willing to exercise it the advantages now enjoyed by the Province of 
Canterbury, where, owing to the influence of the land-owners, no sale 
of intoxicating liquor is licensed. Few are cognizant of the fact that 
at this time there are within the Province of Canterbury upwards of 
one thousand parishes in which there is neither public-house nor beer- 
shop, and in consequence the intelligence, morality, and comfort of 
the people are such as the friends of temperance would have antici- 
pated. 

■t- “ The number of such districts is actually i, 454 j with a population 
of 231,998. 

“ There is scarcely ever any arrears of rent. Infant mortality is 
very low as compared with other places. The tone and sense of self- 
respect of the working-people is much greater than of hands gen- 
erally. 

“ Wages are not high, but they are enabled to secure more of the 
comforts and decencies of life than elsewhere, owing to the absence 
of drinking-houses.” 

Pardon me if I venture to add extracts from a few out of many re- 
ports to the Committee from the rectors of the parishes : 

“ There is no public-house or beer- shop, I am happy to say, in this 
parish. Of this the advantage is great. It promotes, almost ensures, 
.sobriety and temperance. The village is very quiet and orderly. 
The constable’s office is a sinecure ; a drunken man is a very rare 
sight.” 

Says another : 

“ The absence of any public-house or beer-shop has diminished 
temptation to evil. As one of my parishioners expressed it. It has 
saved many a shilling. There is no case of habitual drunkenness 
within the parish, either man or woman.” 

Another : 

“ I have been in this parish since 1844, and have never seen any 
one tipsy. We have no public-house or beer-shop. We have had no 
case for the police since I came here.” 

Again : 

“ I have been in this parish sixteen years. We have no public- 
house or beer-shop. The inhabitants are all very sober. I have not, 
during my stay, seen one drunken man in the parish.” 

Another : 

“ Out of the twenty parishes in this district where there are no 
places for the sale of intoxicating drink, there is seldom a case of 
magisterial interference, and laboring-classes are well clad and live 
comfortably ; but in districts where public-houses and beer-shops 


577 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


exist there is plenty of work for the police and mai^istrates, the cause 
of which is drink.” 

Mr. J. G. Richardson, of Bessbrook, Ireland, one of the largest 
linen manufacturers in the world, employing 4,000 hands, is himself 
a total abstainer, and he has not in his village or town a single place 
where intoxicating drinks are sold. The consequence is most satis- 
factory as regards morals and health. There are no police, none 
b.,ing required. There are churches and schools for the population, 
and they are well attended. Ihere is also a dispensary and savings- 
bank, but no pawn-shop, prison, police-office, or poor-house. So 
prosperous is the place that it is an object of ambition throughout the 
district to find employment and a home at Bessbrook. 

I am sure you will excuse these long quotations, as few would have 
believed that such a state of things could have existed in any part of 
Great Britain, and I am anxious to show that the same good results 
have followed in our own country wherever local option is permitted 
and faithfully carried out. 

That noble man, Dr. Guthrie, said in a temperance speech : 

He knows little of the power of evil who does not see the blessed 
effect upon the manners and morals of the people that would follow 
an entire abolition of these tippling-shops. When it was our happi- 
ness to labor in the quiet rural parish of Arbilot, we found it and left 
it lemarkable for its sobriety. In a population of a thousand souls, 
among the working-classes we cannot recollect more than one or two 
who could be called drunkards, and this happy state of affairs we at- 
tribute to the circumstance that there was but one public-house in the 
parish, and that at the extreme end of it, so that the temptation was 
but little felt. To them the prayer was answered : ' Lead us not into 
temptation, but deliver us from evil.’ ” 


From that remarkable prize essay of Rev. James Smith, of Scotland, 
entitled, " The Temperance Reformation and its Claims on the Chris- 
tian Church,” I quote as follows : " A great advance will be made in 
the cause of temperance, and a great impulse will be given to Chris- 
tian work, when the Church is brought to see that she has been occu- 
pying a false position, weakening her own hands,. and hindering her 
own work. If Christians gave no countenance to this fellowship with 
works of darkness, if Christian ministers uttered a clear and decided 
testimony against it, the Church would be released from a heavy bur- 
den and receive a large accession of strength. 

" As Lot compromised his own position by first pitching his tent 
toward Sodom and finally taking up his abode in the city ; as he 
continued even there to utter a feeble and powerless protest against 
the prevailing works of darkness, but continued needlessly and sinfully 
to dwell in the midst of them ; as he thereby did grievous injury to 
himself and family, without doing good to others, so the Church and 
individual Christians compromise their Christian character by having 
fellowship with the fashions of the world in regard to strong drink. 
Ihey lose to a large extent the influence which they would otherwise 


37 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


578 

be able to exercise for the good of others. The virtue of temperance, 
as inculcated in the word of God, requires us to abstain from all that 
is usurious to body, soul, or spirit. The principles of Christian ethics 
require us to seek the good of our neighbor as well as our own. 1 he 
law of love requires us to deny ourselves for his sake, and to give 
his welfare the precedence over our gratification. Even if strong 
drink could not possibly harm ourselves, we find that it does great 
injury to many of our neighbors ; and though we may feel free to 
conform to the ordinary usages, yet the danger to which others are 
exposed should make us pause and ask whether such conformity be 

expedient. . . • j 1 * 

“The Apo.stle Paul, speaking in the Spirit of Christ, declares that 
it would be better, nobler, more Christ-like to abjure any specific 
kind of food, however harmless, if it should in any case prove an oc- 
casion of injury to others — an argument which tells with overwhelm- 
ing force against our drinking customs and in favor of total ab- 
stinence.” , XT 1 

And now in contrast I will give you an extract from the New York: 

Tribune of the loth inst : 


“SCENES .ON THE EAST SIDE. 

“ To see the east side of this city at its very worst, it should be visited 
between the hours of ten p. m. Saturday, and three a. m. Sunday. If 
a sober resident is encountered at any time, the explorer may rest 
assured that he will not be sober long. All the rum-shops are 
crowded with men dressed in their working-clothes, their appearance 
indicating that they have not been home since quitting work. Soon 
they become noisy and quarrelsome, and they are ejected from one 
place to take refuge in another only a short distance away, where they 
are welcomed and allowed to stand and wrangle so long as their 
money lasts. Few moments intervene between drinks. Fights of a 
more or less ferocious and dangerous character are of frequent occur- 
rence, and cries of ‘murder,’ ‘help,’ ‘police,’ are often heard, but 
occasion no unusual excitement. They only make the neighborhood 
seem more like home to the people living there. A Tribune re- 
porter strolled through Houston street at a late hour Saturday night, 
and although having some idea of the neighborhood, was surprised at 
the riotous, uproarious scenes that were presented on every side. 
Picking his way through knots of intoxicated men and boys, he finally 
.arrived at Goerck street. Gathered here were some boys, the oldest not 
exceeding twenty years of age. The stroller stood a while, listening 
to their conversation. Somebody had evidently offended them, for 
the most dire and blasphemous threats were uttered against the 
unfortunate person who had aroused their enmity. 

“ On the opposite corner was a grocer's wagon, in which several 
men were sleeping, their dirty bare feet hanging over the edges. 
Several wretched children were lying in the gutter. A tall, well- 
built men, hatless and coatless, came lounging down the street, and 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


579 


not seeing him stagger, the reporter supposed he was sober. Ap- 
proaching the man, he asked if the green cars had stopped running. 
The fellow stared at the inquirer for a moment in a dazed, bewildered 
manner, and then said : 

“ ‘ Sh-no-hic-guess not. Zer cars goes-hic-all night.’ 

‘Are you sure ? ’ 

“ ‘ Wha-zer sink-hic-I’se fool? I’se a watchman ’round zes-hic- 
corners; guess ought ’er know.’ 

“ Despairing of deriving any information from this watchman, and 
not deeming it likely from appearances that a sober man ^ could 
be found in the neighborhood, the re])orter strolled back toward 
the Bowery through Second street. It was a little quieter there, 
but still everybody the reporter met was intoxicated. Nearly 
every stationary vehicle and every stoop and cellar-door was occupied 
by some one endeavoring to sleep off a debauch. The scarcity of 
policemen was also noticed. The reporter saw only one in the whole 
night.” 

_ Now, as Christian people, if we believe that prohibition is prac- 
ticable, and will deliver society from the evils resulting from the li- 
censed traffic ; that whenever tried it has proved successful ; that in 
py event no harm can result, are we not bound to use our utmost 
influence to so change public opinion that such amendments, legisla- 
tive or constitutional, may be secured as will enable the people of 
our several States and of different localities, by popular vote, to decree 
the entire suppression of the injurious traffic? 

It is not claimed that prohibition will prevent all intemperance, 
but it will go far towards It by removing the public temptation which 
is now the great cause of intemperance. 

The license system is the great obstacle in the way of the friends of 
temperance. It gives a kind of legal respectability to the traffic, 
making an open temptation which, but for a license, would generally 
be hidden out of sight as an illegal business. 

Licensing the sale of that which all know to be only evil in its re- 
sults, is using against society that which was intended for its safety 
and preservation. 

As Christians and citizens, we have responsibilities which we must 
so discharge as to promote the best interests of society, and not simply 
to carry out party plans, which in almost all cases are so arranged as 
to secure the influence of the rum -seller and the votes of his cus- 
tomers. 

As Christian men, we should feel that we owe our first allegiance 
to God, and discharge the privilege of citizenship, so as to secure the 
best good of the bodies and souls of our fellow-men. 

In our great cities at the present time, the traffickers in intoxicating 
drinks (among which I include beer) hold such a powerful political 
influence, and are able to control such numbers of votes, always 
given for the party that has the power of license, that it is very diffi- 
cult to secure prohibition ; but in the country there is hardly a place 


58 o the PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

where, with the united action cf the Christian men, it might not be 
obtained, and their example would m time extend to the cities. 

How long will the Christian Church sit supine in the presence of 
this giganti? evil, that is producing an ainoum of misery and rum to 
body a® d soul for which no amount of Christian work in other direc- 

*'°In this dayTf'noble Christian and philanthropic work when every 
class of our suffering fellows are being carefully provided for, and we 
are looking after even the brute creation to see that no wrong is done 
to them, cannot we unite in the attempt to remove the greatest of 
all the evils which afflict our fellow-men? In no way can this be 
so surely and efficiently done as by prohibiting the sale of intoxicat- 
ing drinks. , . . , 

In a recent English appeal on tliis subject occurs this passage : 

“ How long will the Christian Church collectively sit quiet in the 
presence of a traffic that makes the noblest good of society a dream, 
and is ever producing a mass of ruin and misery with which no ^nioimt 
of Christian labor and energy can cope? The strength of that traffic 
is the law— the law which annually renews the license, and thereby 
allows the annual outgrowth of a lawlessness and wretchedness that 

shame our Christian land. , , 

‘‘ Shall this state of lasv continue? If it does, who will be respon- 
sible but the Christian citizenship that might otherwise determine it? 
Shall there be no other alternative offered to the districts who desire to 
abolish the license system and plant a prohibitory hedge around their 
borders ? And who will be responsible tor this but those who, by 
their speech and actions, might have provided the alternative ? 

“ The legalized liquor-traffic is a tower strong and lofty, crowded 
with many defiant and self-confident spirits; but the Christian 
Church animated, as was Samson of old, with a divine emotion 
could place its hands on the legal pillars of this fabric and lay it evel 
with the ground, and great would be its fall. But neither would the 
liquor-vendors be destroyed, nor would the church perish in me ef- 
fort • for both a happier future would be reserved. The traffickers 
would find another occupation, and the church would be enabled, with 
replenished vigor, to do the Master’s work and bring multitudes now 
possessed with the ‘ demon of drink ’ to sit at his feet clothed and 

in their right minds.” j r*u- 

If the Christians of this country could realize the magnitude of this 
evil, and how it stands in the way of all our efforts to save men, and 
could be induced to act together, forgetting for the time either church 
or party differences, there would be little doubt of securing necessary 
laws to prohibit the sale of intoxicating drinks. 

But the great trouble is, we have so long witnessed the traffic and 
seen the sad results that we have come to feel that there is no remedy, 
and, passing the responsibility over to others, we go on feeling little 
sense of personal obligation. 

Our various temperance societies are doing what they can, but these 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


58« 

are local and fail to unite the mass of the friends of temperance. 
Many of our clergy sympathize fully in these efforts, but most of them 
are content to preach an occasional or annual sermon. And so we 
have been going on for years, and still the liquor-dealors go on, and 
the fearful effects, which all are ready to acknowledge, are filling the 
land with lamentation and woe. 

Congress has been appealed to by the petitions of hundreds of thou- 
sands tor the appointment of a commission on the subject of the al- 
cohol liquor-traffic ; but though it has three times passed the Senate, 
and been most ably advocated by some of the strong members in the 
House, it’ has failed to secure a vote. > 

1 he fact is that the power of the liquor-dealers in our country to-day 
is beyond that of any other interest, and they are banded together 
and can raise any required amount of money and can control more 
votes in Congress than is generally supposed. 

The Hon. Mr. Joyce, of Vermont, in advocating the appointment 
of the commission before the House in April last, said : “ These thou- 
sands have made their prayer before Congress in good faith, believ- 
ing that if this bill becomes a law, a commission such as is provided 
for will in their report present such an aggregation and consolidation 
of all the terrible evils growing out of the manufacture and use of 
intoxicating liquors as will paint a picture so dark and fearful that men 
will be brought to see and realize the danger and take measures to 
overcome it. 

'‘It is evidently the design of the bill that the commission shall 
ascertain and report the amount of spirits, wine, and beer annually 
manufactured and consumed by the people of this country; the num- 
ber of deaths from alcohol ; the number and character of the crimes 
pused by drink; the diseases produced by it, mental as well as phys- 
ical ; the number of arrests for drunkenness; the amount of pauper- 
ism produced by intemperance; the cost of care and su()porting the 
criminals and paupers made by drink ; the amount of money invested 
in the liquor-traffic ; the amount of revenue received by the govern- 
ment from the manufacture and sale of liquors ; what amount of 
grain is annually consumed ; the number of men employed; its influ- 
ence upon health and morals ; its effect on the social and intellectual 
well-being of the people ; and, finally, to a.sccrtain as near as possible , 
what it costs the nation in industry, health, taxes, life, maintenance 
of law, penitentiaries, poor-houses, and hospitals; how it saps the 
foundations of the Government, undermines the morals of the people, 
and to recommend what legislation on the part of tfie National Gov- 
ernment, within the sphere of national authority, would be beneficial 
to suppress the accursed traffic.” 

I make these quotations because I fear very few have known the 
amount of time and money that has been expended in the past few 
years in procuring these thousands of petitions, and with the hop'e 
that a deeper interest may be excited that will in future have an influ- 
ence to help secure this important action by Congress. 


582 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

The object of this address has not been so much to awaken an in- 
creased interest in the general cause of temperance, or in the efforts 
to save those habitually addicted to the use of intoxicating drinks by 
getting their signature to the pledge, much as I think of that ; nor 
of calling your attention to the saving of more than five hundred 
thousand drunkards, deeply as I am interested in that important move- 
ment; but I desire to secure the active co-oper^ation of our church to 
the greater work of prevention by closing up the fountains from which 
all this misery flows ; to the work of awakening public attention to 
the sin and folly of granting men license to sell the poison, and then 
trying to rescue those who are being destroyed by using that which 
we have made it lawful, and hence apparently right, to sell and use. 

Let us try rather to stop the flow than to repair the ruins which the 
raging torrent ever leaves in its path, knowing that “prevention is 
better than cure.” 

Having watched the progress of the temperance reformation from 
its beginning, and the several crises which have from time to time 
secured fresh public attention, in each case carrying the cause for- 
ward, I am now fully convinced that the next great battle is to be for 
prohibition. 

The people are becoming convinced that nothing short of this will 
save our country from the dreadful results of the liquor-traffic. Al- 
though the tremendous power of the rum interest in this land is 
beyond all we have ever conceived, and its political influence is 
growing in all our great centres from the constant influx of emigra- 
tion from other countries; though the struggle will be a long and 
desperate one, yet it will succeed in the end. 

The London in a recent article says: 

“The real difficulty of these questions of temperance legislation 
does not lie in themselves so much as in the temptations they offer to 
party managers to use them for purposes of party. The publicans are 
themselves numerous, and they have a more numerous host of custom- 
ers, which they can bring or send to the polling booths ; but if both 
sides of the House could rise to the virtue of agreeing to defy this 
body, the chief difficulty would be over. And is this too much to be 
hoped for?” 

If this is true in England is it less so here, where universal suffrage 
puts it in the power of our dram-shops to marshal all their customers 
to the polls? 

Says Judge Pitman, of the Massachusetts Superior Court, in a 
recent address: • 

“The grog-shop is terribly concrete ; the beer-shop is the dram- 
shop in disguise, and more dangerous for the disguise. These tippling- 
shops.are the very gateways of hell, and they are kept open, some- 
times with the sanction, more often with the tolerance and indifference, 
of Christian men. Think not it is an easy thing to put down the 
grog-shop pure and simple. Since the overthrow of slavery it is the 
largest moneyed power in the country. It is a unit ; touch one 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


583 


branch and you touch all. It has extensive commercial alliances; it 
subsidizes the press, muzzles the pulpit ; it governs parties, is even 
respectable, for anything that has ])oliiical power is made so in 
America; it makes governors, it bargains for Congressmen. Think- 
ing men are beginning to realize how controlling the liquor interest 
is everywhere, not only in impeding the execution, but in preventing 
the enactment of wholesome laws. But strong as this traffic is, there 
is something stronger. The Christian Church is stronger, and when 
its best men cease to scorn the field of politics as something common 
and unclean, and teach that voting is as sacred as praying,' believing 
that the struggle against the dram-shops is but one development of 
the war between heaven and hell, and press into that war with an 
energy that will not suffer men efr parties to stand in the way, . the 
traffic then will be doomed ; but iveak goodness never did and never 
will overcome resolute evil. There needs the united strength of the 
Church and the state to grapple with this gigantic evil.” 

The truth is, dear Christian friends, we have no realizing sense of 
the magnitude of this evil. We profess to believe that the;drimlaird 
cannot inherit eternal life, but, dying as such, must be lost eternally ; 
do we act as if we believed that drunkenness was carrying one hun- 
dred thousand .souls annually to the grave and to eternal ruin ? 

Think you we would stand by and see one hundred thousand die 
annually of yellow fever when we knew we had the power to prevent 
it? How long would a law remain on our statute-books which per- 
mitted people to sell the germs of that dread disease? 

We talk of one hundred thousand drunkards dying annually, but 
have we any just conception of what that means? Did you ever stand 
and watch the passing regiments on some great day of parade, and 
did you not tire as you stood seeing the apparently never-ending 
ranks of the military as they marched ? yet it is not probable that 
twenty thousand ever passed before you. Suppose these one hundred 
thousand poor drunkards should pass in procession before you on their 
way to the grave — what a strange, sad sight ! 

They would come from all classes of society, from the highest and 
the lowest. See those poor, degraded women among them, and for 
the entire day yoq will see them pass. Then remember there are the 
same number preparing to fill their places for each succeeding year. 

Consider, further, the half-million more of wives and children made 
miserable by the ruin of husbands and fathers, and you will obtain 
some idea of what this accursed business is doing to destroy body 
and soul and to fill our land with unutterable misery, saying nothing 
of the worse than waste of hundreds of millions of dollars. 

As I have said before, so let me repeat, that professing Christians 
have it in their power almost entirely to remove the source of this 
fearful destruction. 

Let it be once understood by the men who manage our politics 
that Christians will no longer support men for office who will license 
the traffic in intoxicants, there would be no difficulty in obtaining the 
adoption of the principle of prohibition. 


584 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


May God help us to examine carefully, as ministers and men, our 
individual responsibility, and to resolve to do all in our power to oppose 
the progress of the evil which more than all others stands in the way 
of the success of the gospel and the revival of the Holy Spirit 
throughout our land. 

. And now, dear friends, in conclusion, let me ask if the time has 
not come for a more determined, active stand on the part of the 
Presbyterian Church in the United States? Has not the temperance 
work done good in the past? and has not t!ie whole result of the 
drinking customs been evil, and only evil, continually ? 

I feel no hesitation in saying that the baneful influence exerted on 
others by the knowledge that a minister of the gospel uses wine at 
home; or partakes of it at the table of others, is doing more to hinder 
the temperance reformation than the opposition or example of many 
outside the church ; and how can they peril the souls of their weak 
members in view of the injunctions: ‘Do good to all men as you 
have opportunity; ” and “ Put no stumbling-block or occasion to fall 
in 'yonr •'brother’s way ; ” “ Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever 
you do, do all to the glory of God.” 

•Are they not encouraging others to tread the path of danger? 

As active workers in the temperance cause, we do ask that, if you 
as ministers of the gospel are not ready to work witli us, you will, at 
least, withdraw your powerful influence and example from the other 
side. 

Can you refuse to do this without feeling that your action is not in 
harmony with your Christian duty? 

To all our devoted Christian ministers and elders who are pledged 
to the cause of total abstinence let me appeal for greater diligence, 
with the full confldence that your labor will not be in vain m the 
Lord. 


The Rev. Theoddre L. Cuyler, D. D., of Brooklyn, N. Y., read 
the following paper on 

j , ■ POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 

The law of the Church is the law of Christ. The chief end of the 
Church is to do Christ’s will and to advance Christ’s kingdom. We 
shall discuss the much-contested question of Popular Amusements 
simply in their relation to tlie Church, and seek to ascertain their 
bearings upon Christian liberty and the Christian life. A Christian 
is Christ’s freedman ; and he is quite too free to have any demand or 
desire for many things which the children of this world lust after. 
He who has sat at the King’s table need not stoop to the husks. 
Conformity to Christ means no7t-con^or\m\.y to the world. Let this 
dying world “bury its dead ; ” our orders are to go and follow the 
Master. In keeping his commandments there is great delight ; at his 
right hand are pleasures forevermore. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


5S5 

For let it be understood at the outset, that the law of Christianity 
is not an iron-clad asceticism. God never made man to be a monk, 
or this bright world to be a monastery. If life has its times to weep, 
so hath it times to laugh. Our blessed Lord more than once shed 
tears : but may he not have sometimes smiled, or even indulged in the 
good old Christian liberty of laughter? Holiness signifies wholeness 
— wholth — health ; and health breeds innocent mirtii. If mirth may 
be innocent, recreation is not only innocent — it is indispensable. 
Martin Luther relieves his stern studies and polemics with the Pope 
by cheerful songs at the fireside and by decorating Christmas-trees for 
the children. Old Lyman Beecher lets off the steam, after an even- 
ing’s work at revival preaching, by capering to the music of his own 
violin, until his prudent spouse protests against his saltatory exercises 
lest he wear out his stockings; Gladstone, the king of living states- 
men, recreates with his axe ; Spurgeon, the king of living preachers, 
with his game of bowls ; the saintly McCheyne, with his gymnastic 
poles and bars. All these men were men — not angels. God has 
ordained that man should play as well as work ; the friction of toil 
and care requires this lubrication. Childhood is a type of wholesome 
])iety, both from its fund of faith and its fund of innocent playfulness. 
It is a true saying, that “no creature lives which must not work and 
may not play. ’ ’ 

What is recreation ? We reply, everything that re-creates what is 
lost by friction or fatigue — everything that reanimates our exhausted 
powers. Whatever makes the body healthier, the mind clearer and 
happier, and the immortal powers more vigorous, is Christian recrea- 
tion. To deny ourselves such wholesome recreations may be hazard- 
ous folly, but to restrain others from it is an infringement on Christian 
liberty. The rights of Christian conscience are sacred here as else- 
where; but conscience requires solid principles of truth for its guid- 
ance. 

We lay down, then, this principle, that whatever play or pleasure 
tends to improve the body, mind, or spirit, is right ; whatever endan- 
gers the moral health and inflames the evil passions, is wrong. The 
one strengthens ; the other only stimulates and often poisons. The 
one refreshes; the other ruins. 

To drink pure water or milk satisfies lawful appetite and promotes 
health. To drink an alcoholic beverage inflames a morbid appetite, 
and promotes disease. In the one case the drinker seeks a re-creation 
for the bodily man ; in the other case the drinker seeks fiery stimula- 
tion, and the brain is poisoned, and the “ whole course of nature is 
set on fire of hell.” The Creator wrote the demand for water on 
every human frame; he also wrote there a prohibitory law against 
every beverage which inflames the passions and poisons the immortal 
spirit. The water saves ; the alcoholic fire destroys. 

Now to the tribunal of this simple test, we bring every amusement, 
whether of a personal or social character : Does the amusement recre- 
ate the body and mind, or does it minister to the evil passions? If 


586 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

it recruits my physical and moral nature, it is right ; but if it stimu- 
lates any fleshly lust, if it weakens conscience, if it unfits me for the 
pure and holy service of my God, and defaces my spiritual nature, 
then is it a forbidden amusement. I cannot take my Lord and Master 
with me into it, or ask his blessing upon it. Wherever a Christian 
cannot take Christ with him, he has no right to go. ^ 

Every popular amusement which invites God’s people, must submit 
to the tests which a Bible-conscience imposes. For example, the 
theatre constantly bids for the suffrages and support of Christian peo- 
ple— and of late there has been an increasing tendency among cliurch- 
members to be drawn within its glittering and, too often, its godless 
walls The advocates of the modern stage are careful to choose their 
own ground— they defend an ideal theatre ; but we recognize an ideal 
sta^e no more than we do an ideal church or an ideal dnnking-saloon. 
A Theatre whose plays should contain no line in violation of Christian 
morality, whose performers should be men and women of unchallenged 
virtue, whose audiences should be composed of the purest people, a 
theatre which should ostracise every immodest costume, look, or ges- 
ture from its boards, and bar its doors against every licentious tempta- 
tion, would certainly be entitled to respectful treatment from the 
Christian church ; but every man of common sense knows that the 
average American theatre is no more like this ideal play-house, than 
the average politician is like Abraham Lincoln, or the average Pope is 
like St. Peter. And if our average theatre should attempt to conform 
itself to such a puritanic ideal, it would be deserted by the vast major- 
ity of play-goers in twenty-four hours. As the Church came in, the 
thirsters for sensual stimulations would go out. As the chaste matron 
entered, the “strange woman” would withdraw. An ideal puritanic 
stage would go into bankruptcy as speedily as the dram-shop which 
shoTild furnish nothing but pure, cold water. And for the very suffi- 
cient reason that the great mass of theatre-supporters visit the play- 
house for strong passional excitements, they go there for the very pur- 
poses which make it dangerous to a conscientious servant of Jesus 
Christ. They go there to stimulate and gratify what is thoroughly 
“'carnal” in their natures, and not to elevate_ the spiritual nature or 
fit them better for life’s grandest end — to glorify God. 

Let it be understood distinctly that we do not affirm that every 
popular play is immoral, or that every actor and actress is impure, and 
every attendant upon a play-house is “ on the scent ” for sensualities. 
But we do affirm most unreservedly, that the wffiole trend of the popu- 
lar stage is hostile to holiness, and the Christian who discards holiness 
discards Christ. We affirm that it ignores God, and too often 
tramples on his commandments. We affirm that if the theatre be a 
school of morals, it must be judged by its pupils and graduates ; and 
we know that an institution which unsexes womanhood by sometimes 
putting her in male attire, and often “putting her to oT)en shame,” is 
an anti-Christian abomination ! The accomplished Mrs. Kemble, in 
her maturer years, condemned the stage. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


5S7 

One of the most eminent living actresses declares that she only 
enters the theatre to enact her part, and keeps no company with her 
profession. A converted actor said to me, while passing a theatre 
in which he had often performed, ‘‘behind those curtains lies — 
Sodom ! ” 

The American theatre, be it observed, is a great concrete institu- 
tion, to be judged as a totality ; and it is responsible for what it toler- 
ates and shelters. We therefore hold it responsible for whatever of 
impurity, whatever of sensual temptation, whatever of irreligion, as 
well as whatever of occasional and “sporadic" benefit there may be 
bound up in its organic life. Instead of helping Christ’s kingdom, 
it hinders ; instead of saving souls, it corrupts, and, in unnumbered 
cases, destroys ! We pastors know too well that when our church- 
members are enticed within its walls, they do not find there re-crea- 
tion of body and soul for a more vigorous service of their Lord. 
Their spiritual garment is not always brought away “ unspotted by the 
flesh." They have given their public and pecuniary support to an in- 
stitution whose doors open downward, and not upward towards a 
Christian Home in the heavens. Can a servant of Christ take coals 
of fire in his bosom without being burned? The average theatre is 
gilded nastiness. Can we handle pitch, and not be defiled? And 
what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness — what con- 
cord hath Christ with Belial? Wherefore come out from among 
them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean 
thing. I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall 
be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. 

We have briefly reviewed the claims of the average American stage 
to the countenance and support of conscientious Christians. Let us 
also apply the principles already laid down to another popular amuse- 
ment — the promiscuous dance. This form of social diversion — or 
rather of social dissipation — is increasingly persistent in its demands 
for the sanction of Christ’s Church. Its advocates have an innocent 
ideal of domestic dancing which they always push to the front, and 
against which people of common sense would no more wage warfare 
than against a game of croquet or the juvenile romp of “ blind man’s 
buff." We shall not waste any ammunition upon this form of domestic 
diversion in the sacred privacy of the home. We are dealing now 
with the attitude of Christians toward popular amusements ; and we 
not only admit, but maintain, the inherent rights of Christian parents 
to the regulation of their own domestic occupations and recreations. 
We also affirm, that if the only dancing that is known were simply the 
chaste and decent movements of a household or its intimate guests in 
a private parlor, under the parental eye, then the whole subject of 
dancing would never have entered into the domain of ethical con- 
troversy. It might have offended no Christian conscience, and called 
forth no “ deliverances " from any Christian Church. With no inno- 
cent domestic pastime is it the province of pulpit or Church to inter- 
meddle. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


5S8 

But there is a popular amusement which involves the promiscuous 
contacts and caressings of the sexes in the public assembly and in the 
ball-room, and which is fraught with terrible peril to personal purity 
and to Christian character. It is in no sense a wholesome recreation 
to body, or mind, or immortal soul. This popular and promiscuous 
dance has in it all the elements of intense and absorbing excitement, 
with the inevitable stimulation of the most inflammable passions. It 
permits undue familiarities between the sexes. It often tolerates un- 
chaste movements and contacts to which the daughters of Christ’s 
household, the ‘‘handmaidens of the Lord,” should never be exposed. 
It kindles salacious thoughts ; it is associated with extravagance in 
dress, extravagance of late hours, with temptations to pride, selt-dis- 
play, envy, jealousy, and “ fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” 
Instead of being a recreation, it is a “ revelling,” which God’s word 
forbids. That divine guide teaches the young women to be sober ; 
but how shall sobriety be cultivated amid the passion-kindling whirl 
of the ball-room? And what a tormenting discordance is there be- 
tween the divine description of woman’s true “ adorning, not with 
gay apparel, but with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit,” and 
the flashing flaunt of the assembly-room ! Is the dancing-hall a 
department in the school of Christ ? Shall our Christian daughters 
cease to emulate the examples of Ruth and Dorcas and Lydia, and 
learn to enact the part of the daughter of Herodias? Surely the 
household of faith is not so bankrupt of pure and innocent recreations 
that it needs to steal from Satan a sensual pleasure which even heathen 
Rome in the best days of the Republic would not permit. 

The popish archbishop of Quebec has prohibited his flock from en- 
gaging in “ round dances” — a form of the dance which is said to be 
especially “possessed with a devil.” Shall popish morality exceed 
Presbyterian? If promiscuous dancing shall, like the theatre, be re- 
garded as a totality, then let us make a clean sweep of the whole 
business. 

We have now subjected two of the most popular amusements to the 
test between Christian recreation and unchristian stimulations. The 
principles applied to them should be applied to every form of amuse- 
ment. Every recreation which makes the body stronger and the mind 
more alert for duty is positively beneficial. Against such there is no 
law. A healthy conscience, enlightened from above, will judge 
rightly on these points. It may also be affirmed that no follower of 
Christ should ever engage in any social entertainment or public 
amusement from which he could not return with a clean conscience 
to his Bible and his closet. No follower of Christ should ever fre- 
quent any place which the Master would eschew if he were personally 
on earth ; nor should a Christian be ever found in places of amuse- 
ment so questionable in character that irreligious people would be 
startled to find him there. The Master’s command is to “abstain 
from all form of evil.” 

The word of God draws a sharp, clean dividing-line between the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


589 

pursuits and pleasures of the world and the pursuits and pleasures of 
Christ’s flock. Where our Lord is honored is the right side ; wliere 
he is dishonored, or even ignored, is the wrong side. Over that 
dividing-line lies the tempting path to self-indulgence y which is to-day 
the besetting sin and peril of the Church. Over that line lie sen- 
sual allurements, extravagance, frivolity, and slavery to the world. 
Over that line Christian character is sacrificed, for no man can “walk 
in the Spirit ” and at the same time fulfil the lusts of the flesh.” 
Over that line Christ is wounded in the house of his friends. Over 
that line into perilous amusements the follower of Jesus has no moral 
right to go. If he goes to participate, he offends his Master ; it he 
goes to protest, he offends and disgusts the votaries of sinful pleasure. 

It is not by going over to the world that we can save its votaries. 
If the Church is to impress the world, it must live above it in an at- 
mosphere of Christ’s making. If the Church would save dying sin- 
ners, it must, like its Lord, be “separate from sinners.” When Lot 
voluntarily pitched his tent in the cities of the plain, he made no con- 
verts, and was burned out like the rest of his neighbors. And if the 
follower of Christ essays to enter the doorway to sensual amusements, 
he must meet the sentinel of conscience, armed with the bayonet of 
this injunction : “ Be ye not conformed to the world ; for whosoever 
would be the servant of this world is the enemy of the Lord Jesus 
Christ.” 

This whole subject of Popular Amusements is one of prodigious prac- 
tical import. The spiritual health and life of myriads of our youth 
depends largely upon the character of the recreations which they seek 
and the social pleasures in which they indulge. They must have, and 
will have, recreations. It is the boundenduty of conscientious parents 
not simply to denounce sinful amusements, but to provide innocent, 
healthful recreations for their families. Tiie employer who wishes to 
keep his clerk or employe from the haunt of temptation must provide 
some substitute for Satan’s advertisements. No wiser service can be 
rendered by Christian philanthropy than the organization and opening 
to the masses of wholesome resorts for recreation, which shall be tlie 
antidotes of the beer-garden, the play-house, the gaming-room, and 
the drinking-saloon. 

To every true Christian the law of Christ is the law of his pleasures. 
Whether he eats or drinks, whether he toils or plays he must do all tc 
the glory of God. Walking in the Spirit, he does not stoop to fulfil 
the lusts of the flesh. Free to choose his pleasures, lie is too free to 
want the sinful ones. As when we listen to a well-trained orchestra, 
the music of the horn mingles with the rich swell of the bugle and 
the finer notes of the delicate viols, so a true Christian life should be 
a full heaven-tuned harmony, in which pleasure shall blend with toil, 
in which work shall soften into play, and recreation shall rise into 
that strain of holy or heroic activities which impart to life both its 
sweetness and its sinew. Existence on earth is too short to be wasted 
in play ; but it must not be made shorter by the wear of unremitting toil. 


590 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Let me give you in one line the conclusion of the whole matter : 
“ Whatsoever ye do, do all for the glory of God.” This rule permits 
liberty and .prohibits license. This rule padlocks the door to every 
sinful amusement, but it swings open a gateway through which life 
may become a procession of holy enjoyments until it swells into the 
raptures of heaven. Blessed Saviour, let thy service be our unending 
recreation, thy presence our everlasting delight ! 

Dr. Witherspoon asked and obtained leave to make a per- 
sonal explanation to the effect that it was not his purpose to 
represent the criticisms of Canon Farrar, to which he referred in 
his paper on Tuesday, as those of Professor Gildersleeve, and 
thus make that gentleman, without his knowledge or consent, a 
party to a theological controversy ; but only to refer to him as 
authority for a single grammatical construction, that of pro with 
the genitive ; *and the legitimacy of its application to the passages 
of Scripture in dispute. 

The Council adjourned, after devotional exercises, until to- 
morrow morning at 9.30 o’clock, in Horticultural Hall. 

A large overflow meeting was held this evening in Horticul- 
tural Hall, at which the foregoing papers were repeated. There 
were also other addresses. Both the Academy and the Hall 
were crowded. 


SEVENTH DAY’S SESSION. 

Thursday, Sepiember ^oth, 1880. 

The Council was called to order at 9.30 o’clock, by the Rev. 
Robert Watts, D. D., of Belfast, President. 

Alter the usual devotional ^exercises, the minutes of yesterday 
were read and approved. 

Dr. Schaff reported that, in connection with the Alliance, a 
public meeting bad been held in the Young Men’s Christian 
Association, on the evening of September 28th, and that the fol- 
lowing persons had taken part, delivering addresses in the German 
language : Dr. Schaff, Chairman ; Rev. Mr. Richelson, of Phila- 
delphia ; Rev. Dr. Porter, of New York; Rev. Dr. Seibert, of 
Bloomfield ; Rev. Dr. Pfleiderer, of Karmthal ; Rev. Inspector 
Erdmann, of Elberfield ; Rev. Fritz Fliedner, of Spain ; and that 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


59i 


extracts had been read from the papers of Dr. Krafft, of Bonn, 
on the “ Culturkampf of the German -Empire and the Papacy,” 
and of Rev. H. Krummacher, of Stettin, on “ the Presbyterian 
element in the General Synod of Prussia.” (An account of this 
meeting, and a translation of papers, will be found in the Appen- 
dix, p. 934.) 

It was also reported that a crowded overflow meeting liad 
been held last night in the Horticultural Hall, in which the fol- 
lowing members took part : Rev. R. F. Burns, D. D., of Halifax, 
Nova Scotia, Chairman ; Rev. Dr. Wilson, of Allegheny City, 
Pa.; Rev. Dr. Jenkins, of Montreal ; Rev. Dr. Watts, of Belfast ; 
and Rev. Jonathan Simpson, of Port Rush, Ireland. 

THE CATHOLIC PRESBYTERIAN. 

Dr. PrIxME. — The Business Committee report for the adoption 
of the Council the following resolution, which was submitted 
by Dr. Brown last evening, in regard to The Catholic Presby- 
terian. 

The Alliance of the Reformed Churches has no connection with 
any existing journal as a medium for communication with the Chris- 
tian world; but inasmuch as the publication of a monthly periodical 
entitled “ The Catholic Presbyterian' ' was undertaken after repeated 
conferences during the Council of Edinburgh, and chiefly with a 
view of promoting the ends for which the said Alliance has been 
organized, and, moreover, is under the editorial management of 
eminent brethren enjoying the confidence of the whole Church ; there- 
fore, 

Resolved, That the Council, regarding an undertaking of this kind 
with much favor as a highly important means of securing efleclually 
the great purposes intrusted to it, does hereby most cordially recom- 
mend The Catholic Presbyterian to the support of all branches of the 
Presbyterian faith concerned in promoting its circulation. 

I presume that the resolution will require no discussion ; but 
will commend itself to the cordial approbation of the Council. 

The Rev. S. J. Wilson, D. D., of Allegheny.— I trust that 
this report of the committee will not be passed merely as a for- 
mality, but that all the brethren will bear in mind the substance 
of it. The Catholic Presbyterian, I am very sure, has commended 


592 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 

itself to the confidence of every one who has read it from its 
inauguration. There is no other periodical to take its place. 
There is no other publication that covers the ground that it 
does j and besides this it is a bond of the Alliance that is repre- 
sented by this Council. I am surprised that, in the United 
States, among all the Presbyterian churches represented in this 
Council, there should be only about six hundred subscribers to 
the periodical. There ought to be ten thousand copies taken by 
these churches. In The Catholic Presbyterian you will obtain a 
summary of the foreign news and of the state of religion in the 
different countries, as well as the status of the different churches 
in the countries represented in this Alliance ; information in 
each issue which is worth more than the whole cost of the sub- 
scription. 

The resolution was then adopted. 

SOUTH AFRICAN MISSIONS. 

Dr. Prime, from the Business Committee, laid before the 
Council the following paper: 

The minutes of the South African Mission Committee, placed in 
the hands of the Business Committee of the Council by James Steven- 
son, Esq., of Glasgow, afford .satisfactory evidence of brotherly co- 
operation by the missionaries’ of the Dutch Reformed Church, the 
Free Church of Scotland, the Swiss and French missionaries, and 
those of the Rhenish Missionary Society. Certain difficulties are 
spoken of as affecting the relations of the said missionaries with those 
of the Berlin Society, but the hope is expressed that these difficulties 
may soon disappear, and there is reason to believe that the unity of 
action which the First General Presbyterian Council expressed its 
desire to see exhibited in South Africa, is being gradually atmined. 
It is recommended that the Council express its satisfaction with the 
statement submitted in regard to brotherly co-operation in mission 
work in South Africa, and that it convey to the South African Mis- 
sion Committee a renewal of its earnest and affectionate desire that 
tlie brethren in that important and interesting field of missionary 
effort may more and more abound in the things which make for peace 
and good-will, and that they may continue their efforts to secure the 
utmost possible harmony and unity of action. 

On motion, the Council adopted the suggestions contained in 
the paper; and directed a copy to be sent to James Stevenson, 
Esq., of Glasgow, for publication in South Africa. 


59,3 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

The Business Committee, through Dr. Prime, also recom- 
mended, and the recommendations were agreed to, that the 
Committee on Creeds be now enlarged by the addition of two 
Ruling Elders, A. T. Niven, Esq., and Henry Day, Esq., of New 
York; that the discussion of this morning, after the reading of 
the papers, and the hearing of the appointed addresses, be con- 
fined to the subject of foreign missions, without, however, pre- 
cluding future discussion in regard to papers that have been 
previously read ; that owing to the great pressure upon the 
afternoon session to-day, the readers of the last three papers 
upon the Programme be confined to twenty minutes each. 

George Junkin, Esq., offered the following resolution, which 
was referred to the Business Committee : 

Resolve!, That in the opinion of this Council the Committee of 
Arrangements, for the third General Council, should take care that 
ample time be secured for the consideration of the various papers that 
may be presented, and for allowing the delegates some opportunity 
for social intercourse with each other and with the friends by whom 
they may be entertained. 

REFORMED PRESBYTERY OF PHILADELPHIA. 

The Rev. Principal McVicar.— I desire to present to the 
Council the following document which was addressed to the 
clerks of this Council, Dr. Blaikie and Dr. Mathews : 

Philadelphia, September 1880. 

To the Rev. William G. Blaikie, D. D., LL. D., and Rev. G. D. 
Mathews, D. D., Clerks of the Presbyterian Alliance of the Re- 
formed Churches now meeting in the city of Philadelphia. 

At a meeting of the Reformed Presbytery of Philadelphia, held this- 
day, in the Reformed Presbyterian church. Broad street below Spruce, 
it was resolved. 

First. That this Presbytery do hereby make application to become 
a member of the Alliance of the Reformed Churches throughout the 
world now sitting in Council in the city of Philadelphia. 

Second. That we hereby declare and assure the said Alliance that 
we are a church organized on Presbyterian principles, which holds the 
supreme authority of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament in 
matters of faith and morals, and whose creed is in harmony with the 
consensus of the Reformed Confessions. 

Third. That in case this Presbytery is admitted as a member of the 
38 


594 the PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

said Alliance on this application, we do hereby commission '[heodorns 
W T Wylie, D. D., and George H. Stuart, Lsq., as delegates ■ 
represent us in the Council of said Alliance, now sitting in the city 
of Philadelphia. 

A true copy. 

(Signed) William Sterrett, Moderator. 


Principal McVicar.— I now offer the following resolution, 
which the Committee on Credentials agreed to report to the 
Council, and move its adoption : 


Whereas, The Reformed Presbytery of Philadelphia has, by formal 
minute, signified in the fullest manner its adoption of the Constitution 
of this Alliance, and its desire to be received in connection therewith, 
and has duly appointed delegates to this Council, 

Resolved, That the said Reformed Presbytery of Philadelphia be 
received into this Alliance, and their delegates be admitted as mem- 
bers of this Council. 


The resolution was adopted. 

The Committee on Farewell Meeting reported, recommending 
as follows : 

That a closing meeting of the Council be held on Saturday 
after the close of the forenoon exercises, and that the Rev. Chas. 
A. Dickey, D. D., be appointed to deliver a parting address. 

The Committee further inform the Council that they are 
arranging for a number of meetings to be held on Sabbath 
evening, in different parts of the city, and in which they expect 
a large number of the delegates to take part. 

General D. W. Houston, of Kansas.— I desire to offer the 
.following resolution ; 

:Resolved, That a committee be appointed to dra^y up rules of order 
and procedure for the proper conducting of the business ot the Coun- 
cil, and to report to the next meeting of the Council. 

I need not say that this is not only a Pan-Presbyterian Coun- 
cil. but it is a great international assembly, representing coun- 
tries with very diverse parliamentary usages ; and, that all things 
may be done decently and in order, according to the scriptural 
injunction, it seems imperatively necessary that we should have 
some rules for the government of our proceedings. 


595 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

The resolution was referred to the Business Committee. 

Rev. James O. Brownson, D. D. — I propose to offer a resolu- 
tion, not for the purpose of opening now the discussion which 
pertains to the subject-matter it contains, but from the impor- 
tance which is attached to the committee whose appointment it 
will authorize. I listened with pleasure, last night, to the 
admirable papers in reference to Sabbath observance, but it 
strikes me that the world at this crisis should hear some con- 
centrated utterance from this great Council upon the subject. 
The resolution to which I refer is as follows : 

Resolved, That a committee be appointed to prepare some action 
on the observance of the Sabbath, to go forth to the world as the 
united voice of this Council upon this most important subject. 

I have nothing to say, except it may be a brief sentence or 
two, in referring to the importance of some united action of this 
kind. The admirable papers on this subject, which have been 
read before the Council, will be published; and no doubt will 
be read outside of this Council. They will be embodied, as I 
understand, in the volume containing the proceedings ; and they 
will be convenient for the reference of those who wish to study 
the subject more fully. But at this crisis in the history of the 
Church and the world, there is such a tendency to Sabbath 
desecration on a large scale, that I have thought it proper to 
prepare this resolution, and now offer it for the consideration of 
the Council. 

The resolution was referred to the Business Committee. 

The Clerk. — I beg to move a suspension of the standing 
order, to listen to a few parting words from our brother, the 
Rev. Nicholas J. Hofmeyr, of the Theological Seminary, Cape 
Colony, South Africa, who is about to leave to return to his 
home in that far off country. , 

The motion was agreed to. 

Prof. Hofmeyr. — Pardon the demand I dare to make upon 
your most precious time. I had hoped to be with you to the 
very end of this Council, but this morning I received intelli- 
gence which compels me to leave you within a few moments. 


596 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

My co-delegate and myself looked forward to the meeting of 
this Council with the expectation of receiving much pleasure 
from our intercourse with you. We expected that fellow- 
ship with you might tend to widen our views and to warm 
our hearts, and as much as the pressure of our official busi- 
ness has admitted of this brotherly intercourse, we have not 
been disappointed in our expectations. Thanks for your cour- 
tesy; thanks for your kindness; thanks for your brotherly 
love. At our hands receive the greeting of our Church. 
We are the most southern outpost of Presbyterianism, and I 
will take back to our Church without your telling me to do 
.so, because I can see it in your faces, your greeting in return. 
The Lord bless you most abundantly. There is but one word 
which, in the name of our common Master and Head of the 
Church, in all humility and with some inward fear and trembling, 

I desire to lay down in your bosom. Fathers and brethren, let 
us strive for one attainment above all other attainments, one 
blessing above all other blessings— that we ministers and elders 
of the Church may be men full of faith and of the Holy Ghost. 
Our beautifully organized Council, without this blessing, will 
be but a machine with mechanic operations, not vitalized by 
spiritual power. 

Just before starting from England I received a postal card 
from a much respected brother, Theodore Monod, in Paris, and 
this is the message which he desired through me to give to this 
Council : “ I am glad you are going to the Council. Do tell the 
meeting just what you told us at our meeting in Paris. Dwell in 
Christ, and you will live for him. God teaches us this lesson more 
and more. It is worth all that it may cost.” So let it be. Amen. 

The President. — Professor Hofmeyr, if you have not been 
disappointed in your expectation of the Council, the Council has 
not been disappointed in its expectation of you. We rejoice in 
the fact that we have such a representative of the truth, as we 
hold it, in South Africa ; and we pray that the great Head of the 
Church, who has sheltered you and brought you in safety hither, 
may watch over and keep you until you reach your field of 
labor, and honor you as an instrument of extending his kingdom 
in Southern Africa. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


597 


The report of the Cominittee on horcign Missions being 
called for, the Rev, J. Murray Mitchell, LL. D., of Edin- 
burgh, presented the following from the European section: 

REPORT ON FOREIGN MISSIONS. 

At the meeting of the General Presbyterian Council held at 
Edinburgh in July, 1877, the following resolution was unanimously 
agreed to: 

“That the Council, having regard to foreign mission work as an 
essential and urgent duty needing to be much more earnestly prosecuted 
by all Christian Churches, and in which it is of increasing importance 
that there should be the utmost attainable co-operation among the 
Churches of this Alliance, appoint a committee to collect and digest 
full information as to the fields at present occupied by them, their 
plans and modes of operation; with instructions to report the same 
to next General Council, together with any suggestions they may 
judge it wise to submit respecting the possibility of consolidating 
existing agencies or preparing the way for co-operation in the 
future.” 

The committee appointed to carry the resolution into effect submit 
the following report. . 

It has been possible to embody in a tabular form many important 
particulars regarding the missions of the Presbyterian Churches. (See 

p-6ii.) 

Your committee proceed to refer to matters regarding which it is 
difficult to submit information in a tabular form. 

I. Home Arrangements for the Management of Missions. 

Churches that do not adopt the Presbyterian polity conduct their 
missionary operations through societies w'hich are not under direct 
ecclesiastical control. 

In like manner the Presbyterians of France, Holland, Switzerland 
and Hungary* act through societies. 

But the Presbyterian missions of Great Britain, Ireland, the United 
States of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are conducted 
by Churches, the supreme court of each Church acting through a com- 
mittee or board, which it annually appoints, and from which it re- 
quires an annual report of its operations. f 

In Great Britain, Ireland, the United States and Canada the open- 
ings for work among women in heathen lands, particularly in India, 
have led to the establishment of women’s societies among Presbyterian 
and other bodies- In some, the entire directorate consists of females; 


* The Protestants of Hungary send contributions to the Basle society, 
f In Europe the committee is usually appointed out of the members of the supreme 
court. 


598 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

in others not so. Some of these societies are -superintended’’ by 
the General Assembly ; some are said to be “ m connection with it , 
but in all cases— so far as is known— they act in perfect harmony with 
the Church and are most valuable auxiliaries in its work. 


IL Funds: Modes of Raising them. 


The means employed to raise the missionary revenue vary con- 
siderably in different cases. 

The supreme courts of the Established and Free Churches of Scot- 
land have repeatedly recommended that a missionary association be 
formed in every congregation of the Church. In many cases tbis has 
accordingly been done. Not a few congregations in the United Fres- 
byterian Church of Scotland adopt the same plan. Every missionary 
association is understood to have a sufficient staff of collectors. 1 hese 
gather the subscriptions in a few cases every month, but generally 
once a quarter. Theoretically, at least, each missionary association 
holds an annual meeting in order to give a fresh impulse to the mis- 
sionary zeal of the congregation. When a missionary association does 
not exist in the congregation the money is raised by a church col- 
lection, which is generally annual. . , , i 

As a rule the missionary revenue, when raised by congregational 
associations, is much larger than that obtained from church col- 

^^^Donations and legacies are an important, although very variable, 


source of income. j r 

Missionary boxes are common in Sabbath-schools : and not untre- 

quent in families. 4. • * 

In some churches there is an annual juvenile offering; that is to 
say, some important missionary object is brought before the young 
people of the church, for which they are asked to contribute. 

On the whole, it must be sorrowfully confessed that the rate of con- 
tribution to missions in Presbyterian churches is very low. Not only 
multitudes of worshippers, but probably a large majority even of the 
regular members of congregations, give absolutely nothing for the ex- 
tension of the kingdom of Christ among the heathen nations. Surely 
these things ought not so to be. The rate of contribution for missions 
to the heathen, in British Presbyterian Churches, is under a shilling 

a year, per communicant. , . tt n j 

In continental Churches, those of France, Switzerland, Holland, 

etc., it is still less.* 


III. Means Adopted to Awaken Missionary Zeal. 

The great societies on the continent find annual mission-festivals, 


* The Walclensian and Free Christian Churches in Italy do not take, even through 
societies, any direct share in foreign mission work. Their entire energies are devoted 
to the extension of the gospel in Italy. 


• SECOND- GENERAL COUNCIL. 


599 

which generally continue for several days, to be of great value, both 
in communicating information and stimulating zeal. 

The leading missionary societies in England trust largely to their 
anniversaries as giving a fresh impulse to the cause. 

Presbyterian Churches which do not act through societies have the 
subject brought before them as a part of the business that comes before 
the supreme court. 'Fhere may, however, be a danger lest the great 
cause of missions be crowded, by other business that may seem more 
l)ressing, out of that very prominent place which rightfully pertains 
to it.* 

Returned -missionaries, as far as health permits, preach or give 
addresses on missions. 

Some ministers frequently refer to the subject of missions in their 
discour ies. 

In not a few cases missionary intelligence is given from the pulpit. 
1’his seems to be done in America more regularly than in Europe. 

More frequently, however, the intelligence is communicated once a 
month, at the congregational prayer-meeting. 

Missionary intelligence is often given, and with great advantage, in 
Sabbath-schools. 

It is also given, with equal advantage, in the course of family in- 
struction. 

Periodicals giving information regarding missions are admitted to 
be of very great importance. As a rule, every Church has its recog- 
nized monthly organ; in which the subject of missions comes in 
along with other ecclesiastical matters. The Presbyterian Churches 
of the United States have magazines which are occupied with the sub- 
ject of foreign missions exclusively, like the organs of the great mis- 
sionary societies. 

Children’s missionary magazines, which are perhaps in all cases 
ornamented with illustrations, are very largely circulated in all the 
churches. 

Women’s missionary societies have also, in many cases, their own 
recognized organs. 

Important papers on missions appear not unfrequently in “ Catholic 
Presbyterian” and other periodicals. 

There is no doubt that much valuable matter on the subject of mis- 
sions is printed which is not so extensively read as it deserves to be. 
Some ministers adopt a means of diffusing information on missions 
which they regard as at once simple and effective. They take 
occasion, once a month, to draw the attention of their flocks to the 
more striking facts mentioned in the Church’s missionary organ, and 
so secure a more extensive and careful perusal of its contents. 

* To secure that the subject shall not he too hurriedly treated, the English Presby- 
terian Church, in addition to what is done in the Supreme Court, holds an anniversary 
meeting in Exeter Hall, like the non-Presbyterian missionary societies. The United 
Presbyterian Church of Scotland holds, during the sitting of its supreme court, a 
“Synodical missionary meeting,” devoting the entire evening to the subject of 
‘fissions. 


6oo 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


IV. Supply and Training of Missionaries. 

European missionary societies generally have training colleges con- 
nected with them, which are intended to prepare men for foreign 
work. They supply such a general and theological education as seems 
to the society requisite for laborers in the particular field which is in 

view. -Til 

On the other hand the Presbyterian Churches of Britain, Ireland, 

llie United States, and Canada, expect that their regular theological 
colleges will furnish a sufficient number of men for the foreign as well 
as the home field ; so that the Church, without any additional outlay, 
shall have a supply of missionaries who have had the same academical 
and theological training as the home ministers. The expectation, hap- 
]jily, has not been disappointed ; and there has more frequently been 
a lack of means to send, than of men qualified and willing to go. 

But there is a strong conviction on the part of many friends of 
mis ions, that the ordinary theological course requires to be supple- 
mented, even in those cases in which evangelistic theology is a regular 
])art of the curriculum. They hold that a course of special instruc- 
tion is desirable for missionaries — especially for those designated to 
the more civilized heathen lands— comprising instruction in the his- 
tory, language, religion, literature, and philosophy of the people to 
be evangelized. 

Ladies might, in many cases, avail themselves of the instruction 
given in a rnissionary institute of this kind. 

Again., there are many men possessed of evangelistic zeal and fitted 
to do excellent service in the foreign field, who have had no opportu- 
nity of obtaining a theological, or even an academical education, 
d'he curriculum ])rescribe(l by Presbyterian Churches is so long that 
many of these men are compelled either to abandon the hope ot serv- 
ing Christ in the foreign field, or to seek employment in connection 
with other bodies, and so are lost to the Presbyterian Church. Either 
result is much to be deplored. Three modes of dealing with such 
cases have been suggested. First, the more talented men might be 
assisted to enter college and go through the regular course of study. 
Secondly, others, after receiving instruction in a missionary institute, 
might be sent forth as unordained evangelists, or else as missionary 
artisans. Thirdly, in very exceptional cases men might be ordained 
to labor in the foreign field without having passed through the full 
curriculum. 

V. Modes of Missionary Operation. 

Presbyterian Missions have been planted in many countries, and 
among races exceedingly diversified in point of civilization, character, 
and creed. They are found in Japan, China, Siam, India, Persia, the 
Turkish Empire, the continent of Europe, Africa, South America, and 
Polynesia. They contend with almost every existing form of Pagan- 
ism ; with Mohammedanism, and also with corrupt Christianity; while 
special missions have been established for the conversion of the Jews. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


6c I 

However much they may in many respects differ from each other, 
the nations all labor under one mortal disease ; for which the gospel is 
the cTivinely appointed remedy. The remedy is one ; but the modes of 
its application are many \ and the missions seek to be made ail things 
to all men, that they may by all means save some. 

The chief modes of evangelization may be thus enumerated : 

1. Preaching ; or the oral proclamation of the gospel message. 

2. Circulation of the Holy<|Scriptures, and of Christian books and 
tracts. 

3. Education. 

4. Medical Missions. 

5. Industrial Missions. 

A lengthened paper might be written on each of these heads, but 
your committee content themselves with a very few remarks. 

Preaching is had recourse to in all missions. The gospel is pro- 
claimed, in the languages of the people*,in churches, and in preach- 
ing rooms specially intended for the heathen ; also in the open air 
wherever audiences can best be collected, whether in the streets of 
towns, or at great relig^ious gatherings {yatras, metas, etc.) at sacred 
places. Preaching tours, to make known the gospel in “the regions 
beyond,” or to press again the message on those who have heard it 
before, are frequently undertaken. 

Circulation ^of the Scriptures and tracts is had recourse to, probably 
by all missions. Colporteurs are employed in considerable numbers. 
The distribution of books was at one time gratuitous and sometimes 
rather indiscriminate ; but of late years books have been generally 
sold. The translating of the Scriptures, and the revision of transla- 
tions already made, form an important part of missionary labor. ,So 
does the composition of religious tracts and books. 

Education is everywhere necessary for the children of Christians; 
and is also very useful as a means of bringing heathen children in 
contact with the truth. Day-schools, boarding-schools, Sunday- 
schools ; all these are common. The famines that have occurred in 
many places have led to the setting up of orphanages. Schools are 
not everywhere of equal value. In India they assume a place of spe- 
cial importance, as there is a general desire for education, and in the 
large cities a tliirst even for high education in English. It is felt to 
be of supreme importance that the higher education should be made, 
as far as po.ssible, truly Christian in its character. Hence some mis- 
sions in India have devoted much attention to higher schools and 
colleges. (See statistical table.) 

Medical Missions exist in connection with most Presbyterian 
Churches, (although the great missionary societies on the continent 
hardly employ this kind of agency ). Among Mohammedans medical 
missions receive more toleration than any other form of evangelistic 
agency. 


* In India, where English is much studied, missionaries find that they have oppor- 
tunities of addressing large numbers through that language. 


6o2 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Industrial Missions have been useful, especially in Africa. The in- 
stitution at Lovedale may perhaps be singled out as pre-eminent. All 
the missions are agreed as to the exceeding desirableness of providing, 
as soon as the Lord enables them, a native agency for the dissemina- 
tion of the gospel. It seems universally admitted that some of the 
native agents require to be thoroughly educated men — especially in 
such countries as India, China, and Japan. 

Female agency is more and mor^ largely used. European and 
American ladies find many doors of usefulness now open among theil 
heathen sisters. To these a knowledge of medicine is found highly 
useful. Native Christian women are employed as teachers of female 
schools, and as Bible women, whose duty is to read and explain the 
Scriptures in native families. 

All the missions strive for the raising up of native churches which 
shall become self-supporting, self-multiplying, and self-governing. 
Any arrangements which may seem inconsistent with these aims are 
generally admitted to be only provisional and temporary. 


VI. Relation of Missions to the Home Churches. 

On this important subject there is a great diversity of opinion 
among Presbyterian Churches. 

The formation of Presbyteries in the foreign field is not universally 
approved.* It is so, however, in most cases: but the constitution of 
the Presbyteries varies very greatly in different missions. 

Generally the Mission Presbytery — consisting of native as well as 
European or American members — is an integral part of the home 
Church, and is ruled by the supreme court of the Church in ques- 
tions both of doctrine and discipline. Bengal or South Africa thus 
stands in the same relation as any home district does, to the General 
Assembly. 

But the difficulties connected with this arrangement have been felt to 
be very serious. It is not always easy for the foreign Presbyteries to 
send representatives to the Assembly. But apart from this, the exer- 
cise of jurisdiction is clogged with sore impediments. Suppose, for 
instance, that an appeal from the decision of a Presbytery in Africa 
comes to Edinburgh, New York, or Philadelphia, is the case to be de- 
cided without the parties appearing at the bar of the Assembly? or if 
the parties do appear, is it not perplexing to find one or more of them 
as ignorant of English as the Assembly itself is of Kaffir or Sichuana? 
In view of such perplexities, some earnestly contend that, while the 
home Church shall continue to be resorted to as a Court of Appeal 
in cases of doctrine, yet all questions of discipline must be decided by 
church courts in the foreign field. 

Others deem it necessary that the mission churches sha'A enjoy com- 
plete independence as speedily as possible, and maintain that the for- 


*“ Catholic Presbyterian,” June, iSSo, p. 440. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 603 

eign Presbyterians must not be in any way controlled in their action 
by the home Church. 

While this independence is demanded by many as normal and right, 
even when only one Presbyterian Church is working in any particular 
mission-field, it becomes still more desirable when several Presbyterian 
Cihurches have occupied the same district. Probably all will admit 
tliat it would be a grievous mistake to reproduce and perpetuate abroad 
tlie multiplied divisions which, from various causes, exist among Pres- 
byterian Churches at home. Certainly, no true Presbyterian can 
contemplate, without pain, such a result as this — that there should 
continue to be four native churches in India ruled by four churches in 
Scotland, and probably as many more ruled by separate American 
churches; not to speak of an Indian-English Presbyterian Church, an 
Indian-Welsh Presbyterian Church, etc. Or take the case of the New 
Hebrides. At present the small mission in that cluster of islands is 
supported by five Presbyterian Churches; is the native church to con- 
tinue to be governed from five centres, geographically so far apart 
from each other as Scotland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and 
Otago, Southland ? 

The question of the relation of foreign Presbyteries to the home 
Churches is all the more important because there is confessedly a close 
connection between three very important things which have been al- 
ready mentioned, viz. : self-government, self-support, and self-exten- 
sion. It seems vain to expect to see a self-supporting and self-extending 
Church in any country until it is self-governed, and breathes the fresh, 
inspiring air of freedom, being under law only to Christ. 

Yet, at the same time, it is necessary to remember that the young 
churches in heathendom have often to struggle with very great 
perplexities and difficulties. On many ecclesiastical questions in 
matters both of doctrine and discipline, they may still long require 
sympathy and counsel from the mother Churches. Further, they 
must not be prematurely thrown on their own pecuniary resources. 
Regard must always be had to the special circumstances of each case.'*^ 
It is a question well worth consideration whether the introduction of 
a Sustentation Fund among the mission Churches, such, for example, 
as has been so beneficial in the poorer districts of Scotland, is not 
desirable and pra^cticable as a means of aiding feeble congregations in 
heathen lands. 

Another question of the greatest importance bears on the relation 

* Independence of CJmrches . — On this subject the Missionary Conference (con- 
sistinjT ol 120 missionaries, and representing all tlie evangelical missions of Southern 
India), that was held at Bangalore in June, 1879, passed unanimously the following 
resolution. 

“This conference, while convinced of the great importance of promoting by every 
judicious means the self-support and self-government of the native Church, desire 
to place on record their conviction that the. native Church is, in no jiart of it, as yet 
in a position to dispense with European guidance and support; and that any prema- 
ture step in that direction would be highly injurious to its healthy development and 
ultimate stability.” 


6o4 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


in which the foreign (/. e., European or American) missionary stands 
to the native Church. On this point there is very great diversity of 
opinion. 

When the .Mission Presbytery is an integral part of the home 
Church, the European or American missionary naturally is a member 
of such Presbytery, and is bound by a very slight tie, or, in some 
cases, by no tie, to any Presbytery at home. But when the Mission 
Presbytery is separated from the home Church— as has already taken 
place in several instances — is the foreign missionary to be one of its 
regular constituent members? In some cases he is held to be so, and 
to possess the full privileges of membership. In others, he is a cor- 
responding member, with powers that do not seem exactly defined. 
In still other cases, he is received as an assessor, who is expected to 
give his advice as may seem expedient, but without power to vote. 

The relation of the foreign missionary to the native Church will, 
to a large extent, depend on the views taken of his position as an 
evangelist. In not a few quarters, of late years, a strong conviction 
has been expressed that the modern Church has not sufficiently recog- 
nized the function of the ordained evangelist as distinct from, but in 
no respect inferior to, that of the pastor and teacher. Those who 
accept this view contend that it is the office of an evangelist to preach 
^e gospel to the heathen, but not to rule, or minister to, the native 
Church j and they hold that he has nothing to do with the proceed- 
ings of a Church court, at least in so far as these refer to rule and 
ministrations in the settled congregations. 

In view ot the importance of such points as have been now men- 
tioned, and also of tiie great diversity of opinion still existing in regard 
to them, your committee think they have done enough in having thus 
indicated the nature and bearing of the question. Some light may be 
thrown upon the matter by the discussion that follows the reading of 
this report ; but they do not think that any final deliverance regarding 
It should be given at this meeting of the Council. Such questions are 
already receiving, in various quarters, that earnest attention which 
^ey rightfully claim ; and it may be hoped that, by next meeting of 
Council, more light may be shed upon them, and perhaps a consensus 
reached which shall enable the Council to give a formal expression 
of its views respecting such important points in mission policy. 

VII. Mutual Relations of Missions Abroad. 

We take it for granted that the conviction prevails universally in 
Presbyterian Churches that their missionaries ought to stand in the 
most friendly relations to the missionaries of all evangelical Churches 
and societies. Happily, among Protestant missions generally, there 
has always existed very great friendliness ;* and, if in a few cases it be 
absent, your committee rejoice to believe that the failure can very 
seldom be attributed to Presbyterians. 


• the High-Church Anglicans on other missions, especially 

in bouth Africa, form the most striking exception to the rule. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


605 


But more than this is necessary in the relation between one Presbv- 
tenan mission and another in the same field. If not acmaUrand 
ormally m ecclesiastical union, the two missions are yet bound^to be 
virtual I he utmost care should be taken to see that on all 
importan questions bearing on the progress of the gospel the m? 
sions shall move on the same or parallel lines. FreqLnt intercourse 

eanmstly bVroTiJLr"'^ and co-operation should 

This IS a point “whereto we have already attained,” or at all 

k ^?lt’ Th! contendon of Iny 

is that, when the same field is occupied by more than one Presbyterian 

mission, the terminus ad quern on which all eyes should be fixed is 
not merely hearty co-operation, but ineorporaLn-lMist is to say the 

formation, sooner or later, of one nati/e Church, indepL'ident of 
foreign supiiort and control. ucpciiuent 01 

The formation of mission Presbyteries would naturally be followed 
by the creation of Synods, and, in course of time, of a General 
Assembly. We may hope that such General Assemblies, in lands 
now almost entirely heathen, may, ere long, be sending native dele- 
gates to the Genera Presbyterian Council, meeting-why Lt in 
■Asia or Africa as wel as Europe or America? At all evenfs, a very 
close connection ought to exist from the dutset between the mission 

eas7and '‘"'I ’f ° l^odies; the representatives of 

east and west, of north and south, should frequently commingle in 
happy brotherhood, and take mutual counsel regarding the main- 
tenance and extension of the kingdom of Christ throughout the world. 

I his high aim IS surely not only warranted, but enjoined by Presby- 
terian catholicity. ^ ^ ^ 

In addition to this comprehensive federation, frequent intercourse 
could be maintained between church courts in the same mission 
field, or even in different fields. 

Your committee cannot pass from these important questions with- 

Tn the'^m Conference to various movements 

m the mission field, which show that missionaries have very strong 
convictions on the matters that have been last mentioned-that is to 

and tolaa'^odTer “ missions should stand to the home Church 

.Tiis.sionaries in China, 



With hardip dissentient voice, the conference gave an affirmative 
answer to the question. Missionaries of high standing and length- 
ened expenence spoke in strong terms on the inexpediency of allow- 
mg Remission churches to remain connected with foreign bodies. 
Dr. Carstairs Douglas spoke thus: “ What keeps the native churches 
m China apart? Nothing but their connection with the churches at 
home. He further referred to the connection with home .as “ most 


6o6 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


dangerous,” and stated that, in the Roman Catholic missions, appeals 
to Rome had been disastrous in their effect, inasmuch as they had 
awakened the jealousy of the Chinese Government ; and, accordingly, 
he deprecated subjection to any General Assembly, Archbishop, 
society, or conference, in Europe or America.* Reference was made 
in the discussion to the fact that the Hangchow Presbytery, in connec- 
tion with the Presbyterian Church in the Southern States of America, 
had petitioned the General Assembly to dissolve it and remand the 
missionaries in their ecclesiastical relations to their respective home 
Presbyteries; a request with which the Assembly had complied, 
declaring that they did not wish to establish a Southern Presbyterian 
Church ” in China. 

But the missions have not been satisfied with mere theoretical state- 
ments ; they have begun to carry out the principle contended for into 
practical effect. 

At Amoy the English Presbyterian Mission and the Dutch Reformed 
Mission have coalesced into one Presbytery, with which fully sixteen 
congregations are connected. 

Still more remarkable is a movement toward incorporation in Japan, 
At Yokohama, in October, 1877, a union was formed between three 
missions — those of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, the 
Northern Presbyterian Church of the United States, and the Dutch 
Reformed Church. The “ Union Church of Christ ” in Japan is the 
name chosen for the one body thus constituted. f 

In India also the necessity of union among Presbyterian missions 
has been very deeply felt.| The subject has engaged attention in 
India ever since the year 1863. After much consideration, the 
“Presbyterian Alliance of India” was formed in December, 1875. 
Its objects are as follows: ist. To promote mutual sympathy and the 
sense of unity among the Presbyterian Churches in India. 2d. To 
arrange for co-operation and mutual help. 3d. To promote the sta- 
bility and self-support of the native Churches, and to encourage them 
in direct labor for the evangelization of India. 4th. To prepare the 
way for an organic union among the native Presbyterian Churches of 
India. Farther, the Alliance regards it as very desirable that it 
should receive authority from the home Churches to settle cases of 
discipline connected with native ministers and members of the Church 
in India. 

An interesting form of missionary co-operation in India is seen in 
the “Madras Christian College,” which was established by the Free 
Church of Scotland, but is now supported by that body in concert 
with the Church Missionary Society and the Wesleyan Missionary 
Society ; the Established Church of Scotland also agreeing to take 
part, if the state of its funds shall permit. The co-operation of these 
various bodies can, as yet, be characterized only as a hoijeful experi- 


* “ Records of Missionary Conference at Shanghai, in 1877,” p. 439. 
f See “ Foreign Missionary of the Presbyterian Church,” Jan., 1878, p. 246. 
J See “ Report of First General Presbyterian Council,” p. 367-370. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


607 

ment; but should it prove successful, it will suggest the establishment, 
m other parts of the mission field, of Christian colleges, conducted on 
the broad principles of evangelical Protestantism. These will not be 
theological colleges. 

But the establishment of theological colleges, to be conducted in 
concert by several Presbyterian Missions, is a matter deserving of 
earnest attention; in connection with which there exists no serious 
difficulty, unless that of providing the necessary funds. The “ Union 
rheological Seminary” at Tokio, Japan, with its seventeen pupils, 
already exists as the natural result of the union of the three Presbyte- 
rian ^ Churches, which has been already mentioned ; but even while 
missions remain apart, there is no reason why they should not possess 
a common theological college. 

^ When a Presbyterian theological college is set up, there is no neces- 
sity for its being of so exclusive a character that students from non- 
Presbyterian Missions shall find any difficulty in attending its classes. 
In some cases, it may perhaps be desirable to establish union theo- 
logical colleges, supported by various evangelical bodies in common ; 
the great saving of expense being one reason for such co-operation.* 
1 he endowment of the colleges is, on all accounts, exceedingly 
desirable. 

VIII. Co-operation at Home on Behalf of Missions. 

Much has been said, and often well said, as to the possibility and 
desirableness of joint action among the home churches in carrying on 
their missionary work. By none has co-operation been more earnestly 
advocated than by the missionaries themselves. The late venerated 
Dr. Duff pieaded for a great common mission to be conducted by all 
the churches represented in this Council. Another much respected 
missionary, the Rev. Dr. Newton, of Lahore, looks forward to the 
time when “all the missionary boards and committees of our in- 
dividual churches shall be dissolved, and one central propaganda, at 
Edinburgh, London, or other convenient locality, shall be the mis- 
sionary executive committee of all the Reformed Churches.” 

Whatever practical difficulties may stand in the way of such com- 
prehensive proposals, it is certain that at present and henceforward 
(there may and ought to be earnest and hearty co-operation, and that 
of various kinds, among the Churches. The following is offered as a 
suggestive, but by no means exhaustive list. 

I. There ought to be frequent communication between missionary 
boards, by regular exchange of reports and important minutes, and, 
if possible, by occasional deputations to each other. This would tend 


* Since these words were written, there has appeared an earnest appeal by the 
Rev. Dr. Williamson, of China, for the establishment of a Union College at Peking, 
for the training of native preachers. (See Catholic Presbyterian, Sept., 1880.) Dr. 
Williamson maintains that the waste of evangelistic means at present is •“ immense.” 
He ably advocates united action among evangelical bodies in the support of a 
training college, which, he says, ought to be endowed. 


6o8 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


to secure mutual sympathy and also harmony of action on great ques- 
tions of missionary policy. 

2. As the various churches represented in the Council are not sim- 
})le repetitions of each other, but differ in various circumstantials, it 
seems needful to come to a conclusion on this question. Is each 
(diiirch to aim at a transference to the mission field of its entire sys- 
tem, both in creed and polity? Is it to impose all the details of its 
own form of Presbyterianism on the lands which are being evange- 
lized? It is, at all events, plain that to do so would indefinitely post- 
pone that unity of the native church which is generally admitted to 

lie most desirable. .... 

3. But wholly apart from the danger of prolonging disunion in the 
native church, it is hel^ to be a great and grave (luestion whether the 
Creed which the missions communicate ought to be elaborate and 
complex like the Westminster Confession, or a much briefer and sim- 
pler summary of divine truth. Doubtless, the Indian Church will in 
time determine for itself the question of its Confession. As the West- 
minster Confession in its admirable statements often has its eye on 
Romish corruptions of the truth, so the Creed of the native church 
will naturally have a special reference to heathenism with its gross 
errors of polytheism, idolatry, pantheisni, etc. The churches at home 
have to fix on some formulary which shall be authoritative in the 
meanwhile. 

4. A point closely connected with the one just mentioned refers to 
the questions put at their ordination to native ministers, licentiates, 
and elders. The questions as put by the various missions should be 
the same, or very nearly so. 

5. It is equally necessary that the form of church discipline em- 
ployed by the missions should, in all essential respects, be similar. 

A simple manual of discipline drawn up expressly for mission 
cluirches would be of great value. 

6. There is considerable difference of procedure among the various 
missions in regard to the pastoral superintendence of native congre- 
gations. The subject deserves very earnest consideration and mutual 
conference. Such questions as the following press for an answer: 
Should the foreign missionary ever be the pastor of a native congrega- 
tion? How are we to follow out in our missions the apostolic prac- 
tice of “ordaining elders in every city?” The latter question, im- 
portant in itself, has a close connection with the somewhat difficult 
])oint of the support of pastors. 

7. A common understanding among the missions is also very desir- 
able in regard to various matters lying beyond the sphere of doctrine 
and discipline ; as for example, terms of engagement, salaries, retiring 
allowances, etc. 

8. In the establishment of a new mission in any field which is 
already partially occupied, there ought to be full consultation with 
churches and societies carrying on work in that field, so as by all 


* “ Catholic Presbyterian,” Nov., 1879, p. 382. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 609 

means to avoid collision with other evangelical agencies, the overlap- 
ping of missions, and the waste of evangelistic power. 

IX. Glaiice at Fields Still Unoccupied. 

As this report has nearly reached its due limits, your committee must 
content themselves with the following brief suggestions on this head : 

1. Work in the New Hebrides, and Polynesia generally, should be 
regarded as binding, especially on the churches nearest in geograph- 
ical position to those regions, viz. ; those of Australia, Tasmania, and 
New Zealand. 

2. Work among the American Indians (and the Romanists of South 
Amerma) is binding, especially on the churches of the United States 
and Canada. 

3. Work among the Romanists of the European Continent — as in 
France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc.— is of such vast and increasing 
importance that the churches of the United States and Canada, in 
co-operation with those of Great Britain, are called upon to put forth 
new and systematic efforts for its advancement. 

4. The state of the whole Mohammedan world calls for earnest con- 
sideration. 

a. Arabia, and vast regions of Central Asia and Northern Africa 
are, as yet, all but untouched by missionary effort. 

b. The progress which Mohammedanism is making in Northern 
Africa and the islands of Southeastern Asia, especially those which are 
under the dominion of Holland, is one of the most remarkable facts 
connected with the missions of our day. Communication in regard 
to the Dutch dominions in Southeastern Asia might profitably be 
opened up with the Dutch missionary societies and the Christian Re- 
formed Church of Holland. 

c. Over the whole Turkish empire the state of feeling is such that 
a door of entrance, great and effectual, might any day be thrown 
open for the evangelization of the Moslem. The church should stand 
prepared to enter in. When the expected opening is made, the 
American churches that have labored with so much zeal and success 
among the Christians of the Turkish empire, will doubtless require,, 
and receive, and welcome the hearty sympathy and co-operation of 
other churches. 

Finally, your committee are deeply impressed by the truth of the 
statement in the resolution referred by the Council, that “the essen- 
tial and urgent duty of foreign mission work needs to be much more 
earnestly prosecuted by all Christian churches.” 

Calls to proclaim the gospel of salvation to the heathen nations are 
daily becoming louder and more frequent. The whole pagan world 
may now be said to be a field white unto the harvest. Regions lately 
inaccessible are now thrown open. The ends of the earth seem 
almost to touch each other. Facilities to make known the salvation 
which is in Christ are multiplying day by day. We have entered on 
what ought to be an entirely new era of Christian missions. 

39 


6io 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


And the I.ord has been encouraging his Church to enlarge her 
efforts by the rich blessing which he has graciously caused to rest upon 
them. While some are telling us that Christianity is effete and dying, 
we find it over the wide mission field as potent at this hour in raising 
the spiritually dead as it was in primitive times. It tells with power 
on the civilized Hindu — turning the Brahman, the “god on earth,” 
as he calls himself, into a preacher of righteousness— and it tells with 
equal power on the brutish and cannibal inhabitant of Fiji and Ero- 
mango. Fully two millions of men now living have been rescued 
from paganism, even by the feeble efforts of Protestant missions dur- 
ing the last seventy or eighty years— a number four times as large as 
was added to the church during an equal period in the earliest age of 
Christianity. And in these gracious showers of blessings our Presby- 
terian missions have largely shared. 

But the laborers are still deplorably few. What are two thousand, 
or, at most, two thousand two hundred, ordained missionaries from 
Europe and America to one thousand millions still dwelling in the 
region of the shades of death ? To have the number of missionaries 
equal, in proportion, to the number of ministers at home, we should 
require to multiply them five hundred-fold. And who shall say that 
the idea of doing this is Utopian ? When the heart of the church is 
stirred, as the heart of the Apostle was stirred at Athens, the needful 
money will be furnished ; aye, and the men and the women will be _ 
ready too. 

The notion seems generally prevalent that, if we do not bestir our- 
selves on their behalf, the pagan races will, at all events, only remain 
as they now are. But that belief is entirely erroneous. In many 
parts of the world the position of things is already most critical. 
Unless it is accompanied with the preserving salt of the gospel, western 
civilization will work, among simple races, unutterable woe. In India 
the whole of the aborigines feel their crude demon-worship slipping 
from them ; and, in a generation or so, they will probably all be either 
Christians or Hindus. An awtul alternative ! Meanwhile, Moham- 
medanism, though declining in Turkey, is extending in certain re- 
gions ; and, even in self-defence, the gospel needs to preoccupy the 
ground on which Islam is ready to seize. 

Which of the great churches of Christendom shall claim the lofty 
honor of leading the missionary host? The small Moravian Church 
—the Clmrch of the United Brethren— has hitherto, in proportion to 
its numbers and means, far exceeded others in evangelistic zeal. 
Which of the great churches shall henceforth emulate the high exam- 
ple? We might; we ought. We, too, are a Umtas Fratriun a band 
of “united brethren,” gathered from every quarter of the globe. 
With her scriptural polity, her traditional orthodoxy, her true catho- 
licity, and the number and wealth of her members, the Presbyterian 
Church might achieve great things in the mission field ; and surely 
the measure of her power is the measure of her responsibility. V/e 
heard a vindication in noble and thrilling words, in the opening die- 


SECOATD GENERAL COUNCIL, 


Churches or Societies. 


British. 


land 


Free Church of Scotland. 


United Presbyterian Church. 


United Original Sece 

Church (Scotland) 

Presbyterian Church of Eng- 
land 


Dutch. 

Nederlandsch 

Zendeiing 

Genootschap 


Java Comite 

Eomelo’s Zendeiing Genoots 
chap 

Christ. Gereformeerde Kerk'.. 

Nederl. Zending Vereeniging. 

Nederl. Gereformeer de Zen- 
ding Vereeniging 

Utrechtsche Zending Veteen 
iging 


French. 

Societe des Missions Evan- 


geliqiies 


Swiss. 
L’Eglise libre du 


Canton de 


Dutch in S. AJ'ricci. 

S. African Missionary Society. 

Australia. 

Presbyterian Church of Vic- 
toria 


New Zealand. 

Presbytery of New Zealand.. 

of Otago and South- 
land 


Mission Fields. 

Ordained 

Mission-* 

ARIES. 

K.S < 


c 

V 

P. 

0 

i-i 

P 

[ Native, 

Medical 

Mission; 

T TnrtfH c 

ta 

S 

0 

u 

Pupils. 

1 

j f India 





1 3,896 

Central Africa. .. 

I 

3 

I 

320 

China 

India 

I 

2 

I 

2 

891 

1 *40 

i 

S. Africa (Kaffraria) 
Natal 

7 

2 

8,599 

2,548 




258 

1 . 

Central Africa . . . . 

I 



252 

70 

59* 

N ew Hebrides . . . . 

2 




Syria 





r Jamaica 

t8 

2 

5 

t 

30 

6,954 

4,749 

Trinidad 



Old Calabar 

5 

2 


274 

98 

1,044 

703 

791 

S. Africa (Kaffraria) 
. Algeria 

6 

I 





India (Ragputana) 

9 


A 

300 

2,496 

China 





Japan 

•J 

0 


I 

too 

81 

90 

Spain 

<3 

2 

* * ■ 

I 

867 

1 

India (Central) 

I 

3 


224 

- (China : 

12 


3 

*5 

2,228 

170 

J Brittany 

I 


1 


160 

1 N. India 

6 



^ 6 


J W. India 

6 



■rr^Q 

2,558 

1,784 

J China 





Minahassa 




85,000 

church 


lava 




11,418 

Amboina 

16 



mem- 

bers.* 

Savre 




( Java 




200 ch. 


1 Sumatra 




100 

/ Java 

3 



mems. 

) Egypt 





3 schools. 

Java 






java 






■< Java 

/ 

2 




2 schools. 

( New Guinea. . . . ) 
^Bali.., ( 

9 



300 

(Halmaheira ) 





8 schools. 

fS. Africa 

k Tahiti 

17 

3 


2 

4,252 

3.030 

300 ? 

1 Senegal 




sev. hun.f 

S. Africa 

2 



60 



20 







4,500 


(New Hebrides 

J Wimonera ) for 
j Rahmayuck f abor. 

[ Ballarat, for Chin’e 

2 

3 

I 





New Hebrides 

•j New Hebrides. . . . 

I 

■ 1 



X 



* Including children t Not including those in 21 congregations under native pastors 

J Total number of communicants in New Hebrides, - 872 ^ ° 

“ “ pupils “ “ . 2,235 



6i2 the PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

course at this Council, of her position as a witness-bearing church ; is 
she not bound to bear, that witness, to the full extent of her power, 

before all kings and all nations? 

Your committee would respectfully but most earnestly suggest that 
the Council should take some means to secure, if possible, that the 
great commission given by the ascending Saviour to his Church— that 
she should go into all the world and preach the gospel to every crea- 
ture— may be brought home to the mind, and heart, and conscience 
of every member of the Presbyterian Church. It is for the Council to 
decide whether this end may best be attained by a faithful solemn 
appeal addressed to Presbyterians throughout the world. Your com- 
mittee earnestly hope that in this, or some other more effectual way, 
a deep imjiression may be made alike on office-bearers and people, so 
that the Presbyterian Church, in all her branches, may soon rejoic- 
ingly take the share which rightfully belongs to her in view of her 
extent, her influence, and the large blessing which the Lord has 
graciously bestowed both on her home and foreign labors— in the 
glorious work of proclaiming unto every creature the unsearchable 

riches of Christ. , , j ..i 

And now one closing word. The first name emblazoned on these 
beautifully decorated walls is the word Culdees. We claim to be their 
successors; and if we are so, ours truly is a heritage of which any 
Church in theworld might be proud. For who were the Culdees ? They 
were the most devoted missionaries that the world has seen since the 
davs of the apostles. History tells us that those old Scottish or Irish 
missionaries, issuing from their college at Iona, spread over Europe 
“like an inundation. ” Ah ! it is far easier now to hasten to the 
uttermost parts of the earth than it was in those days to cross the 
stormy Channel or scale the inhospitable Alps. Shall not we then, 
modern Presbyterians, prove that we are the true apostolical suc- 
cessors of those illustrious men, and rest not till we have sent bands 
of preachers over the world, even as they sent them over Europe, .to 
proclaim the tidings of salvation through a crucified Redeemer, 

“ Till, like a sea of glory. 

It spread from pole to pole ! ” 

A table of statistics accompanied the report. It will be found 
on page (6i i.) 

The Rev. Dr. W. M. Paxton presented the following from 
the American section : 

The work assigned to the American section of this committee was 
to gather information and report upon the operations of all the foreign 
missionary organizations upon this continent. 

As the result of our labor we present to this Council a written his- 
tory of these various boards, showing the date of their organization. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 613 

the fields which they occupy, and in a measure the method of their 
reportrare from-^ These 

The Presbyterian Church in Canada. 

The United Presbyterian Church (United States). 

The Reformed (Dutch) Church. ^ 

;^e Reformed Presbyterian Church (General Synod). 

’ Associate Reformed Synod of the South. 

Ihe Presbyterian Church (South). 

The Presbyterian Church (North). 

We do not propose to read these papers because they would occupy 
much more time than is assigned for the subject ; but as they embody 
much of the information which this Council desires to procure and 
M they are important missionary documents of perman^t nmrSt 

recommend that they be Sd 
either with these reports m the minutes of the Council or in an 
appendix to the minutes. [See Appendix, p. 1,2, .I " 

In the previous Council at Edinburgh eight points of information 

orde" oAhf cf n ^»ggc«‘ed. There was no 

order of the Council directing us to report upon these points but as 

your committee regarded them as important, we requested the different 
boards as far as practicable to give us the information indicated. This 
has been done by some of the boards in a full detail in separate 
papers; and by others a number of the points have been treated in 
the history of their work. 

These papers we also submit with a recommendation that they be 
printed, because these answers, although partially given and neces- 
sarily imperfect, will form a valuable nucleus around which to gather 
more complete information in the future. ° 

^ The summary of the statistics furnished by these different reports 
IS as follows : ^ 

•Statistics of the board of foreign missions of the Presbyterian 
Church (North): missionaries now in the field, 125; native mis- 
sionaries, 83 ; native licentiate preachers, 147; medical missionaries 
and teachers, ii; American women connected with the missions 
209; native teachers and Bible readers, 516; total number of coml 
mumcants, 12,607; scholars in boarding schools, 1,317; scholars in 
day schools, 6,474. 

Statistics of the foreign mission board of the Reformed (Dutch) 
Church in America: missionaries now in the field, i6; native minis- 
ters ri; native licentiafe preachers, 38; medical missionaries and 
teachers, 7; American women connected with the missions 21- 
Native teachers and Bible readers, 95 ; total number of communicants 
m the missions, 2,341: scholars in boarding schools, 108: day 
scholars, 1,719. ,, ay 

Statistics of the foreign mission board of the United Presbyterian 
Church : whole number of missionaries sent out from the beginning 
in 1842, 91 ; present number of male missionaries, 14; present num- 


6i4 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


ber of native ministers, 8; present number of native licentiate 
preachers, 6; present number of foreign teachers, i8 ; unmarried 
missionary women, 14; native teachers, 164; present nu inter of 
communicants, 1,284^ girls in boarding school, 46 i scholars in day 

schools, 3,644.^ 01, T> u 

Statistics of the foreign missionary work of the Southern rresby- 
terian Church: missionaries now in the field, 17; native ministers 
(ordained),* 13; native licentiate preachers, 5 \ American women con- 
nected with the missions, 22 ; native laborers and teachers, 32 ; total 
number of communicants (about), 1,400; scholars in boarding 
schools, 220; scholars in day schools, 275. 

Statistics of the foreign mission board of the Reformed Presbyterian 
Church (General Synod) : missionaries now in the field, 8 ; native 
teachers, 19; number of communicants, 94; Sabteth-schools, 5; 
Sabbath scholars, 200; week-day scholars, 9 ; scholars under instru^ 
tion, 476; mission stations, 7; mission buildings, ii; estimated 
value of mission property $35,000. . u 

Statistics of the foreign missionary work of the Presbyterian Church 
in Canada: missionaries now in the field, 14; native missionaries, i ; 
native licentiate preachers, 2 ; native teachers and Bible readers, 87 ; 
number of communicants, 645 ; scholars in day schools, 866. 

Putting together the statistics of these different reports, the sum- 
mary is as follows: missionaries now in the field, 194; native minis- 
ters, 135; native licentiate preachers, 198; medical missionaries and 
teachers, 18; American women connected with the missions, 266 > 
native teachers and Bible readers, 894; communicants, 18,371; 
scholars in boarding-schools, 1,691; scholars in day-schools, 12,987. 


Statistics. 

Sum totals American and European societies on some points : 

Missionaries in the field — American, 194; European, 219; total, 
413. 

Ordained native ministers — American, 135; European, 26; total, 
161. 

Medical missionaries and teachers — American, 18; European, 21; 
total, 39. ' 

Communicants — American, 18,371; European, 20,069; total, 
38,440. 

Scholars in day-schools — American, 12,987; European, 44,952; 
total, 57,939- 

From these histories and statistics one fact becomes very plain — • 
that the work of foreign missions is a great sttccess. We are well 
aware that in certain quarters Christian missions have been pronounced 
a failure, just as Christianity itself has been said to have. lost its power. 
But the shout of derision raised by our enemies, in this instance as in 
so many others, has teen premature. It has been rather the expres- 
sion of the wish of their hearts than the record of a fact of history. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 615 

The simple truth upon this subject is, that the cause of missions at 
this hour presents features of marked and encouraging success. As 
the result of our investigations several facts become evident. 

First, that the cause of missions has a deeper and more intelligent 
hold upon the churches and upon the hearts of individual Christians 
than at any former period of our history. The era of novelty and 
romance has passed away, and interest in the cause of missions has 
become a settled principle ; so that now all over the world wherever 
a section of our great family of Presbyterian Churches is located, 
they have some missionary organization, through which they endeavor 
to express their obedience to the Master’s dying command, and to 
make their influence felt to the ends of the earth. The last few years 
have been a period of great trial. Many industries have been pros- 
trated, and a financial prepare — almost unparalleled — has been felt all 
over the world. Yet during all this period our mission boards have 
been upheld, and the vpt expenditures necessary to preserve our mis^ 
sions have been mainlined. This simple fact shows that the cause 
of missions has a position in the confidence, and a hold upon the 
hearts of God s people that no moneyed stringency can relax. The 
cause of missioip would be a failure if it had lost its hold upon the 
fmth mid affections of the churches by whose prayers and contribu-. 
tions it is supported. But the fact that this hold grows deeper and 
stronger, is at once an element and proof of success. 

Another fact brought to our notice is, that the supply of missionaries 
has never failed. At every call for laborers, the response has been 
prompt and willing. This is a fact fraught with meaning. Just as 
the fields are opened and the Church is prepared to enter and occupy, 
the Spirit of God has baptized our young men with the spirit of mis - 
sions, and made them willing to sunder the dearest ties from love to 
Christ and the souls of men. The cause of missions would be a fail- 
ure if the supply of missionaries had failed, but the fact that a con- 
tinuous divine influence has kept that supply steady and increasing is 
another element and proof of success. 

A third fact which the experience of these Boards makes evident is, 
that the results of direct efforts for the conversion of souls in heathen 
countries are of the most encouraging character. Upon this subject 
the public mind must settle, by sober thought, what are the legitimate 
results which are to be expected from the work of missions. Many 
have formed extravagant expectations as to how far and how fast the 
gospel is to spread itself through the world. Some seem to imagine 
that so soon as a missionary sets his foot in a heathen country he will 
proceed at once to expel idolatry and superstition, and all forms of 
sin from the land, just as St. Patrick expelled the snakes from Ireland. 

If you allow people to form extravagant expectations, and then 
make these the^ measure of success, there is nothing in this world that 
is not a failure, except the telegraph, which brings us knowledge of 
events in Europe several hours before they occur. But to some even 
the telegraph will be regarded as a failure, because they expected it 


6i6 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

to carry passengers, and cause them to arrive several hours before they 
started. 

d'o estimate the legitimate effects of the gospel, we must put away 
all exaggerated expectations, and then look upon the state of the 
heathen world — upon its ignorance of God, upon its many idolatries, 
upon its entrenched superstitions, upon its debasing lusts, and upon 
the inveterate opposition of their hearts to the gospel. As opposed 
to all this we have but one single instrument for its overthrow, and 
that is the word of truth. This truth must be patiently taught, and 
then it is only by the accompaniment of God’s Spirit that it is made 
effectual ; and the blessed influence of the Spirit is only given in pro- 
portion to our faith and prayer. When we look upon all this it is 
plain that a legitimate expectation of results must extend through long 
years of patient labor. The gospel does not work like a charm, or 
reach its results like an edict or a decree of a king. Sin cannot be 
abolished, like slavery, by an act of Congress or of Parliament. The 
gospel is an educating influence, and depends for its results upon long 
continued processes, and its application by the blessing of God to in- 
dividuals. It is leaven which works slowly and continuously until it 
assimilates the whole lump. It is a seed cast into the ground, and 
though It be a living germ it may take a long time to perforate the 
encrusted soil, and spring up and produce its fruit. ^ Bleak autumn 
may come with its rough winds, and winter with its icy fetters, and 
men may look on and cry “ failure.” But the spring also comes with 
its fruitful influences, and the summer follows with its waving harvests, 
and then he who cried “ failure ” looks on with shame, whilst they who 
waited in believing expectation see first the blade, then the ear, then 
the full corn in the ear, and can join the song of the gladsome reaper. 

To this effect, Froude says, “Since Christianity was planted, many 
a winter and many a summer have rolled over it. More than once has 
it shed its leaves, and seemed to be dying, when the buds burst again 
and the color of the foliage was changed.” 

To the same effect Dr. Newman, in his “Grammar of Assent,” 
speaks of the “ cogent evidence which Christianity gives in her per- 
sistent vitality.” “ She is as vigorous,” he affirms, “ now in her age 
as in her youth, and has upon her prima facie signs of divinity.” 

To reach an estimate of what the results of missions should be in 
the heathen world, we may compare this work with our direct efforts 
for the conversion of souls at home with all the advantages of our 
Christian civilization around us. 

By an estimate made of the results of missionary work in some 
of our own Boards, it is found that in a period of three years the 
gains in communicants added to the Church has been a little over 
sixty-four per cent., whilst the gains in the home churches of the same 
period is only about eight per cent. In one of our mis^ons in Canton, 
in China, the gain in a period of ten years has been over six hundred 
per cent. The estimates of the American Board show a corresponding 
-increase. For example, the gain during a period of ten years in the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


617 

Ceylon mission was forty-six per cent. ; in the Zulu mission, one hun- 
dred per cent. ; in Wester 1 and Central Turkey, one hundred per 
cent. ; in Eastern Turkey, three hundred and forty per cent. ; and in 
some of the China missions it has reached four hundred and seventy 
per cent. 

Such results as these certainly enable us to say that the work of 
Christian missions is a great and wonderful success. Sir Bartle Frere, 
the distinguished English statesman, so well known as the Governor 
of Bombay, whose character and advantages of knowledge give his 
testimony great weight, says: “Whatever you may hear to the con- 
trary, the teaching of Christianity among the millions of Hindoos 
and Mohammedans is effecting changes, moral, social, and political, 
which, for extent and rapidity of effect, are far more extraordinary 
than anything you or your fathers have witnessed in modern Europe.” 

And now, Mr. President, I have submitted these facts, growing 
directly out of our work as a Committee, because it seems to me that 
this is precisely the point to which the mind of this Council should 
be directed. The manifest success of our work covers with shame the 
men who have cried “failure,” and answers all the objections which 
our enemies have been so ready to make. 

Let us take our stand upon these facts as furnishing us with the 
greatest encouragement for the future. The success of the past is but 
the token and promise of what we may expect in time to come. If, 
by our divided efforts, we have accomplished thus much, how much 
more may we expect if we can join hands and work together upon 
some method of effective co-operation. It seems to me that this is 
the central subject which should occupy the thought of this Council. 
The cause of missions rises above every other interest, and before we 
adjourn the whole power of this Council should be focalized to stimu- 
late and propel this work. 

Again, these facts indicate that a new keynote should be struck 
upon the whole subject of missions. It has seemed to me that much 
that is written and spoken upon this subject is set to the minor key. 
From my childhood missionary addresses have sounded to me very 
much like the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Our success warrants a 
different kind of utterance. Let us now rise to the major key. 
Let us utter the language of hope and encouragement, and missions 
will awaken a new interest, and start upon a new career of pros- 
perity. 

But all this is upon 'the human side. The facts which we have pre- 
sented hold up to us no less powerfully the divine side. The work is 
the Lord’s. Our success in the past has not been “by might or by 
power, but by God’s Spirit.” If there is any one fact which the his*, 
tory of missions demonstrates, it is the utter powerlessness of educa- 
tion or civilization to change the hearts of men. Without the special 
presence of God’s Spirit with the missionary at every step of his work, 
his labor is in vain. This is the fact which needs to be impressed now 
to keep us from vain confidences. At no time in the history of the 


6i8 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Church has our external equipment for work been so complete as now. 
We have Societies, and Boards, and organizations for every purpose. 
But what are these without the Spirit? William Arthur’s beautiful 
figure represents that the Church, in its present preparation for work, 
is like a cannon shotted with ball and powder and ready for action ; 
but the ball is powerless, the powder is powerless, the cannon is 
powerless, until the spark of fire enters, and then the ball goes 
crashing like a thunderbolt. Just so the preparation of the Church is 
powerless. Oh, for the baptism of fire ! 

CO-OPERATION IN THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY WORK. 

The Rev. J. Leighton Wilson, D. D., presented a report on 
this subject, introducing it as follows : 

In presenting my paper to the Council I must confess that 
I labor under some degree of embarrassment. I find that the 
ground over which I pass has been already traversed this morn- 
ing by Dr. Murray Mitchell; but still I have been reassured by 
the closing sentiments of the brother who has just spoken. 
During the past few days repeated allusion has been made to 
the desirability of co-operation in the foreign mission work. 
My object this morning is to submit a plan which is not only 
desirable but practicable. I wish to say that all of the branches 
of the Presbyterian Church can unite and co-operate in this 
great work without a violation of any ecclesiastical principles 
or usages ; and, if I shall succeed in convincing the Council of 
the practicability of the ideas I advance in this paper, then I 
have no doubt that it will prov^e one of the strongest bonds to 
hold the Alliance together, and give to it a permanent char- 
acter in the future. 

The paper was as follows : 

The time has arrived in the prosecution of the foreign missionary 
work, when co-operation among the various branches of the Pre.sby- 
terian Church laboring in the same field becomes a matter of great 
and momentous importance. It is not the design of this paper to 
discuss the subject of a closer organic union between the different 
branches of the Church itself, this being regarded as an entirely sep- 
arate and independent question ; nor is it proposed to advocate the 
incorporation into one ecclesia.stical body all the converts of the 
various evangelical bodies laboring in the same field, for however 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 619 

K fu ’ ^ mission churches fathered in the same 

branches of "he PrX! 
we carefullv <=cclesiastical body; and that 

reai“st the the earher periods of the work 

iSa^ and ^ of. trying to introduce into India, China, Africa 

Laracterize t rdiCe'nt" h “if Peculiarities which 

homriie d Mos of the^e"" r °f .the Presbyterian Church in tite 
local social of peculiar, ties have had their origin in our 

constrained to hold' ^ttfroundings, and however strongly we may feel 

never L fetaf-def ing circumstances, they caLot, 

ertneiess, be regarded as essential to true Presbyterianism which 

witllr£’rtrr"d vigorousVor,rha"’:xilfed 

therefore u^n mr I ^ ° so again. To engraft these peculiarities, 

accustom’ed to tlifm churches simply because we have been 

accustomed to them ourselves, or because they were forced upon us bv 

our outward surroundings, is to impose a yoke upon the ^chutohes 
which they will find to be very irksome. It should be our aim, there- 
fore, while we endeavor to give these new converts all the essential 
fh^Td"h P^sbytenanism, both as to doctrine and polity, it 

ould be done in the briefest and simplest formulas possible. Our 
Confessions of Faith, as well as our elaborate systems of discipline and 
fome to b" 1’ growth of centuries, and are entirely too cumber- 

kf "“f "P” U emerging from the depths of heathen- 

rt, ' 1,' burthen was laid upon the primitive 

abl ts I " somethir^g equiv^alent, it is probf 

able, was the only confession of faith that was known to the early 
churches, and them systems of government and discipline were no 
d ubt equally brief and simple. Our more elaborate symbols of doc- 
tnne and polity, ms true, are the natural and legitimate outgrowth 
of the teachings of the New Testament, but it required a long time, 
as well as a vast amount of varied experience, to bring them to their 
present smte of development ; and they are, perhapsf needed by us 
just as they are, with such modifications, of course, as may seem 
necessary from time to time. ^ 

Our foreign converts, while they will derive many importont lessons 
from our experience and instructions, will, nevertheless, have to work, 
out an experience of their own, in their own peculiar circumstances. 

I hey will be called, by the providence of God, to encounter forms of 
opposition and persecution, and to contend with errors that were 
entirely unknown to our spiritual forefathers, and their forms of faith 
and polity must necessarily be tinged by the peculiar nature of these 
trials. We ought to be careful, therefore, not to lay upon them any 
unnecessary burthens, but let them, with the Bible in their hands and 
under guidance of the Holy Ghost, work out their own experience in 
their own peculiar circumstances. 

In the further discussion of the subject in hand, we propose: 


620 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


I St. To show some of the advantages that will result from the pro- 
posed co-operation. 

2d. That it will be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to main- 
tain a strictly Presbyterian union between churches in the foreign and 
home fields. 

3d. That with right views of the office and functions of the evan- 
gelist (the foreign missionary), there are no serious or insurmountable 
obstacles in the way of establishing one strong Presbyterian church in 
each of the great sections of the heathen world by the joint labors of 
all the different branches of the Presbyterian Church in Europe and 
in America. 

In the first place, we are to point out some of the advantages of 
co-operation, and this we propose to do in the briefest manner possi- 
ble. In the first place, and in a general way, there will be secured, 
on the one hand, all the advantages which usually result from con- 
certed action, and, on the other, will be avoided all the evils which 
necessarily flow from distracted counsels, even when the different par- 
ties aim to accomplish the same object. An invading army, no mat- 
ter how strong or well equipped, is not likely to achieve any great 
conquests, without concert among its different sections. So there must 
be concert among the different portions of that great spiritual army 
that is to bring all the nations of the earth in subjection to the Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

Bat there are specific objects, in the prosecution of this great enter- 
prise, in connection with which concert of action is a matter of great 
importance. Among these may be mentioned the establishment and 
maintenance of institutions of learning of a higher grade, especially 
such as are necessary to train young men for the work of the ministry. 
These will be found necessary, even in the earlier periods of the mis- 
sionary woik, in all of our missions; but as the number of candidates 
will probably not be large in any of them for some considerable time, 
it would be better and more economical for neighboring missions to 
unite in sustaining one institution of the kind. 

Another object of not less importance, is to provide a religious lit- 
erature for the people, which can be done more effectually and satis- 
factorily by concerted action. We include in this the translation of 
the sacred Scriptures, as well as other religious books, whether trans- 
lations or original productions. This is an important matter, and in- 
stead of being left to the discretion of individuals, there ought to be in 
every mission field a committee to have the supervision of this im- 
portant department of labor. Concert of action here would nit only 
save expense, but the work would be done in a more satisfactory way, 
and there would be heartier co-operation in giving a wider circulation 
to all such publications. 

Other things call for united action, which we can do little more 
than mention, viz., the course of study that should be prescribed 
for young men preparing for the work of the ministry ; the terms of 
admission to church membership ; how certain vices are to be treated 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 621 

in connection with church discipline ; what salaries should be allowed 
^ native helpers, and various other questions of a similar character. 
Ihe want of understanding among missionaries in relation to such 
matters has often led to the most serious consequences. 

Now all of these questions, as well as others equally important, 
might easily be settled by an occasional conference among brethren 
laboring in the same field, such as were held a few years ago at Ala- 
habad, in India, and in Shanghai, in China. They might be held 
once in three or four years. It is not proposed that such conferences 
should possess or exercise any ecclesiastical functions, or interfere in 
any way with the ecclesiastical relations existing between the mission- 
aries and their Presbyteries, or between the missionary and the 
churches he may have established in the foreign field— the powers of 
the conferences being purely advisory and prudential. 

Our second proposition is, that it will be difficult, if not impossible, 
.to maintain, on strictly Presbyterian principles, and for an indefinite 
length of time, a thorough ecclesiastical connection between foreign 
and home churches. A temporary arrangement of this kind might 
be effected, but it could not be continued indefinitely without serious 
embarrassment. Moreover, if the arrangement could be made prac- 
ticable, it would still be doubtful whether it would be advantageous 
to either party. Of course, there will always be the kindliest feeling 
between the two — much of the paternal on the one hand, and of filial 

on the other, and much of the unity of the Spirit pervading both 

but no possible organic union, as we think, between churches occupy- 
ing the opposite sides of the globe. 

The difficulties lying in the way of a close organic union, even 
where one church is the offspring of the other, are varied and obvious. 
First, there is the difficulty of bringing the delegates of bodies so re- 
mote from each other into one ecclesiastical convocation, which must 
be done if we would maintain our ideas of Presbyterian polity. If 
the Presbyteries in India, China, and Africa— the number of which 
are rapidly multiplying— are constituent parts of the home church, 
then they, will have to .send their commissioners to our General 
Assemblies in Europe and America. And here comes to view, at 
once, the great difficulties connected with these long journeys, the 
very great consequent loss of time, and the heavy expense attending 
them. More than this. These foreign delegates, in most cases at 
least, would have to bring interpreters along with them, or run the 
risk of not understanding or being understood when they appeared in 
these Assemblies. Then, again, these delegates would have the right 
to expect the Assemblies to meet occasionally, at least, in foreign 
lands, and we would thus have the spectacle of five hundred or six 
hundred ministers and elders sailing more than half around the globe 
to hold a General Assembly in Peking, when it would be almost cer- 
tain, beforehand, that very few persons, except the voyagers them- 
selves, would be able to comprehend their proceedings. 

But there would be other difficulties. In every promiscuous assem- 


622 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


bly of the kind, there would, even at this early stage of the mission- 
ary work, be fifteen or twenty spoken languages, and without the 
apostolic gift of tongues, how would it be possible to transact the or- 
dinary business without confusion? Furthermore, these foreign dele- 
gates having just emerged from all the darkness of heathenism, and 
having little or no knowledge of our modes of conducting business, 
would be greatly perplexed, even if there were no difficulties on the 
score of language, to understand our modes of procedure, or the 
results to which our discussions would lead. We are so much in the 
advance of them in all our church matters that we would seldom 
have occasion to consider those questions in which they are most 
deeply interested. Nor could these foreign delegates be treated sim- 
ply as wards or pupils. For while they would not be able to compre- 
hend those higher themes which we would feel called upon to discuss, 
they will, nevertheless, have questions to propound that we might find 
it very difficult to handle. 

There are many things, for example, connected with caste in India, 
and foot-binding in China, about which the missionaries on the ground 
are greatly divided in opinion, as to whether they should be made 
the subjects of church discipline or not. Now if intelligent missionaries 
on the ground, who are acquainted with the practical working of these 
things, are at a loss how to decide, how would it be with a convoca- 
tion of men who knew comparatively little, about such matters? In 
China there has been an earnest contest among missionaries for nearly 
fifty years as to the proper word that should be used for Deity. Able and 
learned arguments, such as thorough Chinese scholars alone can write, 
have been brought forward on both sides of the controversy, but with- 
out bringing the parties any nearer to each other. Now suppose this 
question were thrust into one of our assemblies for solution, how could 
they undertake to discuss it in a satisfactory or intelligible manner? 
Necessity would be laid upon us to remand all such questions back to 
the native churches and the missionaries, who, in the course of time 
and under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, will no doubt arrive at 
the true solution. 

But apart from all these difficulties is it really best for these foreign 
churches to be kept, for any considerable length of time, under the 
tutelage of the home church? Would it not be far more conducive to 
their spiritual growth to be thrown, at as early a period as possible, 
upon their own re.sponsibilities ? Strength and self-reliance can be 
effectually developed only by the exercise of their own gifts and 
endowments. They may make mistakes and they may fall into serious 
errors, but these under the overruling providence of God would be 
made subservient to their ultimate good. 

In the third place, we wish to show that there are no insuperable 
obstacles in the way of bringing all the native churches of the Presby- 
terian order in the same field into one church organization ; and that 
this would be far more promotive of their usefulness and spirituality, 
than for them to be ecclesiastically connected with the home church 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 623 

10 every Dranch of the Church engaged m carrying on the work The 
object aimed at, as has already been shown, fs not for elch branch 

spread and be a blessing to the whole land. Over this general 

trol, except through the missionaries on the ground, who will give 

con r he f 'if necessary. If this idea, dear brethren 

could be fully realized, it would not only bring about a new and 
important era m the progress of the missiomry work, but would con- 

“SSTselr'’^^'' 

Right vievvs in relation to the office and the functions of the 
evangelist will we think, go far, not only to clear away the difficulties 
that have gathered around the subject, but to establish harinonv of 
vjews among all those who love th/s great cause. We aLume tLf 
h" r scriptural authority, that the term evangelist 

does not indicate a separate office in the Church, but a special func- 
tion of the ministerial office. An evangelist is simply a minister of 

nartf°^^P Presbytery to labor in destitute and foreign 

parts. Because he is to labor in destitute places, and in foreign 
lands he IS clothed with a larger amount of ecclesiastical power than 
i,,,f settled church. His powers are extraordinary, 

but tenaporaryj and they vary according to circumstances. If he 
labors in destitute parts, within the acknowledged bounds of his own 
Presbytery, he may organize churches, administer discipline, ordain 
elders and deacons but he can go no further. When he enters the 
foreign field he is clothed with all the powers necessary to plant the 

and" md^’a^n^eld ' organize churches 

and ordain elders and deacons, but he may ordain pastors and 

evangelists and assist in forming Presbyteries, when the native 
churches are prepared for such. In fact the evangelist, when he 
goes to foreign lands, carries with him the powers of the Presbytery 
so that he may do whatever a Presbytery might do in establishing the 
Church where it has not before existed. But as soon as the Presbv- 
tery is formed— or as some suppose as soon as a particular church ’is 
established— the ecclesiastical powers of the evangelist, so far as those 
churches and that Presbytery are concerned, are brought to an end 
He may give advice and counsel afterwards, and in this way may be 
very serviceable to these newly formed churches, but he can exercise 
no further ecclesiastical jurisdiction over them. The newly formed 
PresbytCTy takes the reins of government into its hands, and the 
evpgehst, unless he is engaged in teaching or translating, must go 

into the regions beyond,” and commence the evangelistic work 
9,ncvv, 


624 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


The evangelist may become the pastor ° ® 

churches that he has been instrumental m founding, but in that cas 
ceases to be an evangelist, and must become a member of the Presby- 
tery which has been established over those churches He may also con- 
tinue to receive his support from the home church, but he cannot con- 
sistently with Presbyterian principles and usages be a member of b o 
pSKries at the sLie time. This idea we know is entertained by 
many excellent brethren, and in some of our Presbyterian missions t 
has been carried into practical effect. But, as it , 

must ere long result in great confusion, for it undermines ^ d vould 
ere long overthrow the great Presbyterian doctrine of 
-barity ^ If a missionary can be a member of a Presbytery in China 
La of another in America at the same time, then he may ^ and 
be condemned in one, and be acquitted in the other, a ng'it-which 
the native minister cannot claim, unless he is also a member of • 
Will this inequality and irregularity, in the cou^rse , 

felt to be a most serious grievance? Nor will the condition of t 
church or churches over which this pastor presides be anomalous., 
Will it be amenable to, or have the right of appeal to either Presby 


tery that it may elect? , . r t 

The true idea in carrying on this great work is for the evangelist to 
remain steadfast in the calling in which he originally went out ; and 
if, for special and extraordinary reasons, he becomes the pastor ot a 
native church, then let him cast his lot fully with the 'church It is 
contended by many, and no doubt with considerable fixce, that the 
missionary may be of great service to the newly formed Presbytery by 
being a regular member of it ; but we do not see why he may not be 
equally serviceable in sitting as a corresponding member, and gwing 
such advice as may seem necessary. The great danger of his being a 
full member is, that the native members will feel too much disposed 
to follow his advice, instead of exercising their own judgment. 

Mission, as it is technically called, must be considered,' in order 
to give completeness to our views. It is composed, as a general thing, 
of the ordained ministers and lay assistant missionaries sent out by 
any one branch of the Church to any particular section of the heathen 
world. It is organized as all similar bodies are, and stands equally 
related to the general missionary work and the home board. It has 
no ecclesiastical powers over the members of its own body, or over 
the churches that may be gathered around it, except those powers 
which the individual evangelist exercises. ^ It is, in fact, a sub-com- 
mittee of the home board. It is through its agency that the home 
board carries on its work. But neither the one nor the other can ex- 
ercise any judicial powers, but simply directs the general work. It is 
at the recommendation of the mission that schools are established, 
salaries are fixed, native laborers are employed, ne^v stations are 
formed, and the work of each member of the mission itself is deter- 
mined. The evangelist is responsible to the General Assembly so far 
as his general work is concerned, but to the Presbytery which sent him 
out in the first instance for his ministerial conduct. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


625 


It IS through the Mission, therefore, that the Church maintains com- 
plete control over the general missionary work. Through her own 
board she determines who shall be sent out as missionaries ; to what 
fields they shall go ; in what departments of labor they shall engage • 
what native laborers shall be employed ; what salaries shall be g^iven’ 
and all other matters of a similar character. ’ 

It IS not proposed to merge the work of any particular branch of the 
Church into that of another. Each one is to carry on its own work 
separately and independently. All that any one church concedes 
according to this plan, is that the fruits of all their varied labors, when 
they have crystalized into churches and presbyteries, may be allowed 
to unite with those of neighboring missions in forming one strong 

Church, that shall be a blessing to 
that whole land fhe different churches, while working in their own 
peculiar way and through their own chosen organizations, will find 
themselves very much in the same condition with the tribes of Israel 
in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, each having its own section to 
restore, but all working to accomplish the same great object. 

and brethren, something grand and sublime in the 
idea that all the varied branches of our venerable Presbyterian Church 
should be found earnestly working, not to extend and perpetuate their 
own peculiarities of worship and government, but to rear one simple 
pure scriptural Presbyterian Church for each one of the great sections 
of the unevangelized world. In what other way could be more surely 
realized that spiritual u?iity, so earnestly enjoined by the Redeemer 
and so heartily desired by all those who love his holy name? Such a 
consummation would inaugurate a new era in the history of modern 
missions.. No portion of the Church could remain idle or indifferent 
in view of such a spectacle. We would expect to see all the tribes of 
Israel, even the smallest of them, buckling on the armor for the con- 
flict. The full strength of the whole Church would be called into 
active exercise, and with the blessing of Almighty God attending it 
how could the powers of darkness withstand its combined and mighty 
assaults? We confidently believe that the day is not far distant when 
the plan of co-operation which we have so feebly advocated will be 
fully realized, and when that is the case the time will also be near 
when every human being on the face of the earth will have heard of 
the salvation of Jesus Christ. 


The Rev. John C. Lowrie, D. D., of New York, delivered the 
following address : 

We should bless God for the degree of co-operation that now exists. 
It has great breadth and is deep in the hearts of thousands and tens 
of thousands of God’s people. We are agreed as to a great many 
things, and, in fact, I may say as to most things. But yet the ques- 
tion of co-operation implies diversity. There are some diversities at 
home in the selection and appointment of missionaries; for instance, 
40 


626 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


whether by formal action of churches, as in some cases among us, or 
whether by accepting volunteers, as in other cases, or whether on 
some middle ground, by which all ends may be secured. There is, 
moreover, another point of moment, the one which relates to the col- 
lection and supervision of funds. I need not dwell upon that point. 
Then there is a third point of great interest which relates to the work 
which is to be performed by our Christian women. We are all advo- 
cates of their work, but there are questions as to the manner of it, 
and as to the closeness of the relations between their organization and 
the missionary boards of the Church at large. Having a general idea 
of the work of different churches, I am disposed to think that in the 
branch of the Church with which I am connected, the relation be- 
tween the ladies’ work and the general work is one in which there has 
been a satisfactory gain. The women’s boards are the auxiliaries of 
the general board. Certain matters are reserved to that board, and 
their operations are inside of the estimates which come from the mis- 
sions, and yet I admit that there are questions concerning their work, 
of great interest, about which we cannot altogether as yet agree. But 
all these home questions may be left to the churches at home. 

When we go abroad on various missionary fields we find diversities 
of opinion, which are sometimes serious. For instance, in regard to 
the subject of Christian education, we find a diversity of opinion 
existing, and especially as that subject relates to the training of 
native ministers. As has been stated by Dr. Murray Mitchell, there 
is a project pending in China which has been advocated by one of the 
leading Scottish missionaries, as well as by one of the American mis- 
sionaries, for a general Presbyterian college in that country, and the 
same idea has been suggested by some of our brethren in India. It 
is believed that the Government system, in its influence and practical 
workings, tends to discourage the Christian religion and hinder the 
spread of the gospel, and some of our brethren are so impressed with 
this evil that they are in favor of a general Presbyterian college in 
India. I confess that I feel afraid of these great institutions. Great 
colleges and theological seminaries seem to me an outgrowth of ad- 
vanced Christian civilization, with certain drawbacks it may be, but 
not well adapted to the early work of Christian missions, not any 
more now in most heathen countries than in the days of the early 
Church. I think the true theory for our whole work abroad is the 
theory of the grain of mustard seed, or the leaven in the meal, or 
“ the kingdom of God cometh not with observation.” 

Now, as further showing the diversity of views, it may be well to 
consider the subject of the training of native ministers. Our breth- 
ren in Japan have erected an American theological seminary, and 
perhaps it was wise, although I must say that I cannot speak with re- 
gard to its wisdom. In some countries they have a theological class, 
and in other countries the training of ministers is in the hands of the 
native pastor ; but lately it has been proposed to bring these native 
converts from their own country to America, Scotland, or Ireland to 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


627 


^ there educated, and then be sent back again. It seems to me that 
by this course a great risk would be run in training up and raising 
ministers who will not be, when they return to their native country 
the same as when they left it, and who will not really be homogeneous 
with their own people. Their minds will then be probably full of 
American, or Irish or Scottish ideas. They will go back with differ- 
ent ideas of hying and as to what is necessary to their comfort in 
life, which will make it impossible for the natiye churches to support 
them as their pastors. I will not, howeyer, go further into the merits 
of this question. 

In regard to the subject of the support of native ministers, shall it be 
by the foreign missionary board, or shall it be by the native churches 
m their poverty? I think our brethren of the Ningpo Presbytery have 
hit exactly the middle ground. They will not ordain a native until 
he is called by a church, and then they require the church to do all it 
can for his support, and then what it lacks the board supplies, and he 
is an itinerant missionary for the time paid for by the mission This 
combines the two plans of self-support and of itinerant labor In 
connection with this reference to the mtive churches, we cannot well 
forbear to allude to the able paper which we have just heard with* so 
much pleasure. It is a signal example of diversity of views. Our 
respected brother has given us one side of a great subject— the rela- 
tions of the mission churches to the home Church. And he has em- 
phasized the office, or, at any rate, the work of an evangelist. Many 
of our friends hold the same views. They would have the native 
churches to be purely independent of the mother Church. They look 
upon the missionaries, so far as church order and polity are concerned, 
as counsellors who should stand outside and give advice. This is all 
they can do, and that not very legitimately, on the theory of inde- 
pendency. Our friends seek to supply the radical defects of this the- 
ory, by making the missionaries evangelists, and so they try to make 
the theory accord with our church system. But it gives the evangelist 
power that cannot well be harmonized with our system; indeed, 
power virtually irresponsible. ’ 


If I held that theory I should be tempted to go into the Episcopal 
Church, where the prelatic phase of the matter is regulated by canons 
and rules of the Church at large rather than by an individual interpre- 
tation of the foreign missionary. A single minister of the gospel apart 
from his Presbytery should not with us have the power of ordaining 
missionary ministers. I heard of a case of a single missionary ordain- 
ing one of his countrymen as a minister of the gospel, although there 
were two other Presbyterian ministers at the same station, and two 
others connected with his own board within two or three days’ travel 
of the locality. I do not believe that the office of the evangelist is a 
permanent office in the Church. I class it with the apostles and the 
prophets ; and if so, the office of the evangelist is temporary or special. 
All that is valuable in the idea of the evangelist is centred, as our 
brother has told us, in the functions of the ministry, but not in those 


628 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 

functions separated from the action of the Presbytery. In our system 
the Presbytery controls all. It is the prelatic power among us a 
lef^itimate power, but amenable to the Church in its regular course 
and I think we have in our common Presbyterian system all the sale- 
guards we need for the protection and government of the native 

churches. * , , , • r * 

We are told of the embarrassment which would arise from connect- 
ing distant Presbyteries with a General Assembly in this country or in 
Europe. Of course, the difficulties are considerable, but they need 
not be insuperable. Presbyterianism is so catholic and so flexible 
that it can provide for all those cases. Let all ministers within cer- 
tain geographical bounds and a ruling elder of each church be the 
members of the Presbytery, and thereby bring together the foreign 
and the native element in the best conceivable manner. We all well 
know the difficulty about appeals and about representation in a dis- 
tant General Assembly such as might be held in China or India. 
Of course our General Assemblies cannot be held in such countries ; 
the idea is absurd. But many of us maintain that this matter of 
representation can be provide^ for incurring this result, and also with- 
out making the ministers members of two Presbyteries, one abroad 
and the other at home. We maintain that it can be provided for by 
certain modifications of our administrativ'e system, not involving any 

change of our principles. • , t -n r 

There are other matters in which diversity exists, but I will refer 
in a few words to only one of them— the recent practice of some of 
the Bible societies in undertaking the work of translating the sacred 
Scriptures. I should like to see this work relepted to the missionary 
boards. It is work to be done by the missionaries, and they had 
better remain on the same footing with their brethren in connection 
with their own boards. At any rate, whether this be so or not, I 
should not like to see any Bible society claiming proprietary rights 
in any translation of the sacred Scriptures abroad. I think that they 
ought to be the common property of the Christian Church and of all 
its institutions. 

But while diversities of opinion and of practice do prevail to some 
extent, yet by friendly conference, by respecting each other’s con- 
scientious convictions, by agreeing to walk together in so far as we 
have attained, much good will be achieved. This Council will hardly 
deem it wise to utter any formal judgment at present as to some of 
these things. I would respectfully suggest that the programme for 
the next meeting might well include some of these leading missionary 
subjects for separate consideration, instead of grouping them in a 
single topic. The fraternal discussion of such questions can result 
only to the advantage of the cause of missions. We need not be- dis- 
couraged by any want of agreement now ; in the end we shall think 
alike, feel alike, and act alike. In the face of the vast unevangelized 
multitudes of our fellow-men, we must unite our forces, and not lose 
power by needless diversities. I conclude these remarks by referring 


629 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


in w ..M grounds of hope and encouragement. First of 

- nf’a r commandment; there we find our basis 

of action and our wyrant for proceeding; secondly, we all recognize 

Chrlt^ard that‘will ^ constraining love and grace of the Lord Jesus 

of the eLth - third I daughters to the ends 

ot the earth , thirdly, we recognize the power of the Holy Spirit as a 

teacher, who will enable us to understand and to see clearly all the 

pertain to the perplexing matters which have occupied 

hone tn fourthly, we shall pray and 

hXe K ® go'fl^ooe of Divine Providence, opening the way 

dtf and ’fhen supporting them and removing all difficuL 

that onr^hl^^ed T™"d misgivings, and be assured 

shSl he W f^rl "““y ‘hat we 

sha be kept faithful even unto death, and blessed is the reward that 

shall await us in heaven. There is nothing on earth I glory in more 
than this union of the broad Presbyterian family in the work of for- 
eign missions. I am old enough to remember when no Presbyterian 
organization was on foot, and when hardly anything was done by some 
ot the denominations which are now among the foremost. I see this 
wonderful change, but greater progress is yet to be made. The world 
is before us to be redeemed for our blessed Lord and Sayiour by means 
of our feeble efforts. 

The Rev. George Robson, of Inverness, Scotland, addressed 
the Council as follows : 


I wish to say in regard to the communication that is on the 
Programme from the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, 
that it had its origin in the fact that the committee of the Synod has 
for several years past been engaged in a somewhat difficult work 
the work of framing a formula for the ordination of ministers, 
and also the work of determining the relation in which mission 
Presbyteries should stand to the church at home. It seemed to 
the committee that any paper which entered into the question 
would require great circumspection and prudence in dealing with 
it. It, perhaps, may be as well to say on this point that the 
subject which the communication will present has been touched 
upon, and perhaps very fully brought out, in the various papers 
which have been read this morning before the Council; and 
therefore it seems unnecessary to say more regarding it than 
just this one thing: that in speaking of the relation of mission 
Presbyteries to the church at home, more stress has been laid 
upon the manner in which their work might be harmonized with 
the administration of the home church, than upon the important 


630 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

point of the manner in which mission Presbyteries may be so 
orcranized as to establish and develop as speedily as possible 
native churches in those mission fields in which mission Presby- 
tcrics exist. 

The Rev. Henry Stout, from Japan, then addressed the 
Council on the subject of co-operation, as follows : 

I believe I am one of the two connected with this Council 
who are able to speak from personal observation concerning co- 
operation on mission grounds. About eight years ago, when the 
old laws against Christianity began to relax in Japan, and mis- 
sionaries from different societies in this country and in Europe 
began to come in large numbers to that country, some of us who’ 
had been there for years already began to consider whether it 
would not be desirable to take such measures as to consolidate 
the efforts of the representatives of mission boards ; and there- 
fore a general call was made for missionaries who were on the 
ground to assemble in convention in September in that year in 
Yokohama. A large number of the representatives of the dif- 
ferent boards came together, and sat in council for several days. 
Perhaps we attempted to do too much, for an endeavor, was 
made to organize such work as should look to the establishment 
of but one great Christian Church in Japan. We overreached the 
mark, and failed as far as that was concerned. But another end 
which was aimed at was accomplished, and that was the estab- 
lishment of a committee for Bible translation, which has done 
noble work. This convention was the first practical outlook 
towards co operation. 

The failure which we experienced caused us to wait until three 
years ago, when another attempt was made of a practical turn, 
whereby the missionaries representing the Presbyterian Church 
of this country, as well as of the Reformed Dutch Church, to- 
gether with the Free Church of Scotland, met together again in 
Yokohama, and the native Church of Japan was established. 
We did not attempt in any way to interfere with the ecclesias- 
tical relations of the missionaries of the different churches. We 
all stand in relation to our various Presbyteries in the position 
of being amenable to them, and to them alone. We have a 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 631 

voice in the Assembly of the native church, and so far we have 
always had a voice; but the native church will correct that 
which we did not properly establish in the beginning. 

The practical and desirable things which we have reached by 
means of this organization I cannot enter into in detail ; but I 
should like to point you to certain features of our work which I 
believe have been a grand success. 

We have been able to establish one common Presbyterian 
Church in Japan instead of three, and there is a native constitu- 
tion of that church — an English translation of which has been 
made. It will not be necessary, and certainly not desirable, for 
me to attempt to read any portion of it to you. It is sound, and 
the church is thoroughly and heartily as orthodox as are its 
triple representative foster parents in this country and in 
Scotland. 

By means of this organization, we have been able to establish 
a common theological school. To illustrate the power and in- 
fluence of this school, allow me to refer you to an experience which 
dates back to the time when it was not yet established. It was 
my privilege to train a young man for the ministry, and so one- 
sided was that training, that he made his gestures and cleared 
his throat in preaching just like his teacher. But that has been 
corrected, and we do not see that one-sided training now which 
was the characteristic of the pupils before. 

Then by means of this common church we are enabled to 
present a formidable front to heathenism, and they respect us. 

I do not claim that the grand results of our church have grown 
out of the small matter of union ; but it is a fact, that while the 
representatives of these three churches do not number more 
than one-fourth of the missionaries on the ground, the results 
of our work are more than half of all that has been accomplished. 

The Rev. M. H. Houston, of Kentucky. — I had the honor of 
being for about seven years a missionary of the Southern Pres^ 
byterian Church in the mighty empire of China. It was my 
pleasure in that district of which our worthy brother. Dr. Lowrie 
has just spoken, to labor side by side with the honored mission- 
aries of his church. I have travelled with those missionaries on 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


632 

the same native boats ; I have gone with them into the streets 
and alleys of the crowded cities of that empire ; I have joined 
with them in preaching the glories of our blessed Lord; and at 
night I have bowed with them and invoked the blessing of our 
common Master upon our common work. And after all our 
labors, we found the Southern Presbyterian Church, through its 
General Assembly, sending out instructions to its missionaries 
in that field to organize a Presbytery composed of foreign mis- 
sionaries and of native churches. Suppose that we had com- 
plied with that instruction from our honored General Assembly, 
what would have been the result ? When I had gone out with 
my Northern brethren, and we had worked together, then the 
converts who, through the grace of God, were made by my 
work, would have been put in the Southern Presbyterian Pres- 
bytery; and the converts made by their work on the same ground 
would have been put into the Northern Presbyterian Presbytery. 
So what did we do ? We overtured the General Assembly to re- 
scind its action, and allow us to dissolve that Presbytery which 
we were enjoined to organize ; and our Assembly was impressed 
with the views which were thus advanced, and gave us the au- 
thority to dissolve. So I thank God that never in the empire 
of China will the unhappy division which has existed between 
the Northern and Southern Presbyterian churches in this land 
be propagated. 

Are the natives in China fit to conduct a Presbytery for them- 
selves ? — is a question that has often been asked. I tell you the 
natives of China are natural born Presbyterians. They have 
their elders all through the empire ; and when they are organ- 
ized into a Presbytery, they as naturally take to Presbyterian 
action as fish take to water. I have had the privilege of sitting 
in a Presbytery out there composed of those native Chinese, and 
have seen one of them act as moderator ; and the members con- 
duct themselves on the floor with as much grace and dignity as 
any moderator I have seen occupy the chair in this Council, and 
with as much ease and fluency as have characterized the utter- 
ances of any member whom I have heard speak upon this floor. 
I have seen them conduct their native Presbytery; and you 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 633 

might as well tell me that the Presbytery to which I have the 
honor to belong, in the State of Kentucky, is not fit to conduct 
its business, as to tell me that these native Chinese Presbyterians 
are not fit to conduct their own affairs.' 

Just put them in their own boat, and they will be self-propa- 
gating, self-governing and self-sustaining Presbyterian churches. 

As to the function of the evangelist which seems to be the 
fundamental point of this matter: Richard Baxter has told us 
that he learned much from the hints to be gathered from the 
Bible. What are the hints to be gathered from the Bible on this 
point ? Titus was sent by the apostle Paul to preach, and Titus, 
a single man, was to ordain elders, so that if Titus could ordain 
elders without any supernatural gift or supernatural power, 1 do 
not see why the missionaries of China or the missionaries to the 
wilds of Africa may not ordain ministers there, even though 
they may be but as a single man in those vast regions of dark- 
ness. If that power has not come down to the missionary now, 

I do not see how a native church ever can be organized where 
there is only one missionary. 

The Rev. Henry Calderwood, LL. D., read the following : 

The United Presbyterian Church, 

At Edinburgh and within the Synod Hall, 
Castle Terrace, May 4fk , 1880. 

The Synod of the United Presbyterian Church met and was con- 
stituted with prayer by the moderator. Ln/er alia, the Synod agreed 
to instruct the deputies whom the Synod is sending this year to the 
Pan-Presbyterian Council in America, to seek an opportunity of con- 
ferring with the representatives of other Presbyterian churches with 
the view of devising measures by which the demand for qualified pro- 
bationers in other lands, and especially in our own colonies, may be 
more systematically provided for ; and to open direct communications 
with the Presbyterian Church of England, and with the Presbyterian 
Churches in the colonies on the same subject. Concluded with prayer. 

Same Place, Miay ^th, 1880. 

The Synod met and was constituted with prayer by the moderator. 
Inter alia, the Synod unanimously agreed to instruct the delegates 
to the General Presbyterian Council that they bring before that Coun- 
cil, in connection with the consideration of missionary questions, the 
question as to the mode in which the missionaries of dilferent churches, 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


634 

laboring in the same or contiguous fields, may be associated with each 
other so as most efficiently to secure, in harmonious co-operation, the 
ends contemplated in missionary work. Concluded with prayer. 

Extracted from the records of Synod, and certified by 

Thomas Kennedy, D. D., Synod Clerk. 

Dr. Calderwood. — The first object the Synod has in view in 
asking this General Council to look at this whole matter, is to 
secure, as far as possible, united effort in the missionary field, so 
that the work may not be distracted by the consideration of our 
separate denominational existence in the Presbyterian churches, 
and that we may all be grouped under one Presbyterian stand- 
ard. The further object is to secure, by the aid of this Coun- 
cil, greater exertion in the missionary field. 

The action proposed to be taken is the adoption of a plan 
whereby all missionaries, whether from America or from Scot- 
land, who are teaching the same principles, can be drawn 
together on the same fields, if they are at all contiguous, and 
form a united Presbytery. The result of such a plan, it is be- 
lieved, will be manifested not only in a more active co-operation 
among the missionaries, but it will be a means of encouragement 
for the native churches. I am simply expressing what I believe 
is the common conviction throughout Scotland, that, if instead 
of separate action, we could thus far have joint action by the 
formation of Presbyteries which shall include equally American 
and Scotch Presbyterians, we should see a much more rapid 
advancement in missionary work, and, at the same time, a 
decided and wiser co-operation. 

My friend. Dr. Hutton, has prepared a motion which he will 
submit to the Council, and I am glad to give way to him for 
this purpose, believing that if there be one direction in which 
this Council can afford to take practical action, it is the direction 
now pointed out, and that, ff there be any matter upon which 
we should claim a final and definite resolution, this is the sub- 
ject upon which we should be prepared to expect such action. 

The Rev. George C. Hutton, D. D., of Scotland. — I am not 
solely responsible for the motion I have prepared to submit to 
the Council ; but I find that it meets the concurrence of many 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 635 

of the brethren who have taken a deep interest in this matter of 
a closer union on the missionary field of the Presbyterian 
laborers. The great aim the motion seeks to attain is that this 
Council shall give a clear and strong expression to its desire in 
this matter; and that this expression should go down to the 
several churches, and there bear the fruit we expect from its 
adoption. 

The resolution is preceded by the preamble : 

I. That the Council is deeply impressed with the importance of 
closer union in the practical work of the mission field among Presby- 
terians, and would regard it as most desirable and timely were the 
churches represented in the Council to adopt such measures, as in 
their wisdom might seem meet, for maturely considering the question 
of the best means of further organizing and unifying Presbyterian 
efforts in the several mission fields in which a plurality of Presbyterian 
missions are contiguously established, in harmony with the interests 
and claims of the parent churches. 

. That the Council, assuming no right to offer suggestions or 
initiate movements in the Churches represented in it, respectfully 
approaches the several churches by the communication of these reso- 
lutions, with the expression of its fraternal, Christian regards, and its 
prayer that the great ends of the common Presbyterianism may be 
increasingly advanced by the work of the several churches both at 
home and in the mission field. 

From the reading of the petition it will be seen that the 
object to be gained is a closer union in the practical work- 
ings of the mission field. There is no desire or intention to 
compromise any of the churches to plans of organic union or 
incorporation at home and in the mission field; but, apart 
from any consideration like that, there is a wide margin in 
which it would be most just to the interests of our common 
Christianity that Presbyterian laborers should come closer 
together in conference, for instance, in the manner referred to, 
and in Presbyterial organization if it be practicable. What the 
friends of the resolution most desire is that this matter should 
go to the churches with the weight of the opinion of this Coun- 
cil. The churches themselves consider it an important matter, 
and a decisive action on the part of this Council will most 
assuredly stimulate and encourage them to consider this im- 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


636 

portant and practical question, particularly if the voice of this 
Council shall go down in such a manner as shall show that the 
Council is impressed with the practical value of the suggestion. 

The resolution itself, I think, is important, because we must 
not awaken the just jealousies of the churches; and in approach- 
ing the churches by communicating the resolution to them I 
think it is proper and necessary that we should distinctly say, 
at this time, that we assume no right whatever, because we are 
a Council, to offer these suggestions or initiate movements, but 
that while we do not claim any right to do this, we can offer 
this resolution in a spirit of Christian fraternity and in the hope 
that the important ends of Presbyterianism may be advanced 
by it. 

I will just add that I was very glad to hear at last that the 
key-note had been struck on the subject of missions. While I 
enjoyed as much as any one could all that I heard upon apolo- 
getics, I was a little wearied with that. I think it is a healthy 
thing now for us to give forth something more clear from this 
conference, than that which arises from an apologetic strain. 
We are here in a spirit of Christian aggression ; we are here in 
a spirit of confidence and courage, assured of the great issue. 
We are not trembling here for the ark of God. We know the 
words of Him in whom we trust, and his words are full of con- 
scious power: “ I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all 
men unto me.” Why should we be troubled about the future 
of Christianity ? Let us thank God for the past ; let us take 
courage. Let us set up our standard here as a united Council, 
so that all the churches may say, “ Hitherto God has helped 
us.” This was the key-note struck by Dr. Paxton; and so let 
us, keeping it up in the same strain, go forward in this work 
with all our churches, with an increasing confidence in the issue; 
and with an assurance that our labor shall not be in vain in the 
Lord. 

I will now read the resolution, which I think will com- 
mend itself to the approbation of the Council : 

The Council, cherishing devout gratitude to God for the success 
which, by his blessing, has attended the foreign mission work of the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 637 

Church, and thankfully recognizing an increasing desire on the part 
of the churches composing this Alliance to co-operate in the work as 
far as practicable, reappoints the committee with instructions to 
collect such further information and frame such suggestions upon 
matters connected with the conduct of foreign mission work as may 
seem to them advisable, and more particularly the relation of mission 
Presbyteries to the home churches, with a view especially to the 
establishment and development of native churches, and the best 
methods of promoting co-operation both at home and abroad in the 
prosecution of the missionary enterprise. 

The resolution was referred to the Business Committee. 

The Council then adjourned with the usual devotional exer- 
cises. 


Thursday, September y:>th, 1880. 2.30 p. m. 

The Council was called to order in the Academy of Music at 
2.30 p. M., by John Hanson, Esq., of Antrim, Ireland, President. 

After devotional services, the Rev. Dr. Boggs, of Atlanta, 
Georgia, said : Will you receive the following resolution for 
reference to the Business Committee : 

Resolved, That this Council respectfully recommend to the com- 
mittee having charge of ’the programme for the next Council, that 
they carefully consider the expediency of giving a still larger share of 
the time of that Council to a fuller handling of the great cause of 
foreign missions. 

I move that this be referred to the Business Committee, and 
the reason for it is this : It seems as if the lines of God’s provi- 
dence were directing us to the great problem of Foreign Missions 
as probably the first practical cause that this Council will be 
able to handle to any direct issue. I feel in behalf of the Pres- 
byterian family, that after this Council shall have met several 
times, and many hundreds of men have travelled thousands of 
miles, and spent a great deal of money to attend it, the question 
will arise. What practical ends are you subserving ? I trust a 
great many practical ends will be subserved in the providence 
of God ; but it seems to me very desirable for the future success 
of the scheme that is before u.s, that we should find, as soon as 
possible, a thread of divine direction that leads toward some- 


63S THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

thing that can be done; and that people can see. For that reason 
I beg to send that resolution to the committee. 

The resolution was so referred. 

The Rev. Professor Herrick Johnson, D. D., of Chicago, 
111., read the following paper on 

THE PROPER CARE, SUPPORT AND TRAINING OF CAN- 
DIDATES FOR THE MINISTRY. 

We have hardly realized the proper care, support and training yet. 
For proof, see the ministry itself. Some are in the ministry that 
ought to be out. Some are in with inadequate mental equipment and 
discipline. We have ministers who are able to work but not willing, 
and ministers who are willing to work but not fit. ^ Let us be entirely 
candid. There is a flaw somewhere in our education machinery. 

Beyond a doubt, this evil has been grossly exaggerated. The com- 
mon, flippant and shameful talk about “ordained dunces” and min- 
isterial “dead-weights” has had only the most meagre occasion, and 
not the least justification. On the other hand, while men are men, 
infallibility will not be reached in this care and training of candidates. 
Occasionally, unfitness will slip through. The best plan possible will 
not give us absolute perfection in results. 

Nevertheless, something possible of remedy is the matter with our 
machinery. We may find, moreover, that the trouble is deeper than 
this — that something is wrong in our inner spirit and posture. 

In the judgment of many of the best minds of the Church on both 
continents, there is a decline in the attraction of the ministry for 
young men of promise and power ; and a deficiency in the number of 
such who are entering the ministerial ranks. Steadily on this conti- 
nent the roll of candidates has been lessening for the last decade. 
Some branches of the Church are scarcely filling the vacancies made 
by death. While a distinguished clergyman in public place has 
recently declared that “ there are to-day hundreds of ministers in our 
country who ought to be at tent-making earning their bread ; but who 
are wandering, up and down the church, beseeching support ; thus 
degrading themselves in their own eyes, and degrading the ministry 
in the eyes of all.” 

Abate the force of these statements what we will, on the score of 
pessimism or rhetorical extravagance, they leave us face to face with 
unmistakable signs and tokens of evil. They should compel us to 
weigh well the recent warning words of England’s chief Christian 
statesman. “ No Church can stand,” says Gladstone, “ whose priests 
or ministers do not possess the highest respect of the people. I would 
be glad to see the best men in England taking orders. If there is 
any sign of dissolution in the Church of Rome, it is, perhaps, the 
inferiority of her priesthood. Usually they are men of very moderate 
ability. Better men than these are needed to build in our time.'' 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 639 

Confronted with these things, the need of better workmen than 
builders of the mediocre sort, the lessened attraction of the ministry 
to men of promise and power, and the steadily diminishing number 
of candidates, what is the Church of God going to do about it ? In 
considering what the Church ought to do about it, we are sure to be 
only at the surface of the subject by merely determining rules of over- 
sight, amount of support, and a curriculum of study. If we will but 
go deep enough we shall find some things related to, and compre- 
hended in, any proper care and training far more vital and funda- 
mental than machinery, and, if ignored, making the best care and 
training impossible. 

Uhurch must be more pervasively and profoundly 

In another than the scriptural sense, ‘^as with the people so with 
the priest.^’ This may express not only relation of likeness, but of 
cause and effect. And while a godly ministry will make a godly 
Church, it is equally true that a godly Church will produce a godly 
ministry. The trouble with our candidates is a half-consecrated 
Church. A worldly Church, practically preferring the enjoyments 
of this world, withholding her best activities from spiritual service, 
and giving -to the Lord only the merest inconsiderable fragments of 
her time and talent and substance, will never give the choicest of 
her sons to the ministry. The brilliant and gifted offspring will have 

other plans and investments made for them by ambitious parents 

plans and investments promising better returns of worldly wealth and 
honor and social distinction. When the Church shall walk close 
with God, and be filled with the divine fulness, so as to count nothing 
her own, and so as to hold service for Christ the peerless honor, then 
she will be willing to take the brightest and best jewels from her house- 
hold caskets, and yield them in joyful and absolute dedication, 
saying, ^‘Anywhere, Lord ; even in the ends of the earth.” 

With the best sons of the Church thus given to the ministry in 
proud and grateful joy, we may be sure those sons, as they should 
grow toward manhood, would come to count it an undying honor to 
go and preach Christ's gospel. Although their senses might be swept 
by vast material gains and proud political preferments, and the subtle 
attractions of science and art and journalism, these would be nothing 
in their esteem to the glories of Christian ambassadorship ; and the 
lessened attraction of the ministry to men of promise and power would 
be a thing of the past. 

II. Next to a deeper spirituality we place the need of a prevalent and 
profound conviction that the call to the ministry is directly and distinc- 
tively of God; i. <?., that it is the inward moving of the Holy Ghost, 
immediate, personal and effectual, having in it a kind of imperious and 
compelling violence, and widely differencing the call to the ministry 
from calls to occupations solely of man and pertaining to time. God 
by his Spirit calls to a spiritual office ; God by his providence calls to 
an ordinary occupation. Paul was not called to tent-making as he 


640 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

was called to preach. It was not his fitness, or taste, or circumstances, 
or any considerations of greater usefulness that based his “ Woe is 
unto me ; ” it was Gol s call: I must preach.” 

Surrounding and favoring circumstances, sense of adaptation, con- 
siderations of usefulness, any and all providential indications— these 
may be incidents and attendants instrumental, as used by the Spirit. 
But these are not the call, nor are they the direct and efficient cause 
of the conviction in any true case that one ought to preach. That is 
born of Him to whom we are commanded to pray that he will thrust 
or hurl forth laborers into his harvest. 

That this has been the view of the Church in all her best ages and 
branches, history shows. History as clearly shows that just as this 
idea has been lost sight of, have worldliness and corruption crept in, 
carrying either to the extreme of sacerdotalism, ministers made to 
order and regardless of character, by a certain sacred something 
dripped through infallible human fingers ; or to the opposite extreme 
of license and the purest naturalism, ministers at will, by self-consti- 
tution, like shoemakers and carpenters. Hence the charge of Chrys- 
ostom, that men “were selected to the priestly dignity for causes 
which ought to have prevented them from passing. over the pavements 
of the church.” Apd hence, farther on in the centuries, the lament 
of Leigh Richmond, “the national Church groans and bleeds from 
the crown of its head to the sole of its feet from the daily intrusion 
of unworthy men into tlie ministry.” 

Let the Church, therefore, re-state and emphasize and stamp upon 
her consciousness and compel all her sons to the conviction, that it 
is Christ’s exclusive prerogative to call and send by the Holy Ghost ; 
that no one is to enter the sacred office who can stay out of it, since 
whom God calls to preach will be gotten to preach, though he be first 
landed in some belly of hell, like Jonah, until he repent and give the 
call heed ; that any candidate stepping toward the ministry to declare 
himself an ambassador of the Most High, so that it shall be as if God 
spake by him and he were in his King’s stead, must hold a commission 
consciously from his divine sovereign, or be guilty of blasphemous 
assumption. Luther’s words are not one whit too strong, as the voice 
of the Church to all her sons: “Await God’s call. Meantime 
be satisfied. Yea, though thou wert wiser than Solomon and Daniel, 
yet, unless thou art called, avoid preaching as thou wouldst hell 
itself. ’ ’ 

The bearing of all this on the quality and quantity of candidates 
is apparent. What patience, courage, constancy, and mighty effective- 
ness must be born of the conviction of being called of God! And 
what fitness, adaptation, and superb possibilities of ministerial char- 
acter must be in the men so called ! God makes no mistakes. 

III. But there is still a third necessity lying back of any question 
of mere machinery — the necessity on the part of the Church of a deep 
and wide-spread persuasion that if she would have candidates of the 
right sort, she mmtlray for them, a God-called ministry being a gift of 
God to the Church solely in answer to prayer. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


641 

It must be confessed that supply for the ministry has been left too 
much to ecclesiastical machinery and market law. But by all Scrip- 
ture it is decidedly not a matter of ecclesiastical machinery. It is not 
to be regulated by a market law. 

The prevalent talk about our having too many ministers is prepos- 
terous and suicidal. It has its base in a mischievous error. If allowed 
to continue without arrest or rebuke, it will play havoc with our 
evangelistic effectiveness. The mischievous error is that the number 
of churches should be regulative of the number of ministers , on the 
theory that the churches make the demand, and should, therefore, de- 
termine the supply. Now, as there are -sometimes many ministers 
seeking a vacant church, and as there are some ministers without em- 
ployment, it is held that the supply is greater than the demand. 
Hence the cry, too many ministers ! ” He^ce labored and elaborate 
articles in the effort to break the force of this cry by marshaling statis- 
tics and arraying figures and footing up columns to show that we have 
a few more churches than we have ministers ! As if this were a matter 
of aritlimetic instead of conscience! As if our action were to be 
determined by a commercial law rather than by Christ’s command- 
ment ! 

First and last and midst and always while any great harvest stands 
in this world, the Church is faced with this explicit order from Christ, 
made doubly emphatic by its repetition : “ Pray ye the Lord of the 
harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.” What busi- 
ness have vacant churches with us here? With, hundreds of millions 
still without the gospel, with every continent crowded with the un- 
saved, instead of talking about too many ministers, the Church of 
God should be on her knees praying for more. She cannot stop that 
prayer and obey her Lord. 

Demand ? Yes. If we put the demand where Christ put it. Did 
he say, “Behold, the number of vacant churches is great, and the 
laborers to supply them are few? ” Did that cry from Macedonia, to 
which the Holy Spirit gave a voice, come from companies of organ- 
ized believers with unoccupied cushioned pulpits and salaries and par- 
sonages ? Or was it from a church-less, pulpit-less, shepherd-less field, 
dumb as to its woful need, because unconscious of it? Is' there no 
such dumb, unconscious cry to be heard to-day, that we stand figuring 
up our columns of ministers and churches, and striking the balance 
between them, to see whether we shall not call a temporary halt to 
this business of ministerial supply? If we already have ministers who 
are not at work — who would rather be idle than preach self-denyingly, 
or who would better be idle than preach at all — the fact is sad enough 
and bad enough. But it is no argument for less ministers. It should 
send us to God for another kind. We may be sure these were not the 
gift of God in answer to prayer. May they not have been born of 
just this low theory of supply and demand, having entered the minis- 
try with the undisturbed conviction that vacancies in well-appointed 
pulpits were the only demand they were expected to meet ? 

41 


642 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


We have thus far spoken of what seems to us as deeper and more 
vital than any mere improvement of ministerial education machinery. 
Nevertheless, we believe most hearti’ly in perfecting our machinery. 
We therefore pass on to say,, 

IV. Fourthly, the Church must make far more of hef direct watch 
and care. 

It must be confessed she has made almost nothing of it with respect 
to many of her candidates. And even when they have been formally 
taken under the care of a Presbytery, the act has often been such a 
mere meaningless form, so like a solemn farce, as to make it doubtful 
whether it were not more honored in the breach than in the observ- 
ance. The candidate is perhaps received by Presbytery while in his 
academic course, and he may never hear of the Presbytery again, and 
the Presbytery never beaj* of him, until application is made years 
afterwards for licensure. Through all his progress up to that very 
gateway into the ministry, he has been to the Presbytery little else 
than “ as a heathen man and a publican.” ■ 

We believe the following provisions would greatly serve the pur- 
poses of oversight and discipline, and tend to arrest incompetency 
and stimulate fidelity : 

1. Let it be a law of the Church that every one of her sons, with- 
out exception, just as soon as he is known to have the ministry in 
view, and whether needing aid or not, shall be placed under the care 
of Presbytery as a ministerial candidate. 

2. Let each Presbytery’s committee on education be charged with 
the direct and special oversight of all candidates under that Presby- 
tery’s care. • 

3. Let it be the imperative duty of that committee to secure each 
year, directly from the proper officer or teacher in academy, college, 
or seminary, a report of the scholarship and general standing and 
character of the candidates, and submit the same to the Presbytery. 

4. If the candidate be a beneficiary of the board of education, let 
the committee secure from that board also annual report of general 
scholarship for submission to Presbytery. 

5. Let each candidate be required to appear before Presbytery, 
either ‘in person or by letter, once a year, and liimself give account 
of his progress and experience. 

With care thus exercised three things would be secured : 

First, on the part of the Presbytery, a pretty accurate knowledge 
of the candidate’s fidelity and efficiency. And the best of opportu- 
nity for any needed admonition or encouragement, or for entire arrest 
of study in view of manifest unfitness. 

Secondly, on the part of the Presbytery, a personal interest in and 
sympathy with the candidates, as they should step toward the ministry. 

Thirdly, on the part of the candidates, a sense of responsibility, 
and a constant reminder that they were already in special trust and 
relation, as called of God to special service. 

V. The next and fifth point that suggests itself for consideration is 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 643 

the support of our ministerial candidates. What shall it be ? To this 
there are four possible answers ; 

1. Lei the candidates have m support at all. The struggle it costs 
to work one’s way through is a good test and sifter; will toughen 
fibre, give us better candidates, lead to self-reliance, and ability to 
endure hardness. 

The sufficient answer to this is that no father, however stoutly he 
might avow such view, would ever apply the logic to his own son. If 
he had means to help him into the ministry, he would fling his theory 
to the winds, and risk all damage to his boy. 

2. Let the catididates all have support^ whether needed or not. 

The only argument for this position is, that “ it is most desirable 
to get rid of the discrimination of candidates— between those who 
are on the board of education and those who are not. . . . The dan- 
ger is great of the high-toned among our young men being chilled 
and driven off.” 

To this there are two fatal objections. First, it would furnish the 
strange anomaly of taking from the scanty incomes and hard earnings 
of the godly poor of our churches, contributed to this cause in pinching 
self-denial, and giving to a candidate for the ministry, who confess- 
edly has no need whatever, and doing this on the sole plea that “ he 
had better receive an appropriation, and use it himself for the Lord.” 

Secondly, it would be fostering a spirit in our candidates that ought 
the rather to be utterly cast out. The sort of '' high-toned ” men 
that would abandon all thought of the ministry sooner than suffer the 
dispimination coming from an honorable poverty, by taking aid 
which the Church is only glad to furnish, are the sort of “high- 
toned” men that are not wanted in the ministry. The sooner they 
are “chilled and driven off,” the better. 

It is true the brow of the Church has had occasion once or twice to 
redden with the memory of unfulfilled obligations to her candidates ; 
but it is also true that she has been mainly considerate of her trust to 
them, and that she holds them in loving and loyal esteem, as among 
her choicest sons, to help whom she counts an honor and an obliga- 
tion. This being so, the pride that kicks at the discrimination in- 
volved in the beneficiary system is a weakness to be condemned, not 
a feeling to be indulged and nursed. 

3. Let the support be according to scholarship, ascertained by co?npef- 
itive examinations, only candidates attaining to a certain standard re- 
ceiving aid. 

The great, and, in onr view, fatal objection to this is, that it is lift- 
ing scholarly attainment to supreme place, as the test of fitness for the 
ministry. It leaves out of view qualities of character, natural and 
spiritual, which are often more determinative of fitness than any mere 
intellectual gifts. Brain is not all that God honors in Christian am- 
bassadorship. The kingdom of heaven is not built chiefly by it, any 
more than it is built chiefly in it. Heart, as well as brain, God wants 
— will-power, tact, gifts of administration, and a glowing and grow- 


644 the PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

ing spirituality. And the test of these is not a competitive examina- 
tion. 

4 . Let the support be according to the need of the candidate^ the max- 
imum appropmatiofi being far within the limits that would encourage 
anything like luxury or loose expenditure. 

Such a support commends itself to common sense, is indicated by 
experience, has given to some branches of our Church the half of 
their effective ministerial force, and is open to objections only as they 
lie not against the basis of appropriation, but against the method of 
it. Free the method from everything needlessly trying to the most 
delicate sensitiveness not born of pride and the devil, and then ap- 
propriation according to need clearly stands as “ the proper ” support 
of our candidates for the ministry. 

VI. We reach now the proper training of candidates — the last 
point demanding our consideration. 

In this matter our unquestionable and conspicuous aim should be to 
work with the best possible material, and to secure the best possible 
results. Whatever God may do in his sovereignty with weak things, 
we have no right to chose them or to count on them, but out of their 
weakness either to prove their unfitness or to bring forth strength. 

There are five things we believe the Church should do : 

1 . See to it that the colleges, with which we have controlling connec- 
tion, are the able and harmonious adjuncts of our faith and the embodi- 
ment of our best thought on this matter of higher education. They 
should be supplied with the widest facilities for scientific, philosophic, 
and literary research, and with that varied and profound scholarship 
in their chairs of instruction which alone can make Christian colleges 
greatly serviceable either to Christianity or culture. And then all our 
candidates should be put at these institutions. 

2 . Stop short cuts to the ministry. Short cuts lead to short stops ; 
i. e., to “stated supplies.” And commonly because supplies are 
short. It is surprising the number of young men without a college 
education, somewhat advanced in years, up well into the twenties and 
sometimes even thirties, often married and with child or children, 
who get possessed with the idea that they ought to study for the min- 
istry. Two things we think should be done with these applicants for 
short cuts. 

First, dissuade them, if possible. In ninety, if not ninety-nine, cases 
out of a hundred they would better keep to trade or plow or handi- 
craft. If they are stirred with unwonted zeal for God, they can show 
it there. The probabilities are that if God had wanted to make 
preachers of them, he would have started them en route before their 
minds were measurably formed, and their habits fixed, and their 
households established, and their thorough intellectual training and 
equipment made almost impossible. Their failure to get on in secular 
^affairs, often taken as God’s way of hedging up their path, and a 
reason why they should enter the ministry, is more often a reason why 
they should stay out of it. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


645 


eral^Assembl^ ^ committee be constituted by the Gen- 

Ghnrrh T ^ ^o each branch of the 

Sd an equa °‘' f™™ “ch seminary 

mittee to orena^ a " """'f*”" > °f ‘h^t com- 

Tverrcandidato ma^ """"“r ^’^^‘"'mation paper to be submitted' to 
who cannot shnur for admission to any seminary, 

TxaminaZ on ,Ir ^ f ^ "’nt^n 

mittee to he rl,e^- h* paj^rto be the condition of entrance, the com- 
T m.Ll ^ the standard of success. 

sLZZJZ7aT^f‘'' “ "'P' 

four vS-s”nf ee ^ ^ArWirz-if, three years seminary course, to 

ne vrcations of fi ““"ths study each. Then let the three interven- 
Prlsbvtoria? anrl^n he devoted to practical work under 

anmch and h.sr ^ '"''n '“P^tvision, this being made a law of the 

C urch, and just as much a part of the training for every candidate 
without exception, as the curriculum of study. Let it be und“d 
of his^P ”?.th*s whole matter shall be subject to the direction 

exhortation ^an'n’ ’ put him into active service of visitation, 
exhortation, and general evangelism every vacation, unless there be 
imperative reason to the contrary. ’ 

P'’®‘^^‘“' training is either wholly wanting now, or it is had in 
such loose, independent and irresponsible way as to be little worth 
It would be of inestimable value in fitting our young men for the first 
and tryng responsibilities of the pastorate, and would take away every 
fhaT" <:«■; ‘he statement recently made in hlgh'pTace! 

-utterlt dfeHT^ir*""'^'' ‘h^ seminary an imLcil^ 

Utterly dazed by the great realities about him.” 

5. P 7 'ovtde htgJur education for those who sho7V special aptitude for 

euZi^iZd' I K training /nd spe 4 l 
ftrurZ 11 " ’’a^ preachers, to occupy her chairs if in- 

liitoinT to “f ®^™‘"^7-™en who shall have leisure and 

learning to make profound and protracted investigations in their 

deSiisofX^f P’’"''® ‘h^ ®hle and scholarly 

wnriH of i faith, challenging the respect and confidence of the 
“t^holars for their splendid endowments and acquisitions. 
nL° i ‘ hiur fellowships established in each semi- 

ary each yielding sufficient income for two years of additional study 

s«t5rr"; >• ~i. y.». » ,.j 

In closing this paper we would express our persuasion of the vast 
pportance of the topic under discussion. It has to do with the 
inmost life of the aiurch of God. What she does with her candidates 
for the ministry, they will do with her future. We reaffirm our con- 
viction that the root of any difficulty or defect in their care, support 
and training is in the spirit and posture of the Church. We believe 
a e way to the choicest candidates and to their best care and 
training is through a consecrated church, believing in a God-called 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


646 

ministry, willing that her choicest sons should be called, and praying 
daily, while the great harvest stands waiting for laborers, that the 
Lord would call, heedless utterly of the prop<^rtion or disproportion 
between her vacant pulpits and her commissioned ministers. 

And yet we are confident the hour has fully come when we must 
have a plan of training, through and through which shall be convinc- 
ing sign and proof that we mean to glorify cansecrated scholarship and 
disgrace goodish illiteracy. 

The Rev. J. Marshall Lang, D. D., of Glasgow, Scotland, 
read the following paper on 

CHURCH ORDER AND CHURCH LIFE. 

The famous sentence of Irenaeus, ^Nbi Ecclesia^ ibi et spBitus 
cannot unreservedly be accepted. It must not be taken as a 
definition. Before we attach to it the force even of a maxim, we 
must be careful as to the meaning attached to the Ecclesia. If Ave 
regard that simply as the communion of believers who acknowledge 
the supreme authority of Jesus Christ and keep his sacraments, the 
saying is only the condensed testimony of the Lord himself. But its 
author meant more than this. He is the first exponent of the hier- 
archical system ; and, although he adds ^^Ubi spiritus Dei illic Eccle- 
sia,'' he maintains that relation to this hierarchical system is necessary 
to participation in the gifts of the Holy Ghost. ‘‘It is only at the 
breast of the Church,” he argues, “that man can be nursed to life. 
He cannot partake of the Holy Spirit who takes not refuge in the 
Church. He who separates himself from the Church renounces the 
fellowship of the Holy Spirit.” 

The dictum of the Latin father, however, contains a truth which is 
valuable as a protest against what may be called the hyper-spiritual 
conception of the Church. Wisely have the Reformed Confessions 
distinguished between the ideal or invisible and the actual or visible 
Church. But in all periods, and certainly not least in our OAvn, there 
has been manifest a tendehcy to separate between order and life — to 
view the one as in some measure the repression of the other, as a hin- 
drance to the spontaneous development of the Christian consciousness. 
Sometimes, as in countries *in which the Papacy has been paramount, 
this tendency marks the reaction against an oppressive authority. 
But it is found, more or less, in all Protestant communities : one of 
its most striking expressions being that Plymouthism, with which, on 
both sides of the ocean, we are familiar. Now, the contention to 
which the maxim I have quoted invites us is, that an external organi- 
zation, “fitly joined together and compacted,” is essential to the 
manifold diversity and the full power of the spiritual life in the souls 
of men. “ Order is truth.’* Life cannot live apart from truth. 


* “ Irenseus,” adv. Haer. L. iii. cap. xxiv. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


647 

This we are taught by the analogy of nature. Life must have its form. 
It ])roduces^ forms. Difficult to define, we can only explain life to be 
force organized. More than rhis, every species of existence has its fore- 
ordained type or constitution. Every seed has its own body. Tree 
and herb, plant and flower, have each their definite form. The human 
frame is provided for the growth of the human being. It is the law 
of creation that fruit is brought forth after its kind. God is one in all 
his works. If the Church of the Lord Jesus is a new creation, we 
may expect that a polity or order has been })rovided within w'hich, or 
according to which, the life received through the Holy Ghost makes 
increase to the edifying of the Church in love. 

Let us maintain — I desire, indeed, at the outset to emphasize — that 
spiritual life is not to be regarded as dependent on, or w'holly subor- 
dinate to, ecclesiastical order. The symbol is not necessary to the 
grace. In the work of the blessed Spirit, there is that which always 
reminds us of the sovereignty of God. “ The wind bloweth where it 
listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof: but canst not tell whence 
it cometh or whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the 
Spirit.” During the ministry of our Lord, the disciples interdicted 
one who was casting out devils, but was not a follower of Christ. 
“Forbid him not,” said the Master. For, indeed, the kingdom of 
heaven was before the Church ; and Christ is wider than the Church. 
“ That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into 
the world.” But, although the outward ordinance is not the life — is 
not even indispensable to the life— it is necessary to its full and sus- 
tained actioo. The soul is more than the body, but the body, with 
its organs, is required for the operations of the soul in this earthly 
state: a body, with some organs, is required for its operations in any 
state.^ And such is the relation of the Church, as an ecclesiastical 
constitution, to the life of God in man. The spiritual is not subor- 
dinate to the ecclesiastical : the ecclesiastical is subservient to the spir- 
itual ; and, as has well been shown, “/to is the best and soundest 
condition of a church on earth when an external organization, healthy 
and co-mplete in all its parts, most freely and fully displays the work- 
ing of a divine life within — neither, by an excess of laws and cere- 
monies, causing the true spirit to be lost sight of in adherence to the 
form ; nor, by an opposite defect and want of forms, preventing the 
spirit, from its very spirituality, from being apprehended by ordinary 
men ; nor, by unauthorized, unsound, or questionable observances and 
rules, giving erroneous views of Christian doctrine, hindering the 
healthy action of Christian feeling, unduly fettering Christian liberty, 
or distorting the fair proportions of Christian truth, which it is the 
office of the Church to cherish and make known.” * 

The stand-point assumed in this paper having thus been given, our 
first topic naturally is, the order or polity which the Lord has j)rovided 
for his Church. And with reference to this matter, our authority — 


*Dr. Jacob’s “Ecclesiastical Polity of the New Testament,” p. 19. 


648 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


and our sole authority — is the New Testament. I repeat, our sole 
authority. The advocates of the hierarchical principle, for one lock 
to the New Testament, give three looks to the Nicene period— to the 
third and fourth centuries of the Christian era. Nor is this to be 
wondered at ; for it is there that the hierarchy meets our view with 
something of the consistency of a system. We must cast our eye 
back to the time of the apostles, and limit our inquiry to the rule im- 
posed by them, or to the practises which grew under their supervision, 
if they did not formally receive their sanction. They were the 
founders of the Church.- They were, to use a phrase of Dr. Stough- 
ton, ^^super-ecclesiastical, directors ab extra, rather than ministers ab 
intra.''"^ Their office was unique: their illumination was sufficient 
for their office. They had received the word and the sacraments ; 
the commission, the power, and the purposes of the society had been 
declared. From the lips of their Lord, in his solemn conference with 
h’is Father before he suffered, had been heard the ideal of the society, 
and the oneness of the faith, the unity of its life. For all that belonged 
to the ordering of the house, the promise was, ‘‘the Spirit whom I 
will send will guide you into all truth.” Hence the authority which 
in them Christians are summoned to recognize. They sit on thrones, 
judging the tribes of God’s Israel. 

Yet it is right that we should observe the limits of their authority. 
It may be overstated. It has sometimes been overstated by Protes- 
tants. " When the Puritans {e. gl) contended that “ the word of God 
containeth the direction of all things pertaining to the Church,” f 
they assumed a ground which cannot be maintained. Many things 
are not directed. As to many things, we may surely conclude that 
the Lord’s will is, that we follow the teaching of his Spirit enlighten- 
ing our reason as to what is wise and right in the circumstances special 
to each period, country, or church. More judicious is the saying of 
Hooker, that “ the principles Scripture setteth down are not few and 
the examples many which it proposeth for all church government, even 
in particularities, to follow.” J Examples do not enjoin— they sug- 
gest applications of principles ; and in this way the New Testament 
is a light to our path in all things. But we must not make the apos- 
tles’ rule more strict and exact than they themselves invite us to do. 
We must distinguish between what is obligatory and what is discretion- 
ary ; we must recognize the latitude which their example recom- 
mends ; and allow for what Archbishop Whately has distinguished as 
“ the omissions in the New Testament.” 

Well, then, what strikes the candid student of the apostolic polity, 
as sketched in the books of the Acts and the Epistles, is the simple 
and general character of both the ritual and the government indicated. 
We are not introduced to a system or determinate form ; we are intro- 
duced to an outline merely, the details of which are left to the judg- 


* “ Ecclesia,” p. 1 1. f Cartwright’s “ Reply,” p. 14. 

Ecclesiastical Polity,” Book III., cap. 4. Keble’s ed. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


649 


merit of Christians. Enough, and only enough, we might say, to 
fulfil the ends of the Christian society. The synagogue, it is often 
urged, is the model of the Church of the first century; and, un- 
doubtedly, the correspondence between the Christian order and . the 
officers and regulations of the synagogue amply warrants the assertion 
but, if it is so, this is because the constitution of the synagogue was 
the natural expression of the aims and idea of such a communion as 
the Christian. f A moment’s attention to the position of the Church, 
immediately after Pentecost, will show that the order subsequently 
established was the necessary fruit and effect of the life. “ They con- 
tinued steadfastly,” it is stated, “ in the apostles’ doctrine and fellow- 
ship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. “Doctrine” or 
teaching implies teachers; “fellowship” implies rule and discipline; 
“breaking of bread and prayers imply the conduct of worship and 
administration of ordinances. Thus, the offices required for each 
assembly of Christians were mainly two : teachers who should commu- 
nicate the doctrine of the apostles, interpret in worship the conscious- 
ness of believers, overseeing and admonishing that they “ might 
present every man perfect in Christ Jesus; ” and adfuinis/rators who 
should take charge of the common-wealth and the charities, along 
with the more secular affairs, of the community. Behold the two 
great spheres of the stated Christian ministry. It is admitted by the 
most competent scholars, whatever their ecclesiastical views, that in 
the New Testament there is no distinction of grade between the Epis- 
copus and the Presbyter,* the one term marking the office and the 
other the status of the same person, “ Idem est ergo Presbyter qui 
Episcopus,” says Jerome. § It is not necessary that I should trace 
the growth of prelacy ; sufficient for my purpose to insist that, in the 
first century when the impress of the apostles’ mind was directly felt, 
the two categories or orders of church government were the presbyter 
and the deacon. I prefer to speak of these as categories, because 
there was often a college of presbyters at the head of a local society, 
and of this college there were some who labored more especially in 
word and doctrine and some who ruled rather than taught ; whilst, 
under the one term deacon, were included both deacons and deacon- 


* Vitringa “ On the Synagogue.” See also a most interesting statement of Light- 
foot : Heb. and Talmud, heirest. in Matt, iv, 23. 

I Bishop Lightfoot, in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians, p. 190, 
says, Christian congregations in Palestine long continued to be designated by this 
name of synagogue. With the synagogue itself they would naturally, if not neces- 
sarily, adopt the normal government of a synagogue; and a body of elders or pres- 
byters would be chosen to direct the religious worship, and partly also to watch 
over the temporal well-being of the society.” 

J Acts ii. 42. • 

^ Comm, in Titus. Very interesting the words which follow ; “Anteqiiam diaboli 
instinctu studia in religione fierent, et diceretur in populis, ego sum Pauli, ego 
Apollo; ego autem Cephae, communi presbyterorum ancilio ecclesise gubernabantur. 
Postquam vero unus quisque eos, quos baptizaverat, suos putabat esse non Chns'i, in 
toto orbe decretum est ut unus de presbyieris electus superponeretus ceteris ad queni 
oiiuiiS ecclesiae cura pertmuit.” 


6s o 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


esses. It does not appear that there was an absolute uniformity in 
churches ; in those which looked to Jerusalem, so long presided over 
by James, the Lord’s brother, there may have been one practice; in 
those organized by St. Paul, another; probably, in the Eastern 
churches under the direction of St. John there was, first, the recogni- 
tion of one of the presbyters as the Angel of the congregation. But 
in all there was a unity of type, and in all, the main arteries of min- 
istry were those already indicated. 

That no hard and inelastic rule was imposed on the assemblies of 
Christians in the period under review is evident from the descrijuion 
in the epistles of St. Paul of that ministry of gifts which developed, 
not in opposition to but in harmony with the ministry of order. 
There were, it would appear, extraordinary functions^ represented only 
in a few persons who, like the apostles, occupied a special position. 
Such were the prophets and evangelists mentioned in the Epistle to the 
Ephesians. But in the western churches, the manifestations of the 
Spirit were marked by a fulness and diversity of charism sketched in 
the memorable words: “To one is given by the Spirit the word of 
wisdom ; to another, the word of knowledge by the same Spirit ; to 
another, faith by the same Spirit ; to another, the gifts of healing by 
the same Spirit ; to another, the working of miracles by the same 
Spirit; to another, prophecy; to another, discerning of spirits; to 
another, divers kinds of tongues; to another, the interpretation of 
tongues; all working that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to 
every man severally as he will.”* These delegations of spiritual 
power were, in many cases, associated with the imposition of the 
apostles’ hands. But this imposition was not invariably the symbol 
of the conveyance. What we are led to infer is that, in the bright 
morning-time of Christianity, the expression of the spiritual conscious- 
ness was more various and striking than in any subsequent era. It 
may be that we see not the same signs, because the temperature of the 
church in faith and love is colder. Be that as it may, the position 
with which I am concerned is, that, far from any interdict being laid 
on this expression, far from its being regarded as incompatible with 
the order of Christ’s house, every Christian was reminded that what- 
ever gift he possessed was to be used for the edifying of the body of 
Christ ; and the care of the apostles was only that there might be no 
worship of mere display, no coveting of endowments which were 
remarkable rather than useful, and that all faculties of speech or work 
should be exercised in a seemly manner, in subordination to the 
recognized authority — this, the general principle, “Let all things 
be done decently and in order.” 

In the course of years, this ministry of gifts gradually fades from 
sight. Probably, it was abused ; and the action of the regular church 
ministries became the source of real spiritual instruction. It is the 
dream of some — no more than a dream — that such a ministry might 


* I Corinthians xii. 8-II. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 651 

be, should be, the only Christian ministry. Those in whom this fond 
imagination is powerful reject the teaching of history subsequent to 
the New Testament epoch : wiser and soberer minds will lay that 
teaching to heart, will remember that what is spontaneous in one 
epoch will not always bear to be a rule for future years, and realize, 
that a duly ordered ministry is needful to the regulation of spiritual 
force and to the tempering of the spiritual body together. 

Time will not admit of more than a passing reference to the conse- 
quences to the Christian Church of the downfall of Jerusalem, and, 
with that, the destruction of the temple and the temple system. On 
the one hand, this event tended to the establishment of that catho- 
licity which St. Paul, as against those, headed perhaps by St. Peter, 
to whom the temple was still the house of God, claimed for the Chris- 
tian faith and discipline. On the other hand, however, it increased 
the risk from which Christianity had never been free, of introducing 
the sestheticism, the sacerdotalism, the elaborate government of the 
temple into the assembly of believers. The temptation to revert to 
the ‘‘pattern shown in the mount” had, from the first day of the 
church, been recognized as part of the fight of faith for Jewish Chris- 
tians; and the Epistle to the Hebrews, in addition to those of St. Paul, 
is a monument of the earnest contention on this subject of the more 
liberal Christian mind. When the temple disappeared, an additional 
impetus was given to the effort to reproduce in Christianity its vener- 
able and imposing associations. Another influence — that of the 
paganism with which the church was brought into conflict— also con- 
tributed to a change in the character pi the church’s ministration. It 
is difficult to decide which of these two influences was the stronger.* 
But the leaven of Judaism was rendered all the more insidious when 
it ceased to be an^ organized system. And so it was that, by the 
third century, the Christian ministry had come to be represented as a 
priesthood, an order standing between God and the faithful, offering 
sacrifices and pronouncing absolutions. The hierarchy, with all which 
gathers around it, is manifest as having root and spreading its branches 
in the generations whose prominent persons are Tertullian and Cyprian. 

The change had been gradually neared ; St. Paul foresaw it. It 
became more rapid as the impress of the apostolic mind was weakened 
by counteracting forces. What I am concerned at present to main- 
tain is, that a rigidly fixed sacerdotalism was an element wholly for- 
eign to the first days of the Church ; that it was not a legitimate 
development of the polity of these days, but marked what the apostle 
of the Gentiles described as “an entanglement with the yoke of 
bondage” — a corruption of “ the simplicity of Christ.” 

For, to sum up the argument which I have imperfectly because 
hastily expre^ed, the positions which a candid survey of the first 

* Bishop Lightfoot, in his “ Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians,” asserts 
that the origin of the priestly idea in the Christian Church is to be traced exclu- 
sively to the influence of paganism at the end of the second century; but he admits 
that the form which the idea assumed was borrowed from the Leviiical law. 


652 


THE PRESJBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


century of the Church — that in which its foundation as an ecclesias- 
tical edifice was laid by the apostles — would seem to establish are : 

I. That the apostolic polity is one rather of broad outlines than of 
fixed determinate forms. 

- 2. That these outlines, whilst in general correspondent to the gov- 
ernment of the Jewish synagogue, were appropriate to the nature and 
necessities of a society whose objects are worship, fellowship, instruc- 
tion in the truth as it is in Jesus, and the discipling of all nations, 
according to Christ’s commandment. 

3. That the Church visible is recognized, in the phraseology of 
Hooker, as the true original subject of all power.”* 

4. That, within the outlines indicated in the apostolic era, and 
authoritative, not so much because they received the sanction of the 
apostles as because they are adapted to the Christian society of all 
times, and, therefore, received the sanction of the apostles, it is 
competent to appoint such orders of ministry, or assign to particular 
persons such functions as may be judged most conducive to the fur- 
therance of the ends of the Christian society. 

5. That, therefore, it may be assumed that there is in a Church a 
discretionary power — this power forming part of its responsibility — 
to authorize such divisions and supplements of ministry as may be 
called for, by the peculiar needs and conditions of its time or work, 
with a view to “the perfecting of saints,” or the extension of the 
cause of Christ on the earth. 

6. In brief, that whilst certain principles of order are fixed, the 
machinery of government is left free to be altered by existing circum- 
stances, so that order may “ control with growing sway the growing 
life of men.” 

These positions laid down ; keeping in view that there is no “Chi- 
nese exactness” in the apostolic polity which Presbyterian Churches 
recognize as authoritative, and that it is the duty of these churches, 
in loyalty to the Spirit who inspired the apostles and is with the 
Church always, so to regulate and adapt their organization as to meet, 
in the fullest possible manner, the wants and needs of their time ; I 
propose, in the sequel of this paper, to consider what divisions and 
supplements of the ministry of the Church would seem to be recom- 
mended as expedient in this nineteenth century of our Lord. 

The subject is so vast that I must limit myself to only one portion 
of it — the functions connected with word and doctidne. 

* Eccles. Polity, 7-i4- The passage in which this phrase occurs is significant, 
as proceeding from the great advocate of prelacy; “ Whereas, some do infer that 
no ordination can stand but only such as is made by bishops, which have had their 
ordination likewise by other bishops before them, till we come to the very apostles 
of Christ themselves; to this we answer, that there may be sometimes very just and 
sufficient reason to allow ordination made without a bishop. The whole Church 
visible being the true original subject of all power, it hath not allowed ordinarily any 
other than bishops alone to ordain ; howbeit, as the ordinary course is ordinarily in 
all things to be showed, so it may be in some cases not unnecessary that we decline 
from the ordinary ways.” 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


653 

Practically, in our churches, the offices of pastor and teacher are 
combined, the exception being the case of those appointed to teach 
the future pastors of the Church ; and the conjunction is a necessary 
one. The pastor shepherds the flock by teaching, by not only the 
public instruction in the truth of God, but the application of that 
truth to the individual members of his flock. Again, for the ordinary 
and regular exposition of the word, the most helpful teacher is the 
faithful pastor. Next to the word of God, the best book which the 
pastor can read is the book of human nature. The man who is not a 
constant reader of that book may possess many qualifications, but he 
will be, more or less, a mere doctrmaire. His preaching will want in 
grip, application, point ; it will be seldom “ quick and powerful, and 
sharper than a two-edged sword.” My brethren in the pastorate 
will confirm what I say : that the sermons most blessed, which they 
give with most freedom and which tell most on the hearts of their con- 
gregations, are very often those suggested by some visit, some circum- 
stance or incident, some personal dealing with the souls of men. To 
separate the offices of pastor and teacher would be a loss to both — 
would be impossible. 

But it may well be asked whether, with reference to the functions 
under review, there might not be a beneficial application of the prin- 
ciple of the division of labor? For one thing, our pastors are fre- 
quently so burdened with multifarious service, so distracted by “ an 
aggregate of little things,” so bound to be here, there and everywhere, 
that they have no leisure so much as to eat ; to feed their own minds, 
intellects, hearts, so that they may bring forth things new and old. 
They are expected to be always eloquent, always interesting, always 
ready with what are called discourses on Sunday, and visits on 

week-days ; whilst at the same time they are asked to lecture, speech- 
ify, attend committees, take their place at all sorts of boards, etc. 
They are complained of if they do not visit, then they are said to be 
mere preachers ; they are complained of if they do, then they are not 
preachers, mere pastors. If in an important parish or charge, they 
must write as many letters as a lawyer, make as many calls as a phy- 
sician, have their forenoons and evenings constantly interrupted, so 
that they cannot give attendance to reading, exhortation and doc- 
trine ; they cannot realize those spaces f<5r quiet, earnest thought, for 
that mental and spiritual preparation which is requisite for both 
pastors’ and teachers’ work. What wonder that there are changes so 
many in the spheres of duty ! that people, asking what they have no 
right in reason to ask, should not seldom wish vsuch changes; and that 
ministers, conscious of the decline of originality of mind, of intel- 
lectual as well as spiritual force, and wearied and fretted in many 
ways, should welcome the relief which is brought by a change of 
sphere ! But a state of matters such as this acts hurtfully on the life 
and strength of the ministry, and the life and temperament of the 
Church at large. Some lightening of the lotid which now rests on 
one pair of shoulders, by taking much of it and distributing it over 


654 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


the shoulders of others: by dividing further than at present the 
“service of tables” from the ministry of the word and prayer, is 
imperatively called for, if the pastorate of the Church is to be realized 
as it ought to be. 

Extending our view: let us consider. the position of the Christian 
Church as the custodian of “the victory which overcomes the world,” 
even our faith, as called both to conserve and strengthen the life 
which is in her membership, and go forth, as an aggressive power, to 
the help of the Lord against the mighty. In these respects, her atti- 
tude and work may be traced, first, with refei'ence to the culture so fully 
and largely developed in our day ; and secondly, with reference to her 
more special province — the awakenment and education of the conscience. 
As thus contemplated, there appears to me room for important adap- 
tations or divisions of the ministry of word and doctrine. 

I. The diffusion and heightening of the standard of education in 
Protestant countries render a cultured ministry rnore than ever neces- 
sary. The first of requisites, undoubtedly, for the pastor is a sincere 
and ardent piety ; but the second is such learning, such literary and 
scientific knowledge and taste,as shall enable him to present the truth 
in forms which shall win both the intellect and the heart— of his peo- 
ple. All our churches are, more or less, alive to the evil, the danger 
to the cause of religion, of being infested by ignorant, partially edu- 
cated, vulgar men who have received the imprimatur of their gov^- 
erning bodies, as teachers. In a great house there are, indeed, vessels 
of gold and silver, and vessels also of wood and stone; but the pity 
is when the wood is unsound and the stone is full of flaws. But on 
the general question of the training of the ministry, I am not called 
to dwell. What I wish to ask is, is there not an urgent need for some 
special provision in the ministry for the higher culture, or rather the 
cultured mind, with which we have to deal? 

One feature to be taken into account, e. g., is the ever-shifting, I will 
not say ever-new, form which anti-Christian, anti-theistic error assumes. 
And the inculcation of such error, let it be remembered, is not lim- 
ited to the few. It is circulated in review and journal; it is popular- 
ized in treatises which are read by multitudes who have not cast off 
the Christian profession. By how many thousands, e.g.^ has such a 
book as “The Supernatural” been read in Great Britain? The Ag- 
nosticism exposed by my learned friend. Dr. Flint, how insidiously is 
it filtrated through all classes of our communities? It is impossible 
for the ordinary teacher to be ever combating the Proteus-like scepti- 
cism which is playing on so many intellects, and in so many instances 
undermining the foundation of faith. It is very seldom desirable to 
introduce the apologetic into the regular Sunday services. Here, 
then, is presented a field for the Christian specialist. It is, so far, 
reached by our professors of theology ; and the Church has a right to 
look to them as set “ for the defence and confirmation of the gospel.” 
The Church of England has, for many years, enjoyed a great oppor- 
tunity in this direction, of which she has made use for the good of the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 655 

whole Church. Her Boyle, Hulsean, and Barapton lectures have, 
from year to year, furnished a sort of index to the predominant hue.s 
ot rationalistic thought, and indicated the attitude towards them of 
scholarly orthodoxy. And, in recent years, the Presbyterian Churche.i 
have been following suit. In Scotland we have our Baird and Cun- 
ningham and Croall lectureships, and good fruit has already been 
borne by them. In America, I believe that the lectureships are 
numerous. These are steps in the right direction. Possibly, some 
provision still more definue might be made for the study and pro- 
mulgation of a sound Christian apologetic, Which should comprehend 
the great field of Biblical criticism. The setting apart of some men 
specially adapted to this work, giying them the leisure required for 
the systematic and continuous prosecution of their specialty, might 

1 -r g3.in to the Church — an adaptation of order to the wants of 

life.* 

^ Let me be excused for still farther prosecuting this part of my sub- 
ject. In considering the great question of home missions, I often 
leel that one element is not sufficiently taken into account. We are 
apt to be engrossed by the spectacle of the thousands of poor and 
ipiorant who have lapsed from the standing, and have cast aside alike ' 
the privileges and responsibilities, of the baptized. Asad spectacle 
indeed, and one which calls for the fullest energies of our churches. 
By and by, I shall refer to it. But is there no mission to the wealthier 
and the educated ? Reflect, what a mass of our cultured professional 
men, lawyers, physicians, etc.- — what a proportion of our shrewd men 
of business what a number of clever, keen-witted young men — are 
outside our church communion, not to be found in'our church attend- 
ances ! Reflect, again, how many who do formally, at least now and 
again, attend our ministrations are — not hostile, perhaps, but certainly 
apathetic, saying nothing about their doubts, but doubting; needing, at 
all events, to have their attention awakened and their souls stirred. 
Ihese will not be reached by evangelistic meetings and addresses; 
they are repelled by that style of mission. True, the repulsion may 
be on account of high thoughts needing to be cast down ; but there 
are more ways of casting down such high thoughts than one; and the 
number of persons is not inconsiderable the most effectual mode of 
reaching whom is through intellectual conviction — through the pre- 
sentation of the Christian appeal in a form commanding the reason, 

*I am glad to be able to quote the weighty word.s of Professor Flint, in a speech 
at the Edinburgh meeting of the Council : “ The churches ought to take info their 
serious consideration whether they are doing enough to train up a band of Christian 
scholars capable of repelling, on equal terms, the attack of unbelieving scholars of 
the Holy Scriptures. ... It is a wrong state of things, that when theories which 
which would overturn the very foundation of the Christian faith are imported into 
a country, there should be among the natui'al defenders of the faith in that country 
a marked lack of the kind of scholarship requii'ed. This wrong state of things ex- 
ists, I believe, in most, if not all, of our Presbyterian Churches, and they cannot 
too serioiisly consider how it is to be righted.*’— “ Proceedin'gs of First General 
Presbyterian Council,” pp. 210, 21 1, 


656 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

inciting the imagination, and so preparing for the work of the Spirit 
on the conscience. Add to all this, that the power of custom, the 
recognition of authority, is now greatly weakened. Men are more 
and more coming to our places of worship as they please— not see- 
incr it to be a duty apart from all likings of their own. We may re- 
gret this ; but so it is. Does not this indicate that our churches 
■ohould bestir themselves so as to seek, even by a holy guile, to win 
this influential and increasing class of minds? In the thirteenth cen^ 
tury the Church of Rome instituted the great preaching order of St. 
Dominic and Francis of Assisi, to counteract the spread of erroneous 
opinions and to secure a higher and fuller preaching power. Would 
it not be well, if, avoiding the monastic exaggeration, we laid our- 
selves out to encourage a more fully sustained and loftier oratory ? 
Oratory, Cicero reminds us, requires a constant diligence; the most 
etfective pulpit oratory of the character to which I have alluded de- 
mands an application, a study, a perfecnng in art, no less than a re- 
plenishment with knowledge, which it is impossible for our pastors to 
realize. All pastors are not qualified to be great preachers. Some who 
are are so distracted by other calls, their time is so frittered, their 
•faculties of mental concentration so impaired, that they cannot give 
the fulness of their ability to the service of the pulpit. My convic- 
rion is that such endowments as would enable men, with the peculiar 
gifts requisite to the orator whom intellectual or keen-witted persons 
will hear with respect and deference, to cultivate their talents to the 
fullest, would be a great advantage in our time. The Church of 
England, in her cathedral prizes, deaneries, canonries, and preben- 
daries, has, in connection with this, a faculty of influence which she 
might utilize far more than she does. Is there any reason why our 
Presbyterian Churches, keeping to their own lines, should not have their 
order of special preachei's ? Let any one think of the crowds which 
hang on the lips of Canon Liddon in England, and listen to his elo- 
quent, closely reasoned expositions of the orthodox doctrine of his 
Church ; let any one think of the conferences which used to be held 
in Notre Dame, by Lacordaire and others ; the conferences of Hya- 
cinthe, Bersier, Reveillaud among non-Romanist orators; let any one 
think of the attraction of a great preacher in our churches ; he will 
be satisfied that the result of the establishment of the special order 
for which I have pleaded is not doubtful— that by God’s blessing it will 
widen the area and increase the volume of the action of our churches 
in the life of our people. 

2. In considering the work of the ministry on the consciences of 
men, I do not enlarge on the duties of the regular pastorate. What 
I have particularly before me is the need, which the most earnest pas- 
tors are the foremost in acknowledging, of times of awakenment, of 
. intenser action, of refreshing from the Lord’s presence. A great risk 
in connection with our congregational life is, the sliding into a merely 
comfortable routine. Men speak of sober piety — certainly, true piety 
is always sober ; but what is called soberness may sometimes be peril- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


657 


ously allied to spiritual torpor. The ways of the soberly pious minis- 
ler and congregation may be ruts so deeply worn that real progress is 
hindered. Surely the cry of all who have a real passion for souls wii'l 
be Lord, wilt thou not revive us again ? " The idea of a revival 
will not be one foreign to such ; rather will it represent an earnest and 
continuous longing. Epochs of quickened entluisiasm are epochs of 
grow h. I believe that of late there has been, in many quarters, an 
auention previously lacking to what I may call the jihenomena of re- 
vivals. Revivals have been much more frequent— much more features 
on which persons could reckon— in America than in the more con‘- 
servatiye countries of Europe ; but in Scotland, at least, some to whom 
all that savors of the camp-meeting, of rant and violence, is repulsive, 
have been led to inquire whether, discounting what is extraneous, 
there is not much in the revival to be noted and desired ; whether it 
IS not suggestive of methods adapted to the quickening of conscience 
and the enlivenment of faith, which are sorely wanted in our congre- 
ptions. From my study of past revivals, two things seem to me 
to be established : the one, that the accompaniments which have some- 
times presented themselves and which cannot, I think, be regarded as 
healthy symptoms, such as hysterical prostrations, induced by pro- 
tracted meetings, unduly heated appeals to the emotions, shatterings 
ot the nervous system, and the infection of excited crowds, are re- 
duced in the measure in which wise as well as earnest men head and 
guide the movement. There was a marked absence of all such symp- 
toms in the work of Mr. Moody, in Scotland, three years ago. And 
the other, that the results are most exhibitive of a genuine’ Christian 
life, and have most permanence and stability, when the revival is com- 
prehended by the order of the Church — when the Christian ministry 
oversees and seeks to consolidate the impressions produced. The 
conviction, therefore, which I have been led to cherish is, that the 
Church, speaking of it as an ecclesiastical body, should endeavor, by 
sympathetic and deliberate action, to realize the benefits, whilst min- 
imizing the evils or dangers, of a period of spiritual movement. ///- 
citement rather than <fwcitement should be the aim. 


There are men in our pastorates whose gifts and aptitudes are rather 
in the direction of mission -preachers or evangelists than in that of 
pastors. ^ By setting them free to the cultivation of their special apti- 
tude, an increased power of service would be secured. And there are 
others, not in our pastorates, who might well be associated with them. 
In the English Church — but connected with the High Church party — 
there is an order of missioners under rule and discipline. Apart from 
this order, however, there are men such as Mr. Haslam, Mr. Hay 
Aitken, and others, who have resigned their pastorates, and, with great 
gain to the Church in general, have devoted themselves entirely to 
special evangelistic work. They are at the service of clergy and par- 
ishes, conducting missions under the supervision of the incumbents 
of the parish, and seeking, by various agencies and modes, to reach 
all sorts and conditions of men in the parish. And it is not too much, 
42 


658 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

to sav that their plan of operation and the nature of their work mark 

a sreL improvenient on the kind of evangelistic meetings with whicn, 

inT Busies, we are familiar. Among the advantages secured 
are continuity of spiritual instruction; variety, with harmony, 
effoVt ; the absLce of tbe sort of dissipation often caused by ^ 

tilde of speakers and addresses ; with the help ^ seekv 

closer and closer intimacy with one mind full of God s 'ove and seek 
ing, in the pastor’s fellowship, the good of individuals. I have 
heird from many clergymen of the happy reaping-tnues realized n 
mission work. And, to what has been said, I may add ^ ^ubsid ai y 
gain— that the place of the missioners or evangelists being more fully 
Cognized would insure a relief to the ministers of congregationt 
They are called to much evangelistic work, a kind of labor for which 
they are not always eminently fitted ; and supposing an eminent tit- 
nesi extensive engagement in which rather hinders than promotes 
their usefulness as pastors. The pastor’s duty is to shepherd tne sheep, 
to confirm and consolidate the society; the evangelist s part is to bring 
in, to prepare for the pastor’s function. True, there can be no clearly 
cut division between the pastor and the evangelist : the one must be, 
in so far, the other also; but such an apportionment of spheres as i 
have indicated would, I believe, be for the spiritual enlivenment and 

enrichment of the Church. • 

The Free Church of Scotland has already, in at least one instance 
of which I know, called a man whose influence had been greatly 
blessed to the office of evangelist. He was so nominated, if I mistake 
not, by a vote of the General Assembly. Would it not be well for 
cur Presbyterian churches to consider whether such a function, under 
yjroper conditions, might not be included in their ecclesiastical organ- 

^^^In°”this connection it may be expedient to refer to supplementary 
ministries already, in some measure, existing, but without the impri- 
matur of constituted church authority. On a Sunday evening, this 
summer, I spent two hours in quiet observation of the scene in the 
great East End Park of Glasgow. A superintendent of police whom 
I consulted estimated the number of persons forming the rings around 
the green preachers as nearly 20,000. In the evangelistic tent in 
the immediate neighborhood, not fewer than 2,000 persons were 
present. Many of these had the aspect of well-to-do artisans ; many 
of them I recognized as church-going people ; but a great proportion 
were men and women unconnected with churches, sbme who were in 
the habit of attending these rings or the tent as regularly as those who 
occupy pews in places of worship ; others attracted by curiosity ; and 
the aspects of not a few spoke of extreme poverty and want. Of this 
mass of people, it may be said that the ordinary church service is 
unattractive to them; they crave addresses more free, plain, story- 
telling, sharp and pointed than sermons from the pulpit; a style of 
things, in short, more adapted to the level of their life and more 
directly reaching their hearts. Few of our clergy have the knack of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 659 

getting to them ; even the best of clerical evangelists are so separated 
from tlieir surroundings that they cannot hit the nail with the direct- 
ness and force with which the best of lay evangelists hit it. I am very 
far from approving of much that is said and done by green and street 
preachers; but there are men whose force it is impossible to deny, 
and it has. often occurred to me that a lay evangelist’s license wouM 
supply a link between the regular ministry of the Church and 
the multitudes that, at preset, are outside the sphere of Church o-der. 
Whatever, without interfering with the liberty and spontaneity of the 
agency referred to, will bring the Christian Church in its corporate 
capacity nearer the people, is a gain to the Church, whilst it contributes 
a gentle check on extravagances which are apt to develop. I am ac- 
quainted with earnest and useful missionaries who long for such a 
license as that which I have indicated — not so much because of any 
authority which it might confer, as because of the place which it gives 
in the Church body, and the sympathy which it pledges on the part 
of those set to rule in the house of God. 

There is another element of our artisan class, whose attitude towards 
not the Christian Church only, but the Christian life also, claims most 
serious attention. How many of the skilled artisans in our larger 
cities are indifferent, if not antagonistic, to Christianity ! It is to be 
feared that the action of some of the unions and clubs, which enlist 
the energies of more active spirits, and the tone of not a few of the 
most prominent of the often self-constituted leaders of the working- 
class,^ are distinctly hostile to the Church. Nor can the ministers of 
the Church be wholly exonerated. They are not always just towards 
the demands of labor; not always generous in the part which they take 
as between the conflicting interests of capital and labor. Their voice 
is sometimes wanting both in the right kind of firmness and the rightly 
appreciative spirit of brotherhood. Into causes, however, of prevalent 
tempers and attitudes, it is not my province to inquire. It is enough 
to say that the modes of bridging the chasm, becoming perilously 
wide, between a great fraction of our working people and the life and 
worship of Protestant communities, represent a problem which our 
churches cannot too soon and too earnestly face. What a field for the 
exertion of wise and gifted men is thus opened up ! 

There are other adaptations and supplements of the ministry of word 
and doctrine on which I cannot enlarge. A hint concerning one of 
the adaptations not yet noticed is suggested to me by the case of a 
venerable man whom I had hoped to welcome as a delegate from the 
Free Church of Scotland. He was for very many years minister of 
one of the largest congregations belonging to that body in the city of 
Glasgow. At an age when most men contemplate retirement from 
toil, and few can set themselves to new effort. Dr. Somerville accepted 
the invitation of the United Evangelistic Committee to be the expo- 
nent of the more catholic aspect of their work. He was released from ‘ 
the duties of the pastorate, and within the last six years he has visited 
India, Australia, and America, cheering the hearts of his brethren in 


66o 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


the ministry, originating activities, preaching the word, confirming 
the churches. Lately he has visited France and Italy, countries 
whose language he scarcely understood, but to thousands of whose 
people he has spoken through interpreters — thousands on thousands, 
the greater number Roman Catholics, assembling to see and hear the 
“old man eloquent.’’ Such a man, engaged in such labor, realizes 
the idea — in another form, produces the truth — of the apostle, the one 
sent forth not to lord it over, but to be a voice in the midst of churches 
both to Christian and non-Christian people. The best kind of corre- 
.spondence between different communions of the Reformation is, a man 
in his spirit and fulfilling his part. Fie himself has often expressed 
the hope that he might be a pioneer of future apostles — of a new type 
of Christian enterprise — that what he has been enabled to do might 
be accepted as a breaking of ground for others, an indication that 
there is a blessing prepared for those whom churches might send forth 
aj their messengers to Christendom. And when one thinks of the mis- 
sionaries scattered through heathendom, needing tokens of sympathy 
too often withheld, the anointings of Christian love supplied through 
Barnabas— like brethren, needing to have their courage strengthened 
and their hands held up amid manifold discouragement and trial ; 
when one thinks of the number of small Christian colonies in the 
midst of heathendom requiring all the help and confirmation which 
the more consolidated churches can give ; one feels that there is a call 
for the separation from local trammels of those in whose genius, tem- 
perament, and power may be read the evidence that the God of peace 
has given them to his dear Son as apostles of the Church which is his 
body. 

A supplement of ministry, whose importance it is scarcely possible 
to overrate, is found in our Sabbath-schools. The questions bearing 
on their condition and efficiency it is not for me to discuss. Only 
one point I instance. The voluntary character of the agency is both 
its strength and its weakness. May we not learn a lesson from the 
great volunteer force ? — the reserve army which, year after year, is 
increasing in usefulness in my native land. The regiments, both 
officers and privates, are composed of volunteers, with one or two 
exceptions. These exceptions tend to maintain the spontaneity of 
the movement, because they secure a thoroughness of drill and appoint- 
ment. Every regiment has its adjutant and quarter-master, trained 
soldiers, belonging to the regular army, acquainted with the theory and 
art of military service. When our Sunday-school system is becoming, 
every year, more important, would it not be possible to have, attached 
to our unions or our church-staffs, men of competent knowledge and 
experience, who had studied the art of teaching in schools and normal 
colleges, whose function would be to oversee the organizations of 
schools, the grading of pupils, the methods of instruction, and aid 
superintendents in all that is necessary to a fully equipped and suc- 
cessful agency? Such men might have the authority of a license from 
church courts j and might be of eminent use. not merely to teachers, 


66i 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 

but to pastors in the revival of a department of pastoral duty which 
used to be one of the features of Scottish parochial life, but has now 
almost wholly disappeared, the catechizing of those of tender years. 
They might fill the place, but in a way suited to a new time, of the 
old order of catechist. 

But it is time to draw this paper to a close. It will be manifest, I 
hope, that no change in respect of any essential feature of our common 
Presbyterianism has been proposed. We accept the system according 
to which the Churches in this Alliance are organized as “ founded on 
the word of God and agreeable thereto.** Nothing can be more 
remote from my purpose than any attempt to take from the sacred 
' character, or to diminish what, for want of a better term, I may call 
the prestige of the ministry of the Lord established among us. I 
magnify the office to which, with honored fathers and brethren, I 
have been set apart by the hands of the Presbytery. My contention 
amounts only to this: I have proceeded on the principle that, with-’ 
in the_ lines which we believe to be harmonious with those of the 
apostolic polity, there is an elasticity in our system which allows the 
sway of “ beauteous order ** to grow correspondently with the growth 
of life in successive ages ; and I have advocated such extensions or 
adaptations of the licensing power which our courts possess as seem 
to be called for by the wants of our time, or the variety of that 
“manifestation of the Spirit which is given to every man to profit 
withal.” 

It is from the stand-point of a true conservatism that I offer my 
suggestions. It were an evil day for Christianity if the more vigorous 
and earnest thought and feeling should be found outside, if not 
alienated from, constituted ecclesiastical authority. There can be 
no greater disaster to the Church than a conflict, or even an apparent 
conflict, between life and order. Such a conflict has not been un- 
known in the history of churches. We trace it in the Scottish Church 
in the time of the Haldanes and Whitefield, when the fervor of the 
evangelical revival in England was communicated to the northern 
kingdom. We trace it in the history of the American Church, in the 
agitation of the New Brunswick Presbytery and the split from the 
Synod of Philadelphia, and the schism of the Cumberland Presbytery 
which for a time rent the Church in Kentucky.* Doubly disastrous 
a conflict of this sort is : disastrous to the life of the Church, tempt- 
ing to excesses and irregularities which, in the end, nullify the 
blessing of the earlier time of spiritual work;f and disastrous to the 
order of the Church, inducing a hardness of temper, sometimes a 
harshness of action, which cannot but grieve the Holy Spirit of God. 


* See Willet’s “ History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of 
America,” vol. 2, cap. 29. 

f Willet, 2, p. 196 : “ The deadness and lethargy of religion were broken up; but 
Honeites, Shakers and the Cumberland schism sprang up out of the chaos. The 
bewildered were drifted on with the current that swept them into fanatical excess; 
while the sanguine were plunged by exciteriient into error and folly,” etc. 


662 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

A stiff, unsympathetic attitude on the part of ecclesiastical govern- 
ment plays into the hands of fanaticism, and is the surest way of in- 
creasing and intensifying the power of sect. It appears to me, there- 
fure, that a wise statesmanship bids our church courts consider how, 
scrupulously observant of the stated and regular government of the 
Church, they may best make room for the diversity of operations, so 
realize the flexibility of order as that it shall comprehend and bless 
the manifestations of life. ‘‘A flourishing church, it has been said, 

“ requires a vast and complicated organization which should afford a 
place for every one who is ready to work in the service of humanity. 
The enthusiasm should not be allowed to die out in any one for want 
of the occupation best calculated to keep it alive.”* Wise and well- 
considered words ! The more fully we evoke, in an orderly manner, 
the capacities, the aptitudes, the gifts of Christ’s people, the more we 
insure the casting of all crowns, be they those of intellect or of action, 
before the throne of Him who liveth forever and ever. 

The spirit of our age is critical. It is impatient of all that seems 
to be but is not. It tears aside the padding and demands to see what 
is beneath. There is a conservatism in it, because there is wisdom in 
it ; and wisdom is always conservative of whatever is good, or meet 
for use. But it will prove all things. It is— perhaps excessively so— 
iitilitariafi ; and yet, sometimes almost excessively so, it is generous. 
Let fitness be shown or felt, and the support will be abundant and 
ungrudging. Our churches should recognize this. They nee'd not 
fear; if only, in the first place, they are true to the Lord, and, in the 
next place, earnestly seek to realize the utmost possible use of ministry 
and ordinance. Many are they who tremble for the ark of God. The 
alarm is not so much lest the ark be carried into some Dagon temple 
of Fhilistia; it is that it remain in God’s Israel, without the covenant 
and the law, a creed-form, but without a creed which holds the 
living faith of living men. Many are they whose forebodings as to 
things coming in the earth are gloomy ; and it may be that the powers 
of heaven. Churches, ecclesiastical organizations, shall be shaken. 
Our duty is in the present ; doing our duty, the future we may trust 
to our Lord, and our duty is, observant of the day and the hour, to 
realize to the fullest, the efficiency of the weapons of spiritual warfare, 
to consider what refurbishings and recastings may, by the blessing 
• of God, make them more mighty towards the casting down of all that 
is opposed to Christ. “ They may as well tell me,” says Lord Bacon, 
that churches and chapels need no reparations, though castles and 
houses do, whereas, commonly, to speak truth, dilapidations of the 
inward and spiritual edifications of the Church of God are, in all 
times, as great as the outward and material. ... A good husband is 
ever pruning in his vineyard, or his field, not unseasonably and un- 
skilfully, but lightly, he findeth ever somewhat to do.” 

With such “seasonable and skilful pruning,” let us rest assured 


* “ Ecce Homo,” p. 2I2. 


SECOND GENERAL COLNCIL. C63 

that a great future extends before our common Presbyterianism. Con- 
servative, yet liberal ; orderly, yet free ; tending ever towards logical 
consistency in doctrine whilst yet allowing scope for the religion of 
the heart ; unfettered by any theory which unchurches others, although 
j)rotected by principles which preserve the continuity of the Church ; 
honoring the word of God as the supreme standard whilst yet it exalts 
the living Word, the personal Christ, as overall and in all ; simple in 
worship, yet at liberty to aim at what is comely and devout and beau- 
tiful ; resting on a definite constitution, yet, for all strength, looking 
only to the Spirit of God and seeking wholly that Christ be magnified ; 
surely, we may cherish the hope that, in the fire of judgment, it shall 
be purified but not destroyed ; that the generations to come, even more 
than those who have gone, shall, in its ordinances and ministries, dis- 
cern the signs of a city of God whose‘ foundation is in the holy moun- 
tains.” 

DEMAND FOR MINISTERS. 

The President. — Next in order is a communication from the 
United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, on the world’s demand 
for ministers. 

Prof. Calderwood was called upon. 

Prof. Calderwood. — You will recognize, in turning to this 
programme, that there was set down at the beginning of our 
arrangement, a communication from the United Presbyterian 
Church of Scotland, on the world’s demand for ministers. That 
communication did not take shape actually as a communication 
to the Council, but rather as an instruction to the delegates from 
the Church. Accordingly the Business Committee determined 
that this was not a communication to be formally submitted to 
the Council. In that decision the delegates perfectly acquiesced. 
I suppose, therefore, I am calkd upon just now simply that 
there may be an opportunity given to those delegates for saying 
anything that may be needful on the subject. As the moderator 
of the Synod, I have on this occasion responded to the call 
simply that I may communicate to the Council very briefly what 
the circumstances are. 

You will at once recognize what is implied if you emphasize 
the “ world’s demand for ministers.” The question before our 
Church has been this: How are we to secure that the supply 
appearing in our several theological schools shall prove to be a 


664 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


supply adequate, not simply for the wants of the denominations 
to which these students belong, but ultimately a joint supply 
from all churches adequate to the world’s demand? You have 
heard, from the statement already made this afternoon, that there 
are not a few of the churches who find difficulty in bringing the 
supply up to their own demand. I am here to-day to say that 
the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland is in the opposite 
position — finding the supply of its students far beyond its own 
demand. The question which came before our supreme court 
was this, How to secure that the spirit of consecration to the 
work of Christ, which was becoming apparent amongst our 
young men, should not be checked, but should be encouraged 
— how that should be stimulated, and thereby opportunity given 
for direct work to men who were willing to consecrate them- 
selves to the great cause of Jesus Christ in preaching the gospel. 

Now I must, not speaking as representing our supreme court, 
but for myself on the present occasion, urge fathers and brethren 
that the law of supply and demand does regulate the supply of 
students. Say and do what you please, the law of supply and 
demand does regulate it ; and say what you please, or do what 
you please, we all recognize it. Let me ask you to look at it 
for a moment only in this light : Do you not see, in the history 
of every denomination, a period when the supply for the minis- 
try exceeds the demand, and that three years thereafter you will 
see the beginning of a diminution, and six years afterwards you 
will see that diminution down to a very low point? Why? 
Simply because if you have three times the number of students 
and preachers that you have spheres for them, the men must go 
elsewhere, whether they be fitted for the work or no. Accord- 
ingly the question which has occurred to our Church, and which 
it has hesitated to submit to the Council for very obvious 
reasons, is this : whether the Council may not, from time to time, 
consider what is the great work of the Presbyterian Church in 
the world — whether it may not be possible to put before the 
minds of our students in our several theological seminaries, the 
demand of the world upon their efforts — whether we may not, 
by means of this Council, stimulate the missionary spirit and 


SECOND GENERAL COCNCIL. 665 

effort of all the churches. You recognize that, if you discuss 
the question how to support students, and how to guide them 
up to a completed course of training for the ministry, you are 
doing a needless work unless you have spheres in which to 
place them ; for if it be a hard thing for a student to study, when 
sustained and helped in that study, it is a far harder thing for a 
man to hold on through his course, and know that only one- 
tnird of the men at present studying can, according to all present 
demands for the home field and for the foreign together, find 
occupation. 

Now I think it does devolve upon us, as a great Presbyterian 
Church, to look at this general and far-reaching question. Our 
Church hesitated to send a communication directly, simply be- 
cause it might seem as if the Church were asking the Council to 
look at their special difficulty, and with the modesty which is 
becoming to Scotchmen, they did not like to do that. With 
that peculiar modesty which belongs to our cause, and our re- 
serve, and which does not make us all so hopeful, we hesitated 
to submit to you a question which seems to require that you 
might attend to our particular difficulties. But, on the other 
hand, let me urge that where we are as brethren met together, 
we encounter one of the most interesting phases possible for us' 
when we find such a supply as this rising up in Scotland, and 
rising somewhat on account of the religious revival wc have had 
there, and the aid we have had from America, making us feel 
that all nations of the earth are becoming one in the pulsations 
of Christian life, and feeling the energy which comes from 
Christian zeal in whatsoever sphere it works. 

In Scotland we have no such thing as supporting our candi- 
dates for the ministry— we have no such thing as taking a cer- 
tain number of them and providing for them quarters, and board, 
and support; and yet we have many students forthcoming, and 
we think more than we can supply with spheres of labor whether 
at home or abroad. Further, we believe very much in the man 
who says he is anxious to be a minister of the gospel, and is 
willing to encounter hard work to prepare himself for it. More 
than that, we have men whose fathers have been able enough 


666 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

to help them to prepare for the ministry, and who have said to 
their fathers that they did not ask their help, but they would 
set about the work that would keep them going until they 
reached the goal which they had set before them. Those are 
men who have done hard work, and whom we have learned to 

honor and value in the ministry. 

But having this consideration in view, what we ask is that we 
shall have men who may have their views extended in reference 
to the great work. If you ask concerning the supply, I think 
we must answer there is one key to the supply of students to 
the ministry, and that is the ministry itself If the ministers of 
the gospel are consecrated to the preaching of the gospel, if they 
rejoice in their work, if they show day by day that they account 
it the noblest task to which a man can consecrate his activities 
and his energies, there is young life all around which will catch 
the infection of that spirit ; there are those growing up under 
that pulpit teaching, who will lift their eyes to the pulpit and 
feel their hearts mov'ed, and say that, if God help me, this is the 
work I should like to take part in ; and wheresoever you have 
such preaching you will have an ample supply, if only the Church 
of Christ will show that it is keen enough in perception, resolute 
enough in purpose, and prayerful enough in spirit, to look out 
upon the vast world and say. By the Master’s help, we shall 
preach the gospel to every creature. 

Dr. Matthews. — I am sure we are all very gratified in having 
heard Dr. Calderwood; but on the Programme we read, “A 
communication from the United Presbyterian Church of Scot- 
land.” Any cursory remarks would be quite out of order, 
interrupting our usual proceedings. It was under a misappre- 
hension that the interruption which has taken place was allowed 
to go on. Our Programme is fixed and we are required to go 
through with it. 

Dr. Ormiston. — It was a blessed blunder. 

Dr. Calderwood. — Whether it was a blessed blunder, as my 
friend. Dr. Ormiston, thinks, or not, if it was a blunder, I am 
here to acknowledge it. I hold it to be the first obligation rest- 
ing upon me in every council or court, to submit to its order; 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


667 


but what I understood — I must have been mistaken — was this, 
that that communication had been withdrawn from the pro- 
gramme, and any call upon me now was a call to speak and not 
to read. I have a communication here. I could read it, but by 
the decision of the Business Committee, we are not to read the 
communication, and I have dropped into the blunder. 

The Rev. Hiram C. Haydn, D. D., of Cleveland, Ohio, then 
read the following paper on 

SYSTEMATIC BENEFICENCE. 

It is a statement of Max Muller’s, worth repetition and thought, 
that “'only missionary churches hold their ground in the march of 
progress.” It is safe to go on and say, that only by such churches 
will a topic like this be welcomed. The Presbyterian Church through- 
out the world, in common with many another, is a missionary Church, 
and, therefore, the financial aspect of her enterprises can be remanded 
to no secondary place. This is so, not only because money is a fac- 
tor in the work, but because the workers themselves — the whole mil- 
itant Church — are not in the right moral attitude to work for the 
Master till they have learned what stewardship means — that they 
themselves are not their. own; that they handle the Lord’s money. 

This is a matter of such consequence that it occupies a large space 
in the books of the Old Testament, the discourses of Christ, and the 
letters of St. Paul. It having been ordained that the gospel shall be 
preached to every creature, and that they who preach the gospel shall 
live of the gospel, the financial basis of evangelization, never wholly 
overlooked, has come to the front more and more, as the Church has 
awaked to her great commission, and widened her endeavors to reach 
the world’s perishing millions. These two things go together every- 
where — a widened field of operations and better work ; more money. 

In this missionary period of the Church, therefore, it is not sur- 
prising that the beneficence of the Church and the methods of it 
should receive a quickened attention and a searching scrutiny. The 
law of demand and supply is here in full sway; the demand constant, 
urgent, ever-increasing — the supply needing to be commensurate in 
every particular of mental, moral and material resources; that is, con- 
stant, ample, and in the Spirit of Christ. 

The demand for the gospel in this our time is overpowering in its 
dimensions and pressure. A vast continent stretches out its hands 
unto God; a continent, till just now little known, suddenly throw- 
ing open all its gates and welcoming the commerce and civilization 
of the world by the channels of its great rivers and inland lakes; 
Asia, as well as Africa, with her multitudinous millions, with open 
doors welcome the heralds of the cross; Europe and America are full 
of clamorous needs, in city and country, in newer and older regions. 
We can only hint at it. We cannot comprehend it. 


668 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Great as is the demand, the supply is equal to it. God makes no 
mistakes. The Christian population of the globe holding in its hand 
the steam and the lightning, the press, and the Bible in 200 tongues; 
being at home on all seas and in all lands, with wealth uncounted, and 
sons and daughters numbered by tens of thousands, is equal to it. 
We can only hint at this. We cannot comprehend it. 

The question is : How to get the supply to meet the demand, and 
drown this deafening clamor with a bounty all divine? How to 
loosen the grip of parental love till fathers and mothers say: Go, my 
son, my daughter; the Lord calleth thee? How to loosen the grip 
of sons and daughters upon home and country till they say, in a grand 
uprising : Here are we ; send us to the regions beyond ? How to 
loosen the grip, often a little harder, tighter set than the other, upon 
the money of the Church, till Christ’s redeemed people say: Go, 
money, go ; make you friends for Christ and us, through printed 
Bibles and living speech of men whom the Holy Ghost has made 
alive, and Christian schools and printed books ; go, get you out of 
rusting coffers and barred and bolted hoards, and great channels, wide 
and deep, coursing towards luxury and display, and make the desert 
bloom, make the wilderness glad, break the thrall of ignorance and 
superstition, give the bread of life to the famishing; lift up Christ? 

How to get the Church of God to say, and mean it : “ For me to 
live is Christ; ” and not to hear any man call aught that he has his 
own, but himself and all things Christ’s? 

We are not about to overlook the agency of the Holy Ghost, nor 
to put any human device before or above it ; but rather to ask : Has 
the Holy Ghost made any intimation in regard to the method of 
meeting this demand of a perishing world? That he has put his seal 
upon preaching, nobody will deny. Has he, in like manner, upon 
the giving of money and the methods of giving? We hold that he 
has; and that it will be found that a vicious method will have a bad 
influence upon the givers, and contract the gifts. A divine method 
will never miss the mark. It will uniformly sweeten and enrich the 
givers, and swell the gifts. 

If this be true, then method in beneficence is an important factor 
in the work of the world’s evangelization, and worthy of our most 
serious heed ; and to this one aspect I desire to hold the attention of 
this Council for a few moments. We are not now to discuss the duty 
af giving, the proper motives to giving, the spiritual profit in general, 
or the holy examples of giving. Something must be taken for granted 
in a half-hour’s talk; e. g., that Christians read their Bibles and knjow 
that, if one ethical aspect of life is touched more than another therein, 
it is the use and abuse of money ; that the commands and warnings 
touching this matter are sharp and clear, the promises to fidelity grand 
and glorious; that every purely Christian imptilse and actual step 
towards giving the gospel to every creature, every demand of a per- 
ishing world, every hope of a consummated kingdom of God upon 
earth is linked with the proper use of money. “That it is more 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 669 

blessed to give than to receive,” they well know to 'be scriptural 
truth, however they may have found it in experience ; and that tlie 

well done of the Master is for him that is faithful to such trusts 

dL rule of lifl^^^ 

But somehow these great matters do not have the constraint that 
they ought to have, else the supply would hasten to meet the demand 
and tiiin it into a hymn of thanksgiving. 

Method in beneficence will not do everything, but it will do vastly 
more than hap-hazard, or mere impulse in giving, or a great sermon 
once or twice a year, or Presbyterial enjoinders. It will cultivate the 
spin of beneficence; it will restrain from waste and extravagance 
and limirious hying, at the expense of the Lord’s money; it wilFheh) 
to quicken and keep alive the conscience, and so withstand the spirit 
of covetousness ; and it will swell the streams that flow towards mis- 
sionary treasuries till they laugh out of their fulness. 

Ihe Avay the Church has endeavored to meet this urgent demand is 
instructive. In this country, for many years, our great causes of 
beneficence depended largely upon the collecting agent. Pastors and 
officers of the churches could do something, but they could not be 
trusted to tram and inform the Church as to her great work abroad, in 
this and in other lands. We outgrew this to the great advantage of 
( hurches and missionary boards. Collecting agents are now, for the 
most part, sent about other matters. There are yet some who are 
tamed for drawing money out of tight purses. Doubtful methods often 
make n a sorry business, with none of the savor of the widow’s mite 
or of Mary’s ointment, upon it. But yet we depend largely upon the 
annual collection, and in the greater churches and places we try to 
see to it that where the carcass is, there the eagles of the great socie- 
ties gather. ^ 

In this country our faith in the annual collection is here and there 
especially encouraged when the secretaries of missionary societies can 
be heard with maps and eloquent statistics, idols, relics, and holy 
water from^ far-off lands. What this cannot do we now and then sup- 
plement with a centenary, a jubilee, or some other fund, and get in 
one year subscriptions that it often takes five or ten years to pay off, 
and which, not seldom, obstruct the regular and constant flow into 
missionary treasuries. Then we have a vvay of supplementing all this 
with fairs, bazaars, theatricals, grab-bags, ring-cakes, baby-shows, and 
charity-balls — an endless string of worldly and offensive devices which 
tend to confuse and confound worldly and sacred things, and to elim- 
inate from Christian charity every element of self-denial and self-sac- 
rifice. It has been truly ‘said, “these methods are suicidal. They 
lessen the volume of that stream of genuine and spontaneous Chris- 
tian benevolence which carries the machinery of true Christianity, 
because they dry up its fountains in the millions of Christian hearts.” 
That the outcome of annual collections, and these other varied 
devices is a sum total of great figures and great usefulness in the ag- 


6^o THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

gregate, is of course conceded. How can it be otherwise? But not 
so great as to prevent the almost omnipresent debt of nyssionary so- 
cieties— the slow march of the conquest of the world— the withhold- 
ing of men and women for lack of funds — the disastrous retreat here 
and there— the deep-cutting retrenchment ; not so great but that 
only the opportune translation of some of the dear saints oi Uod 
leaving large legacies behind them, has over and again been relied 
upon to lift our foremost and best loved societies out of critical straits. 

The only true way to get the glamour out of these great aggregates 
is to apply to them the simple methods of arithmetic, and averap 
them among the givers. Looked at from this point ot view, the 
showing is less exhilarating, by far. I shall be pardoned, I am sure, 
if I confine my statistics to churches on this side the sea. 


TABULAR STx\TEMENT OF BENEFICENCE OF THE 

CHURCHES. 


1 The Presbyterian Church of the U. S. A. (North), 1879-80 :-member.s, 
oslbSi; benevolence, $2,262,878; average, $3.91; average per week, .075; be- 
nevolence and church support, $8,361,028; average, $14-49; average per week, 
.278 ; average per day, .04. 

2 The Presbyterian Church of U. S. (South), 1879-80:— members, 120,028; be- 
nevolence, $192,777; average, $i.6i; average per week, .03; benevolence and 
church support, $1,062,338; average, $8.85; average per week, .17 ; aveiage per 

^^3! Th'^ Reformed Church (Dutch), 1878-79 members, 80,228; benevolence, 
$175,424; average, $2.19; average per week, .042; benevolence and church sup- 
port, $920,926; average, $11.48; average per week, .22; average per day, .03. 

4 The Presbvterian Church in Canada, 1879-80 members, 107,715; benevo- 
lence, $i 15,155'; average, $1.06; average per week, .02; benevolence and church 
support, $1,030,386; average, $9.585 ; average per week, $1.84 ; average per day. 


The Congregationalists, 1879 members, 382,920; benevolence, $1,098,691 ; 
average, $2.90; average per week, .054; benevolence and church support, $3,692,- 
919; average, $9.64; average per week, $1.85; average per day, .026. 

6. The Episcopal Church, 1879: — members, 322,713; in 1877 benevolence aver- 
aged $2,17: average per week, .041 ; benevolence and church support, $6,068,372; 
average, $18.80; average per week, $3.61 ; average per day, .051. 

7. The Baptist Church, 1879-80 -.—members, 2,133,044 ; benevolence, $4,439,740; 
average, $2.08 ; average per week, $1.04; not clear that this is for benevolence 

^^^sl^The M. E. Church, 1879-80 :— members, 1,544,118; benevolence, $899,896; 
average, .58; average per week, .01 ; how much for all purposes cannot be ascer- 
tained. 

9. The United Presbyterian Church, 1879-80: — members, 82,1 19 ; benevolence, 
$200,875 ; average, $2.45 ; average per week, .05 ; benevolence and church support, 
$826,794: average, $10.43; average per week, .20; average per day, .03. 


Suppose we turn to the Presbyterian Church (North) of the U. S. 
A., whose statistics are as reliable as any, and whose benevolence is, 
perhaps, surpassed by none of the bodies constituting this Alliance, 
for a fair average of what is being done by the churches at large. 

We find that a Church of 578,671 members gives for all purposes— 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


671 

;harity, church-building, pew-rents, missions, etc., including legacies 
— the sum of ^8,361,028,^ an average of ^14.49. Twenty-three of 
these churches, in nine cities and one large town, of 17,688 members, 
gave of this sum an average of ^39.64^^, per member, almost three 
times the average of the whole Church. One of these twenty-three, 
numerically one-half as large as the average membership of them all, 
gives ^286.66^ per member, about one dollar in seventy-three of all the 
moneys raised by the whole Presbyterian Church (North) in the United 
States. Leaving out these twenty-three churches, the giving of this 
branch of the Presbyterian Church— the largest, strongest, richest in 
America — for the boards of the Church, is found to be $177, or 2^ 
cents per week ; include miscellaneous charities, and it is 6^ cents 
per week — less than a cent a day ! And for all the Lord’s work it is 
26 cents per week, or less than 4 cents a day. But to make it thus 
much, we have embraced the giving of congregations for the support 
of the ministry, missions and local charities, and the giving of more 
than a half million Sunday-school scholars, many of whom are splen- 
did givers, in all a large sum, which cannot be eliminated so as to get 
at the giving of church-members only. If we restrict our examination 
to what is given for the schemes of the Church alone, we shall have as 
good a test as we can command of the benevolence of the Church ex- 
clusively. The sum total is ^1,265,891 — a great sum of money — but 
it averages only $2.19 per member — .042 per week, three-fifths of a 
cent a day. To evangelize this great land and keep pace with emi- 
gration, we gave last year .74 a member ; and to publish the gosi)el in 
the regions beyond .72 a member. One cent a day from the 1,200,000 
in Church and Sunday-schools would more than treble the amount re- 
ceived by all the boards of the Church ! 

In calling attention to these averages, which distribute these great 
sums among the host of givers and all the days of the year, we are not 
disparaging the glorious self-denial of multitudes who can give but 
little, nor forgetting the splendid munificence of many men of wealth. 
We are not trying to belittle the work accomplished. We are not 
croaking. We are not, in spirit, in the minor key, but are full of ex- 
ultant hopefulness. We are only looking at the situation as it is. 
And if, with all this self-denial on the one hand and this generosity on 
the other, we only reach the average of three-fifths of a cent a day, 
what must be the essential meanness and selfishness of a great multi- 
tude whom we are obliged in courtesy to count when numbering the 
visible Church of God? Surely it becomes us to confess that there is 
something wrong, with our hearts, or our methods, or both. I say that 
this showing does justice neither to our piety nor our ability. The 
Church is both able and willing to do more; but our methods are in 
fault. 

In this country, and in the Presbyterian Church (North) of the United 
States especially, what is known as ^‘systematic beneficence” has 
been somewhat actively pressed upon the attention of the people during 
the last ten years. It began with a Committee of Benevolence and 


672 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

Finance, composed of some of the foremost business men and ministers 
of our Church, whose grand aim was thus set forth : First, to use all 
proper means to promote throughout the Church the regular and system- 
atic consecration of property to the Lord ; and to superintend 

the collection of funds for the whole benevolent work of the Church. 
This second clause provoked a prevailing antagonism ; but the commit- 
tee, in its brief day, set a-going an agitation which has continued to 
spread, till the weekly Sabbath offering as an act of worship is talkec. 
of in Presbyteries, Synods, and Missionary Conventions, and knocks 
annually at the door of the General Assembly for courteous admission. 
Meanwhile the literature of the subject gn-iv'ts apace. ^ 

We are behind ouh British brethren in the agitation of this subject, 
and with noticeable variations. They, justly, have^ emphasized pro- 
portionate as well as systematic giving. We have laid our stress upon 
the weekly offering as an act and a part of public worship. In tne 
mother country, support of home churches, and missions, domestic 
and foreign, are treated as in the same sense beneficence ; that is, a 
man tithing his income, makes a fund out of which he aids ministeiial 
support, the poor fund, and missions. With us it has commonly been 
held that to pay the minister’s salary and to support church ordi- 
nances at home is no more benevolence than to pay for other neces- 
saries of life ; while benevolence has been largely restricted to work 
done where no immediate benefit accrues to the giver, except such as 
always follows upon well-doing. Practically, the weekly offering has 
been adopted by very many of the churches; but here, again, let it 
be said, as often' to meet current expenses as to give the gospel to the 
destitute or educate young men for the ministry. The people are not 
yet generally willing once a \yeek to let their money and their prayers 
go off on errands of good-will outside their own parish. 1 hen, again, 
failure to emphasize proportionate giving has often made the weekly 
offering a w-e-a-kly thing — a mere sedative to the conscience. So 
that, as yet, by any and every method, except in here and there an 
individual case, and in isolated occasions and localities, the consecrated 
funds of the Christian Church have fallen far below the tithing of the 
Jewish Church, to say nothing of the fifth or the third to which it is 
conceded that all their gifts amounted. 

It is a sad, reproachful fact that as yet the giving of the Christian 
Church is largely a matter of impulse, of circumstance, of mood; 
often out of depleted resources which have first satisfied the individual 
whim, taste, or ambition, often leaving little or nothing lor charitable 
uses. Multitudes of so-cailed Christians spend on a single season of 
opera, on a single entertainment of their friends, for the luxury of 
tobacco, far more than can be got out of them annually for home and 
foreign missions. Many have no system in their giving. They give 
as it happens and they happen to feel, out of no definite proportion 
of their income. They often imagine themselves benevolent, and 
think they give much more than they do. They make no figures, they 
hold themselves to no fixed amount. The disparity between items of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


673 


benevolence, in, the light of New Testa- 

Are we then under law in the use of money as truly as in regard to 

Chmch the New Testament hold the 

Church to any fixed principle in a matter so vital to the spread of the 
go.pe , and to individual piety no less? It were surprising that a duty 

beleft Tl'! m h-f divine direction, should 

he left to Lap-hazard under tire gospel where the purposes of grace 

outrun all national boundaries, and the great commiLion reads ‘‘dis- 
< iple all natrons, . and the motives to it are drawn from the cross 
vvhere Christ gave himsdf for the life of the world, and not specific 
statute, but the love of Christ, constrains. 

Upon the binding force of the tithe in our day we will not enter 
argument for its continuance is very much 
like that by winch we insist that one seventh part of time exempt from 
secular care and tod from the beginning is not a Jewish institution, 
blit lor substance c intinues the heritage of the world, without a formal 
annoimcement in the New Testament. The failure to bring in the 
tithes IS the burden of the last of the prophets. He calls it bv a 
strong word with a bad look— robbery ; which had brought spiritual, 
desolation upon the peojile. Between Abraham and Malachi God’s 
property-right to the world and to man stands but in all the history 
kirst-frmts of all increase, and tithes and offerings, are the recogni- 
tion of that right. Many are they who hold that the tithe is still in 
force, and that gifts and free-will offerings come after the tithe is paid 
1 heir names command respect both as to scholarship and piety! 
Were it otherwise, who can think the grace of giving, the consecra- 
tion of property to the Lord’s use, were to be less under the new dis- 
pensation than under the old ? That the temptation to covetousness 
extravagance, and worldliness need less restraint under the wonder- 
ful expansion of modern civilization, discovery, and commerce? That 
the holy impulse to love and good works can spare any stimulus in 
this day when the world is to be won to Christ? Who will fora 
moment intimate that a Christian has upon him obligations to the 
consecration of wealth less than those which rested upon the Jew > 
Surely the minimum of giving named in the Old Testament cannot 
be objected to as too high a starting-point for a New Testament saint; 
while the occasions of making it a larger, sweeter, more winsome 
thing are omnipresent in the love of Christ. 

But we are manifestly far behind this first Jewish requisition in this 
matter. All our artificial and annual collection contrivances, with 
the varied stimulus we bring to them, are not a match for the wisdom 
of a single general direction of St. Paul to the churches of Galatia 
and Corinth, viz. i Upon the first day of the week let every one of 
you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no 
gatherings when I come.” Paul does not propose to distinguish him- 
self by drawing out an unheard-of collection by a remarkable sermon. 
Let them make it a matter of lov'e and conscience at their homes on 
43 


674 the PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

the first day of the week. I speak advisedly when I say that the apos- 
tolic method of finance, universally carried out for a single year, with 
the distinct understanding that, at the very least, the tithe belongs to 
God would pour such treasures at the feet of Christ m to remind the 
beholder of the Jewish offerings for the building of tabernacle and 
temple or of the early days of the Church when, in the fervor of their 
love the disciples had all things common. I challenge for this state- 
ment the attention of those who feel the constant pressure of carrying 
on the Lord’s work upon an uncertain financial basis; and that means 
the official management of every mi s.onary society in Chnstendo . 
And I would fain thrust it home upon the conscience of every disc - 
pie of Christ who knows that his giving falls short of one-tenth 

"'^H^rTiT a' call to the individual— ct/rfy one of you; the widow 
with her mites as well as the rich one with her thousands, the child 
and the man, the wife as well as the husbmd-every one of you. 

Here is a time when; “Lay by in store on the first day Of the 
week,” a consecrated hoard. Then the gift is to be made ; the dis- 
tribulion of it may come at any time. The gilt is associated with e 
day of the resurrection and worship, with the immortal hopes of the 
believer, and his most sacred things ; as opportunity offers, to be sent 
off to poor saints at Jerusalem, or to the ends of the earth to make 
saints of heathen. Then let the opportunity come with every Sab- 
bith’s worship, and the greatest number of givers will be reached 
the greatest number of available times. j i • n 

Here is the measure of obligation ; “As God hath prospered him 
1 1 this sentence lies the success of any method of beneficence, bach 
one’s several ability is the reach of obligation, and that to be faced 
before a shilling of income is touched for other uses. Tlie tithe is 
made at the outset, and beyond this, whatever free-will offering the 
loving and grateful soul will lay at the feet of Christ the Lord. 
There it is, a sacred hoard ; the glad, hearty recognition of him as the 
Great Proprietor, and of the man himself as the steward of God. 
More money, more for the Lord’s work ; if less, less possibly— that 
depends upon which he prefers to cut into: money for his own use, 
or money for the Lord’s work. 

If the Lord’s people weaken at this point, to give out of the residue 
of expenses, we may have method in giving ; we may have willing 
givers of little sums, but there will be more mites than widows all 
told; great, strong, bulky-pursed men giving their mites, as they say: 
" I hate robbery for burnt-offering,” saith the Lord. 

To start with the tithe for the day-laborer and the poor man may 
startle some, but not now for the first time. We have no need to 
argue the matter. The Lord has settled that in his commendation of 
the offerings of the poor, even to all the living. Does any man suyi- 
pose that, if we had the history of the poor widow of the gospels, it 
would not be found that, as in the older Scriptures, the woman giving 
the last of her meal and oil to the prophet of the Lord found the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


675 


so was.it with her? Who can doubt 
It? We need faith in God at this point. Let the poor man and 
woman ; yea, all others walk out by faith on the hand of the Lord of 
harvests and the wealth of flock and herd. And do not forget that 
many of the poor tax themselves far beyond this to gratify hurtful 
the appetites. Of course, if this is right, thenl tenth is not 

Of tTo men° resource, if giving is to be proportionate. 

behfr«r^ the same— the income of one 

being g5oo, that of the other 15,000— we can hardly think that the 

of the otw^h^t^*^ him I450 to live upon, will ask 

of the other but ^500, leaving him ^4,500 to live upon. Proportion- 
ate giving would require of this last perhaps a fifth or a third It 
wou d not reduce all incomes to a level, for it is ordained that a man 

lurkish. official, who takes everything but a bare subsistence. He 
encourages, men to reach out after the skilled industries and the best 
?hT”lhif'’''jr "I assuring them, in principle, 

theLlkil more for 

With a fund of this sort set apart to the Lord by the ministry and 
the laity of the Church, we might well enough say : Pay out of it for 
the Jerusalem vvork of the Lord, and then for the regions beyond : 
only let there be conscience about it, and the same economy in the 
home expenditure that we are so willing to insist upon in the work 
abroad : not spend at home to feed a worldly pride, and by so much 
foolishly and wickedly shrink the other; but honestly and prayerfully 
administer the trust, as pleasing the Lord— not self, nor fellow-men 
VVhen that day comes, most likely the Presbyterian Church of the 
United States of America will not spend ^6,098,150 for congrega- 
tional uses, and only ^2,262,878 for missions at home and abroad 
and all odier objects put together. How to get this conscience, this 
heart void of covetousness and loyal to Christ, is, we grant, the great 
matter. Selfishness hindered of old, and it hinders now. It brou<Tht 
leanness then, and it does it no^v. In this regard, there needs to%e 
an education different from that which has generally been insisted 
upon. Let it begin with the expounders of the word ; let not the 
rninistry weary of these practical matters in their zeal in other direc- 
tions; and then be taken up in the household circle. 

Were there in every home in Christendom a little box, plain or 
ornamental, in charge of parents for safe-keeping, but ever within 
sight and reach, known as the Lord’s treasury, into which, in the 
presence of the family on every Sabbath morning, out of the income 
of the week, should go what each one has to offer, consecrated at the 
household altar; this alone, as an education, would do wonders in a 
little time. The very rich as well as the poor could well afford, for 
Christ’s sake, for the children’s sake, for everybody’s sake indeed, 
what some are readv ungraciously to call “ the'bother of the thing,” 
to adopt a method which has apostolic sanction, and could not do 


676 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


less than sweeten the whole business of giving, putting a principle 
into it which would grow into the very life of childhood and youth 
never to be eradicated. Of all men in the world, business men, who 
owe everything to method, should be the last to discourage the 
endeavor to put method into the Lord’s work. And of all business 
men let not Presbyterians, boasting of orderly methods handed down 
froin the days of Moses, “ object. Then, as a further matter of educa- 
tion, let it be frowned upon, always and everywhere, that in the 
Christian dispensation, we are no longer under law. If love and the 
liberty of love are insisted upon, let us also insist that love and liberty 
in Christ find or put themselves in most willing bonds, lest selnshness 
get the better of them. Love delights to tie itself up in strongest 
bonds of defense against any invasion of the Lord’s right from self or 
the world. It is an unscriptural, antinomian abomination which is 
often insisted upon as to the liberty we have in Christ, in this matter 
of giving as well as duty elsewhere. Love puts a man 4n bonds to 
Christ, willing, indeed, but strong as steel. It need never be once 
thought that the giving of the Church, the use of wealth, the domain 
where men are weakest and most likely to fall into the snare of the 
devil, is left to every man’s impulse, or to the whim of the moment, 
with ’no test or guide in holy writ in a matter so momentous. It is 
not so. Push the obligation to the front — the Lord first, first-fruits 
for him — a fixed proportion of income, advancing with the increase 
of riches; associate the distribution of this consecrated wealth with 
the Sabbath worship as the most convenient, unostentatious way of 
gathering the funds of the Church for the work of the Church ; sweeten 
it with every help of prayer and praise, and make it intelligent with 
every appliance of speech, and pen, and press, and we shall see the 
dawn of a new era of Christian giving. 

There are people who do not like to see the contribution-box 
:passed every Sunday. That is because they have not learned to see 
the face of Christ in it. They have not got rid of the idea of begging 
and dunning in connection with the Lord’s work. Those are ugly 
words, which ought to be abolished. ♦ We can all get to welcome the 
.weekly offering as the near approach of Christ saying to us out of the 
contribution-box: “ Lovest thou me? then feed my perishing ones. 


,Do it to them, ye do it to me.” 

There would follow, doubt it not, a steady and adequate stream of 
supply into missionary treasuries, the ministry would be decently and 
promptly paid, the churches would rid themselves of the incubus of 
debt, the spirit of giving would be elevated and sustained, the motive 
would be more truly Christian, the number of givers would be greatly 
increased, and the blessing promised upon the bringing in of all the 
tithes into God’s storehouse would descend upon the churches of 
Christendom, and distant lands would be lighted up by the flaming 
torches of gospel truth borne everywhere in the zeal of a con.secrated 
host. 

There is no reasonable ground of hope that the world will be 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 677 

speedily evangelized on the present plan of operations, and no great 
enlargement of the plan is to be looked for until the resources of the 
Church are more entirely consecrated to Christ. It is not enough tliat 

ere and there the rich men and women and the strong churches are 
doing great things. We need the power that comes from consecrated 
littles, thick as autumn leaves, from the prayerful hearts of the greater 
many who have but little, but who need to give out of that little, the 
aggregate of which will be like the coming together of a thousand rills 
Irom the mountain side. 

We need the education that encourages such while it lays upon the 
better-conditioned the obligation to give largely of their abundance 
lest their riches become their snare and their ruin; and to have this 
done willingly, alone with God, as a matter of conscience and privi- 
lege, and not under pressure from without, nor left at the peril of an 
unfortunate mood or occasion. The Church of Christ cannot afford 
to hinge its great benevolent work on annual collections, which the 
elements may make sport of, or one unfortunate week in fifty-two 
close the hand against a cause for a year. 

We need to see that getting out of people the greatest possible 
amount of money is an odious business; but to educate a people in 
Bible principles of giving so as to make it a willing, hearty service to 
the full measure of ability, is worthy the attention of the best minds 
in the Church, the hearty co-operation of every minister of the gospel 
in Christian and in heathen lands, of every secretary and board of 
missions, of every man who prays, “Thy kingdom come.” 

^ There rises before the mind the magnificent spectacle of thirty mil- 
lions of people calling themselves Presbyterians, baptized of the Holy 
Ghost,^ consecrating the first-fruits of all their increase unto the Lord, 
accepting in very truth the great commission — Preach my gospel to 
every creature; and moving out from all parts of the habitable globe 
upon what is left of unevangelized heathendom or perverted faith’ 
speedily to wipe out the reproach of centuries and fill the world with 
the knowledge of Christ: a spectacle of the imagination, it may be; 
but who of us, coming up to this august assembly from the four quar- 
ters of the earth, will not say, it ought to be actualized? Who of us 
will not say that by the grace of God, what ought to be, shall be? 
As much as lieth in me, I am willing. Here am I. 

The Rev. W. W. Barr, D. D., of Philadelphia, read the fol- 
lowing on 

CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE. 

Definition — Beneficence is doing good. It is benevolence in action. 
The motive which prompts it is, in its lowest or primary conce])tion,’ 
human sympathy, or love of fellow-men. The beneficence that 
springs from this motive is exercised, in greater or less measure, by 
the race of men. It is seen in the good that is done by unrenewedi 
men, and by mere worldly associations. In this sense beneficence 


678 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

cares only for the body and the temporal. Its highest manifestation 
ceases when temporal and bodily ills have been relieved. But where 
the religion of Jesus is influential, beneficence has a much deeper and 
holier motive, and aims at much higher ends. Love for Christ, 
awakened and constrained by a sense of his love for us, and desire for 
the glory of God, now become the animating principle, and under 
its influence not only are the bodies of men cared for, but good is 
specially done for their immortal souls. Beneficence is now a Chris- 
tian grace. It is manifested in devotion to Christ. It sees Christ 
himself in every needy soul, and its exercise, prompted by gratitude 
for divine mercies, becomes an act of holy worship. 1 his is Chris- 
tian beneficence, and it is this beneficence that we now consider. ^ 
The definition of the subject that we have thus given would require 
us to discuss beneficence in its widest sense— in its doing good in every 
way to the bodies and souls of men. Custom, however, limits the 
application of the terms Christian beneficence, and confines their use 
almost exclusively to doing good by contributions of property for 
benevolent purposes. It is in this limited sense of doing good with 
property, or in plainer terms, with money, that we now discuss this 

subiect. . ■ ^ . 

What was Beneficence to accomplish ? Taking the Scriptures for 
our guide, we must reply that the grand aim of beneficence, of giving 
of our substance, was to be the glory of God. Connected with this 
man’s dependence on God was to be shown, his pride humbled, and 
the natural covetousness of his heart counteracted. The wants of 
the poor were to be supplied ; food and raiment given to the widow 
and orphan, and even the enemy, when hungry, was to be fed. The 
gospel was to be preached in all the world for a witness, and all ends 
of the earth were to see the salvation of God. Those commissioned 
to preach the gospel, and to make disciples of all nations, were to 
have their temporal wants supplied, and everything necessary to make 
the glad tidings of salvation known to every soul on the globe was to 
be contributed. The marching orders of the Captain of our salvation, 
given to the church— to the more than five hundred brethren — on the 
mountain in Galilee was, “ Go, make disciples of all nations, teaching 
tiiem to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” By 
beneficence effect ^vas to be given to those marching orders. For this 
great end, giving of their property was to be the manifestation of a 
grace on the part of Christians. This grace they were to cultivate by 
active exercise, as they cultivated knowledge, faith, love, or patience. 
They were to “abound” in this, as they abounded in the others. 
This grace exercised was to drive out covetousness from the hearts of 
God’s people. It was to lay in the treasury of the Lord, Sabbath by 
Sabbath, whatever his cause from time to time demanded. Money 
was not to be drawn out of the jiockets of Christians by stirring ap- 
peals, affecting or witty anecdotes, by fairs and festivals, by fun and 
frolic. It was to be voluntarily laid in the treasury, and “ no gather- 
ings ” were to be made when the time came that it was to be paid out 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


679 

for the Lord’s work. In a word, beneficence was to be exercised 
whenever and to whatever extent its great ends required, and until 
God’s own children would feel that it was^inore blessed to give than 
to receive — until they became conformed as givers to Him who is the 
Great Giver of the universe, who fills heaven and earth with his gifts, 
and who has crowned all by the gift of his Son to be the Saviour of 
the world lost in sin. 

What has Bcm'Jicence done 7 Not all, or nearly all that it was de-^ 
signed to accomplish, and yet we can thank God that it has done much. 
From the beginning of the present century, specially, there has been 
a wonderful awakening. At this time there is a measure of obedience 
to the Saviour’s comm.and to preach the gospel to all nations that has. 
not been approached since the days of the apostles. We can thank 
God, in this Council, that Presbyterians have participated in this 
awakening, and have been among the foremost to preach Christ to the 
nations. We can join with our Christian brethren throughout the world 
in rejoicing that the heralds of the cross are to-day in almost every 
land under heaven. Before these the systems of heathenism, Moham- 
medanism, and corrupt Christianity are weakening, and in many places 
are tottering to their fall. The pope can see from his window in the 
Vatican the Bible sold freely in the streets of Rome. Christian in- 
stitutions for relieving the needy, and spreading the truth, are dotting 
the map of the world. Millions of dollars are laid in the Lord’s 
treasury annually for the extension of Christ’s kingdom. The claims 
of the Lord upon the property of Christians are.acknowledged as they 
never have been before. Covetousness is, in many cases, giving place 
to a noble generosity ; and instances of self-sacrificing giving for the 
cause of Christ are multiplying on every hand. When we think of 
what the Christian world was at the beginning of our century, and af 
what it is to-day, we cannot but exclaim, What hath Christian benefi- 
cence wrought ! 

WJiai has Beneficence failed to accomplish ? There is another side to 
the pleasant picture w^hich has just been drawn. It seems a pity to 
turn it to' our view on this platform ; but fidelity requires us to look 
upon it. We must ask what has Christian beneficence done compared 
w'ith what it should have accomplished? — compared with what was 
given it to do? It must be confessed that but a small revenue of glory 
has come to God frt)m this source. Few, comparatively, even among ^ 
professing Christians, have recognized the sovereign right of God to 
all property, and have acted in full view of this solemn truth. Cov- 
etousness still largely controls the hearts, and is manifest- in the lives 
of many professors of religion. The line between them and the 
world, in this respect, is scarcely visible. So close are some profess- 
ing Christians, that it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that they would 
occupy the pews farthest from the pulpit, to save the interest on 
their money while the deacons are passing the piates for the contribu- 
tions.” It is told of a well-known member of the Established Kirk, 
in a small Scotch village (and the story may be true), that he lately 


68o 


THE TRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


jmt a shilling into the plate, and coolly helped himself to eleven 
pence half-penny, remarking to the attending elder, “ I forgot to get 
change ye’streen, Maistei^ Bruon ; sae I’ll just put in a shillin, and 
tak’ oot the eleven pence ha’ penny. Ye’ll be gaycn glod to get rid 
o’ the coppers, nae doot ! ” Some others give more liberally, but 
they give to be seen of men. So evident is the ostentation that some 
observant one has said with fine sarcasm, “ 'I'here is no use in 
chucking a copper cent into the contribution box loud enough to 
make the folks on the back seat think the communion service has 
fallen off the table ! ” . . 

More seriously, notwithstanding all that beneficence has done, it is 
still true that the poor are crying for bread in the very midst of Chris- 
tian communities, and the widow and orphan are without the neces- 
saries of life. Soon after the days of the apostles, the Master’s 
( ommand to preach the gospel to all the world was not heard, or, if 
heard, was not heeded. For ten or more weary centuries it appears 
to have been almost forgotten by the Christian world. J he Refor- 
mation of the sixteenth century brought the Church out of darkness; 
but it gave the true light only to the nations that already had tlie gos- 
fx^l in grossly corrupted form. It was almost three centurip from the 
Reformation before the Church remembered that the outlying nations 
were in heathen darkness. When one of her young members, here 
and there, began to remember these, and to feel the power of the 
Saviour’s ascending command, her voice was, “ Young man, sit down : 
when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your 
aid or mine.” 

When, sixteen years less than a century ago, the proposition was 
made in the General Assembly of the venerable Church of Scotland, 
to establish a foreign mission, it “was treated,” w'e are told, “not 
only as an unnatural, but a revolutionary design.” That era, we are 
hai)py to know, is past, and during this century the gos])el has been 
preached to a great part of the world. Yet it must be candidly Con- 
fessed that but little has been done compared Avith the wants of the 
heathen, the obligation, opportunities and ability of the' Church. 
What truth, and rebuke, were in those Avords of the great apostle to 
Imlia, the lamented Dr. Duff, Avho passed to his rcAA'ard since the last 
("ouncil of the Alliance, 'AVe are playing with missions H He 
meant, 1 presume, that Avith all that had been done, the great mass 
of the members of the Church were not seriously in earnest in giving 
the gospel to the heathen. And when Ave contemplate the wealth that 
God has given to the Christian Avorld ; Avhen Ave know that Christians 
spend more for luxury, for things not needed, or even absolutely 
hurtful ; Avhen we see, in wealthy congregations, men giving ten dol- 
lars for mere self-indulgence and show, Avhere they give one directly 
for the cause of Christ, and women “ Avearing diamonds Avhose cost 
would support a school, or a missionary for a year when Ave see 
multitudes of Christian men and women giving what they do Avithout 
feeling that it is any sacrifice, while the cause of Christ “stands out 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 68i 

in the cold, hat in hand,” receiving the miserable pittance that is 
left, the meaning of the strong, almost bitter utterance of the vener- 
able missionary becomes manifest — IVe are playing tv ith missions ! 

We are almost ready to boast of this as an age of missions and great 
ben^olence. We forget that never in the history of the world had 
the Church such ability to give, such opportunity of doing good, and 
such claims made upon her beneficence. Having a large measure of 
complacency in her present liberality she forgets that she is living, 
probably not one-half the amount per member for Christ’s cause now,’ 
that was given by God’s ancient people, the Jews, centuries before 
Cinist came. The Church’s rising pride should be repressed when 
she listens to such sentences as these from the pen of one who is no 
pessimist, and Avho was himself long a missionary among the depraved 
millions of China. Dr. William Speer writes: ‘‘When we take a 
comprehensive survey of the 1,300,000,000 of mankind in the habit- 
able parts of the globe, and allow the utmost probable estimate of the 
very small number, amidst all its races and nations, who possess, 
spiritually understand and obey the word of God, we must confess 
that now, eighteen centuries after the agony oHGethsemane, and the 
blood of' Calvary, sin still reigns, moral death reigns, the powers of 
hell reign in all the earth.”— “ God’s Rule for Christian Giving,” pp 
7 S, 79- 

Again Dr. Speer, referring to the conduct of Christian nations 
towards the heathen, says : “ They have contributed a few pennies to 
give the pspel, millions of pounds to carry on war. They have 
scattered individuals, preaching, teaching the youth, and healing the 
sick ; but grand fleets, armaments and armies to spread rapine and 
death, or to compel the admission of opium, rum, or corruption in 
even worse forms, and to make the name of Christ abhorred by the 
Gentiles.” In view of these things we, as Presbyterians, must take 
our share of the responsibility and the blame. With the soundest 
doctrine, the best form of government, the greatest adaptation to the 
world and the spirit of the age, and with a fair proportion of earth’s 
wealth, we have done but little, if anything, more than other branches 
of the Church of Christ to spread abroad the knowledge of the truth. 
With all our advantages, and in full view of the world’s wants and 
the Saviour’s claims, we are giving less than one dollar per member, 
annually, to send the gospel to the heathen ! 

It should be remembered, too, that Christian beneficence has, in 
large measure, failed to accomplish its object in an age when the wants 
of the world are understood as they never were before. The cry that 
comes up from the nations lying in sin is louder than even in the 
apostles’ days. Moreover, facilities for exercising beneficence were 
never so good as now. The is open to the gospel. The mis- 

sionary can fly with almost the speed of the wind over oceans and 
continents. Messages of salvation may be flashed around the globe 
with the rapidity of lightning. The Bible, and the religious tract, 
may be scattered among the nations like leaves from the forest. I'hai 


682 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

beneficence, in an age like this, when the wealth of the world is in 
the hands of Protestant Christian nations, has not accomplished more 
of its heaven-designed mission, argues something wrong. It is evi- 
dent to every reflecting mind that more money is the great ^yant. 
The money is in the possession of Christians, but it is not given. 
“The angel having the everlasting gospel to preach is bound with 
fetters of gold within the Church.” 

Whv has Christian beneficence failed to accomplish its object ? 

1. There has been a failure on the part of Christians generally to 
recognize the fact that all property belongs to God. “ The silver is 
mine, and the gold is mine,” saith the Lord of Hosts. ‘‘Every 
beast of the field is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.” “All 
the earth is mine.” “All souls are mine.” When Jesus called men 
to leave their property and follow him, he did not ask this as a favor ; 
he claimed it as a right. The Bible teaches that no man can say, as 
to original, or absolute right, that aught of the things which he pos- 
sesses is his own. In theory, Christians admit all thisj in practice 
they deny it. Correlated with this is 

2. The failure of Christians generally to recognize themselves as 
GoTs stewards. The declaration that “property is a crime,” is a 
heresy of the modern socialist. Yet, as the author of “ Gold and the 
Gospel ” truly remarks, “ False and ruinous as such a maxim is in the 
mouths of those who proclaim war against property for the sake of 
plunder, and seek to overturn the powers that be in order to erect 
themselves into a tyranny, there is yet a point of view in which it is 
indisputable by the believer. Man has a right of property towards 
his fellow-man ; he has none towards his God. Viewed in this latter 
light, no man can say that what he possesses is his own. For here 
comes in the prior, the inalienable claim of the great Maker and 
Owner of all things ; and in regard of him the wealthiest and the 
most powerful descend at once from the rank of proprietors to that 
of stewards of another’s rights.” All property belongs to Christ. 
He commits a greater or less portion of it to each of his servants 
during his absence in the heavens, and charges each to use it aright 
until he shall return. No servant may let it lie idle, or use it for his 
own ends merely. Each servant is to use it with reference to his 
Master’s will, and the account which he must render in relation to it 
when the Master comes. “ Ye are stewards of my manifold gifts, and 
among these, of my property,” is the word of the Master to every 
Christian. The mass of Christians have not obeyed that word. 
Practically they have acted as though everything they possessed were 
their own, and they could use it at their pleasure. 

3. There has been a want of personal consecration on the part of 
Christians, under the influence of Christ's love. “ For the love of 
Christ constraineth us,” said the apostle. Not our love for Christ, 
but the knowledge and conviction of his love for us. This was the 
animating principle of Paul’s life of devotion and sacrifice. “ Ye are 
not your own, ye are bought with a price.” The price was the blood 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL.. 6Z3 

of Christ. How influential is the conclusion drawn from these 
premises — iherefoi'e glorify God in your body and your spirit winch 
are his. Ye are not under the law, but under grace — animated by a 
new principle or motive of obedience. The motive is not fear, but 
love. Paul says of the Macedonian Christians that they “ first gave 
their ownselves to the Lord,” and then their wealth to be used as he 
should direct. They laid their hearts on the altar of God, and kept 
them continually burning there. The contributions of, their property 
followed necessarily by a holy constraint. 'I'he consecration of the 
Christian, with Christ’s love in view, carries with it the consecration 
of all that he is and has. Property goes along with the rest, and 
Christ has, therefore, from it whatever his cause demands. “You 
know,” said the Rev. John Milne, of Scotland, “that I do not beg 
you to give. I only ask you to let Christ have the purse-strings.” 
If j)roperty is consecrated to him, the jiurse-strings are his. “ Ye 
know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” was Paul’s appeal to the 
Corinthian Christians. The Christian consecrated recognizes the 
force of this argument, and no offering is sufficient to express the 
gratitude which his heart feels. The want of this consecration by 
Christians generally is a potent reason of the failure of the Church to 
fill the Lord’s treasury. 

4. Failure on the part of Christians to k7iow and believe that their 
07V 11 soul' s good requires liberal giving. “ See that ye abound in this 
grace also," said Paul to the Corinthians. How few Christians abound 
in it ! In the most its exercise is so si)asmodic as to render it doubt- 
ful whether the grace indeed exists. The mass of professors do not 
seem to be concerned about the matter. It rarely occurs to them to 
think that they might discover whether they are Christians at all or 
not by ])utting their hand in their pocket. They forget that in the 
great day of judgment the evidence that any man was a Christian will 
be that he exercised benevolence when here on earth. “ Inasmuch 
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have 
done it unto me.” A man who is not beneficent is not a Christian. 
He who does not abound in this grace is not a Christian in good 
health. He lacks one of the elements of greatest usefulness, and 
one of the sweetest sources of joy. “ It is,” says another, “ a law of 
our being as fixed as the ordinances of heaven, that we drink the 
richest draughts when holding the cup of enjoyment to another’s 
lips.” Nothing more dwarfs the soul than covetousness and greed 
of gain. Nothing more expands it than large-hearted beneficence. 
It may well be doubted whether the highest spiritual attainments in 
any respect are ])0ssible without the free exercise of this grace. 
Christians generally do not know and believe this. They think they 
can be healthy without being beneficent. Hence they are strangers to 
many of the sweetest joys of religion. They realize but little of the 
promises— “ He that watereth shall be watered also himself.” “ The 
liberal soul shall be made fat.” Oar Lord Jesus said out of the 
deepest experience, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” 


634 the PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

How few of his followers are like their Lord in this blessed expe^ 
rience ! 

5. Failure on the part of Christians generally to recognize Gol s laiu 
as to the amount of their gifts. It is not undertaken in this brief essay 
to |)rove that the law requires the one-tenth of the Christian’s income J 
It is only suggested : (i.) That as God has legislated in relation to 
time, it is reasonable to anticipate that he would legislate in relation 
to property. To teach man that all time is his, he has given him six 
days of the week, and reserved one for himself. Has he not in like 
manner legislated with respect to property? (2.) There is conclusive 
evidence that in all dispensations prior to this, God accepted or 
required the one-tenth of his people’s property as his own. (3.) The 
reasons for the law of the tithe remain in at least as great force in this 
as in any former dispensation. Is it not a maxim. Ratio legis est lext 
If the reasons for the law remain, the law continues. (4.) The law 
of the tithe, once established, has not been repealed. Paul’s argument 
addressed to the Corinthians for the support of the ministry is not 
valid if this law was not in force when he made it. (5.) 'I'he objection 
that Paul’s direction to the Corinthians, to lay by them in store on 
the first day of the week as the Lord had prospered them, is against 
the law of the tithe, and is another law, is not well taken. He was 
not then considering the law of the tithe, but was pleading for 
Christian liberality, and was indicating the appropriate time for giv- 
ing. It is not liberality in me to give the one-tenth of my increase. 
Tnat never belonged to me. It is liberality to give out of the nine- 
tenths which God has allowed me for my own use. (6.) The objection 
that the law of the tithe is unequal, that it oppresses the poor, while 
the rich do not feel its weight, cuts too deep. It was a law in Israel, 
and if it be said it was unjust the objector must go to the fountain 
head. We never heard the objection made when the lawgiver was 
duly considered. God is pleased to do many things which may not 
seem to men to be equal. (7.) Those, in general, who give at least 
one-tenth of their income to the Lord, have had no difficulty in find- 
ing the law of the tithe to be still existing and binding. This fact is 
suggestive. (8.) Finally,, the no-law plan of this dispensation, the 
every-body-do-as-you-please-law, has been a failure. At the time 
when Go<i is displaying to men most fully his love; when the motive 
for giving is much stronger than in any former dispen:,ation, and the 
demands upon beneficence are unspeakably greater, not one-twentieth 
of their increase has been given by Christians generally. Two or 
three tenths were given by the Jews : not one-twentieth is given by 
Christians. Christ had not actually come to them. He has come to 
us. Theirs was not a missionary Church. Ours is to preach the 
gospel to all nations. This is the result without law as to giving. Is 
it not time that the Church should re-examine this matter? She will 
make the discovery that in no dispensation has God regained less than 
the one-tenth. She will find that he requires this of all now, and 
beyond this as the Lord has prospered every man. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 685 

6. Finally, there has been a failure in beneficence because Christians 
nave not generally regarded giving as a part of divine worship. It has 
been regarded as a duty simply, whereas it is properly one of the class 
of duties which we call worship. It has all the essential elements of 
worship. 1 here is the inward principle, or grace, exercised, and there 
is the appropriate outward act. It is plain from the word that all the 
costly offerings under the old dispensation were gifts of propeit / pre- 
sented to God in worship. The command is given — “Honor (wor- 
ship) the Lord with thy substance, and with the first-fruits of all tiiine 
increase. Prayers and alms are linked in the bonds of worship — 

thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before me.” 
The Sabbath is consecrated to the worship of God; but every Chris- 
tian is commanded to place a portion of his substance in the treasury 
of the Lord on that day. If doing this be not worship, it Is breaking 
the law ot the Sabbath. We are exhorted “ to do good and commu- 
nicate,” and eye assured that “ with such sacrifices God is well pleased ” 
-—such worship pleases him. The Saviour gives instructions in rela- 
tion to doing alms identical with those relating to prayer and fasting. 
Did he not mean to teach that the one is worship as well as the 
others? 

Yet, in view of these and many such instructions, few Christians 
have recognized the fiict that in giving their property for the Lord’s 
cause, they were performing a solemn act of worship. They have 
made their contributions in much the same spirit as that in which they 
have paid their house-rent or their tax. 

Beneficence is worship. Let it be so regarded, and now let us see 
how many questions relating to it are at once settled : (i.) The duty 
of giving is placed on a firm foundation. There can be no question 
y to the obligation to worship God. (2.) The spirit is indicated— it 
is to be that of devotion. This would at once remove all objection- 
able methods of raising money for religious purposes; fairs, festivals, 
raffles, etc., would no more appear. (3. ) The persons who. are to gi\ e. 
All, of every age and condition, are to take part in worship. (4.) The 
time for giving. The first day of the week is specially devoted to acts 
of worship. (5.) The amount to be given. True worship will be ac- 
cording to the law of God. The amount of time to be given is one 
day in seven. The rightly-exercised Christian will give as much time 
beyond that as gratitude prompts, as the cause demands, and as he can 
afford. The amount of money to be given is the one-tenth. The 
devoted Christian will give that, and as much more as gratitude 
prompts, the cause demands, and he can afford. (6.) The direction 
which gifts of property are to take. Worship is in the Church, and 
its blessings go to the Church, and through this channel to the world. 
(7.) The period through which contributions are to be made. Life is 
the time for worship. Men do not abstain from praying and singing 
praise and leave a large amount of prayers and praises to their execu- 
tors to be used after death. They pray and sing praise through life, 
and they pray that good may be done by their prayers which they have 


686 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

left with the Church. So are men to give through life, and if, at its 
end, they have still something left, they may bequeath it to do good 
when they are gone. It is hard to conceive of a Christian regardmg 
beneficence as worship, and yet dying a millionaire. (8.) le jre 
quency of giving. Christians pray when they need to pray, and when 
the cause of Christ demands prayer. Specially do they devote each 
returning Sabbath to this end. So should it be with giving. (9.) it 
settles the matter of system in giving. It is to be the same as in t e 
other parts of worship. This is well understood and arranged. JNo 
formal service of worship is complete with prayer or praise omitted. 
No formal service of worship, especially on the Sabbatn, should be 
closed until the worshippers have, with their other acts of devotion, 
presented their offerings of property. Let all Christians from this 
time forth believe that giving of their substance is worship, and act 
accordingly, and there will be at least no longer any necessity tor 

essays on systematic beneficence. ^ 

May the Lord, the great Giver, add his blessing, and may his peo- 
ple speedily become like him in beneficence ! 

The Rev. Benjamin L. Agnew, D. D., of Philadelphia, read 
the following paper on 

MINISTERIAL SUPPORT. 

In order to have a comprehensive view of the subject of Ministerial 
Support, let us enter upon an examination of what we find recorded 
in the word of God and upon the annals of history, as far as our lim- 
ited time permits, and arrive at such conclusions as the records war- 
rant upon this most interesting and vital subject. It may prove profit- 
able to us to examine the subject chronologically, as it is jiresented to 
our minds in the various historic periods of the Church of God. Let 
us look at the theme before us, 

1 . During the Patriarchal Age. , 

This age covers the history of the Church for a period of 2,500 
years. During this age we have some clearly defined theologic strata 
cropping out, which indicate the character of this ecclesiastical period, 
giving foundation-stones of truth upon which we can rest our judg- 
ment. 

1. They had their stated times for public worship. Gen. 11. 3, 
“God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.” We read of the 
“seventh day” and the “week” in the times of Noah, Job, Laban, 
and Joseph. Cain and Abel met for worship, and in the days of Job, 
when the “ sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord,’ 
Satan came too (just as he does now). In the sixteenth chapter of 
Exodus, before the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, when God gave 
his people manna, the Israelites were reminded that the seventh day 
was “ the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord ” (verses 22-26). 

2. They had the ordinances of the Church and the means of grace. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


687 

Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are found erecting altars to the 
living God, and offering thereon their burnt-offerings. The friends 
of Job are commanded to offer seven bullocks and seven rams in sac- 
rifice to God : and doubtless all these offerings were intended to teach 
the vicarious death of the woman’s promised seed. 

3. They had their ministers of religion, their officiating priests. 
Tlie father of a family, or his first-born son, was priest of the house- 
hold (Num. iii. 12, 13). Noah was a preacher of righteousness and 
offered sacrifices (Gen. viii. 20) ; Shem, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob 
are seen officiating at the altar of God (Gen. xii. 7, 8; xiii. 18; 
xxii. 13). 

4. These things point to a regular service of religion, and it is plain 
that they contributed most generously to the support of their public 
worship in divinely stipulated tithes. 

When Abraham returned from the slaughter of the men who had 
captured Lot, Melchizedek, king of Salem, and priest of the most 
high God (Gen. xiv. 18, Psalms Ixxvi. 2), met and saluted him; and 
Abraham, who was the head of the family from which, in after years, 
sprang God’s clergymen, the Levites, gave tithes of the spoils to Mel- 
chizedek ; and for what purpose, if it were not to support their reli- 
gious ordinances, rites, and observances? And, mark you, this was 
four hundred years before the Mosaic ritual and Levitical service. 

This tithing must have been a divine institution, for we read in 
Hebrews vii. 6, that Melchizedek ^‘received tithes of Abraham.” 
The Greek has it, fisSfxdrwxf tov ’A| 3 paaft, (dedekatoke ton Abraam). 
He decimated, or tithed Abraham. 

The ninth verse reads, “ Levi also, who receiveth tithes, paid tithes 
in Abraham,” but the Greek presents it more forcibly, 6td ’AjSpaa^ xat 
\ixl o dfxara? %auf 3 avoiv bibfxatuitai, and Levi, also, the receiver of 
tithes, was tithed in Abraham. 

Here, then, we have the authority of Melchizedek as High Priest 
of God exercised over Abraham, and his sujieriority to the priesthood 
of Levi clearly shown in tithing Levi in Abraham, and we conclude 
that Abraham was obeying a divine law in paying tithes to Melchize- 
dek. Thus, we have the administrator of a law, a distinguished 
subject of the law,, and God’s approbation upon the authority exer- 
cised, and the subjection rendered ; and, therefore, we conclude that 
tithing must have been a divine institution in the earliest age of the 
Church of God. As the years roll on we see Jacob conforming to 
the established law and custom, and vowing to consecrate during his 
life one-tenth of his income to the Lord, for he solemnly declares that 
“of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” 

So far as we know they had no ornate and costly tabernacles or 
temples during the Patriarchal Age, and no costly choirs, or ceremo- 
nial observances, such as we see in later periods of ecclesiastical his- 
tory, and yet they gave a tenth of their income to the Lord in those 
early times for religious purposes. 

Here, then, we see the most ample and generous provision made 


688 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


for the support of Church ordinances, and the officiating ministers 
who labored for the advancement of the revealed truth of God, as 
imparted to his chosen servants of the Patriarchal Age. 

There is very strong presumptive proof that this law of tithes was 
given to man before the dispersion of the nations at Babel, in the fact 
of the universality of the custom among the nations of the earth of 
giving one-tenth of their income to their various gods, as witnessed 
in the centre of civilization among the Greeks and Romans, in the 
west among the Gauls, on the north among the Scandinavians, in the 
south among the Carthagenians and Egyptians, and in the east among 
the Asiatics of the early centuries. 

II. Let us examine this subject in the Levitical Age. 

A new nation is born at the Exodus, unlike any predecessor or suc- 
cessor — a Theocracy, and the worship of the Great King is to assume 
a new form in and around a gorgeous tabernacle with an ostentatious 
ritual. Are the expenses of supporting the worship of the Great 
Governor of the universe, and of setting the spiritual table 'for the 
nourishment of his children, to be diminished in their new national 
relations ? 

Who are now to be the ministers of religion ? The Lord will make 
his own selection, and instead of the “first-born,” he now selects the' 
tribe of Levi to be his servants, and the sons of Aaron to be his 
priests, and besides all these, a multitude of Nethenim, or Stationary 
Men, who were divided into twenty-four classes to serve at the daily 
sacrifice. 80,000 were hewers of wood, and 70,000 bearers of burdens. 
(Josh. ix. 21-27; Ezra viii. 20; 2 Chron. ii. 17, 18; i Kings v. 16.) 

The Levites were very numerous, as compared with the number of 
people whom they served. When the census was taken the second 
year after the exodus, they numbered 23,000 males, of whom 12,000 
were grown up. (Num. iii. 20, etc.) The people numbered 600,000; 
that is, 12,000 men, or one to every fifty people, to be supported as 
ministers of religion, besides the vast army of hewers of wood and 
drawers of water — and all these for little Palestine ! 

In David’s time they numbered 38,000 for service in that small ter- 
ritory ! 24,000 to assist the priests at the sanctuary, 6,000 to act as 

scribes and lawyers, 4,000 to furnish music for the house of God, and 
4,000 gate-keepers, who were required to be vigilant on duty, for if 
found asleep their clothes were set on fire. It, was intended that all 
should be actively employed during the time of actual service. 

The Levites usually entered upon their public duties at thirty years 
of age, and continued in service until they arrived at the age of fifty 
(Num. iv. 2-47), although they sometimes appear to have entered 
upon the discharge of some official duties as early as twenty-five 
(Num. viii. 24, 25), and even as early as twenty (i (Shron. xxiii. 37 ; 
2 Chron. xxxi. 17: Ezra iii. 8). They were not allowed to enter 
upon the full work of their ministerial office in the verdancy of their 
youth, nor to continue in their labors in the decline of their old 
days. 


689 


SECOND GENEIiAL COUNCIL. 


Now, the question most affecting our subject arises, How was this 
vast army of clergymen supported by so small a constituency, or so 
few parishioners? Not by pew-rents, nor by yearly subscriptions. 
strrvingtaHrLl“'’‘^°“^‘^ meagrely, miserly, meanly, on slim, stinted, 

1. Ihey had good parsonages or manses provided for them, for 
forty-eight cities were set apart to the use of the priests and Levites. 

( Josh. XXI. 19.) 

2. Besides these parsonages they had also beautiful and fertile sub- 

glebes, sufficient for pasture-fields for their cattle, wliich ex- 
tended 1,000 cubits from the wall of each city round about 
. 3. In addition to home and glebe, they had also a most generous 
year y income from all the other tribes, in the shape of Hikes 

^ one-tenth of all the incomes of the people was to be given to 
the Lord (notice the language : to be given to the Lori), for the use 
ol the Levites, and it was regarded as deliberate robbery of God not 
to pay the tithes he commanded ! 

'Ihis one-tenth was^ for the exclusive use of the ministry: and in 
addition they gave another tenth for sacrifices ; and in addition to all 
this, large offerings to the poor, and innumerable free-will offerings 
besides ! 


They had, too, their schools of the prophets for the education of 
pious young men for special ministerial services; and all their church 
buildings, whether tabernacle, temide, or synagogue, were erected by 
the voluntary contributions of God’s chosen people; making their 
yearly offerings to religious beneficence nearly one-third of their 
entire income ! 

The Lord himself ordained the Levitical law, and under this law 
all ministers were educated for their work at the expense of the 
Church ; and while engaged in active work from thirty to fifty yearj 
of age, they were kept free from all worldly cares and avocations, anc 
their families lived as well as the best of their parishioner^; when they 
retired from active service they and their families were magnificently 
cared for in their retiracy, and in the glory of iheir old days; and 
their families, after their decease, were never thrown upon the cold 
charities of a heartless world. 

Thus God taught the people that his chosen priests were not to be 
regarded as respectable paupers, as many regard ministers nowadays, 
to whom It is a very kind piece of philanthropy to pay a paltry pit- 
tance of pew-rent, or the smallest conceivable salary for which their 
spiritual ministrations can be secured ; and he has laid upon his 
Church members an irrepealable obligation to provide for his servants 
in these solemn words: Forsake not the Levite as long as thou livest 
(Deut. xii. 19). 

Some people seem to have an idea that when a man enters the min- 
istry he, somehow or other, lives in paradisiacal places where he pays 
no rent; that his clothes, like those of Israel in the wilderness, never 
wax old ; that Providence provides his family with a barrel of inex- 
44 


690 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

haustible meal and a cruse of perpetually flowing oil, to supply their 
wants; or feeds them, Elijah-like, through the ministry of ravens, or 
else on angels’ food, and the elixir of life, and heavenly ambrosia ; or 
suspends the animation of the digestive apparatus ; or makes them live 
on promises! never once supposing that a minister and h'S family 
should need such vulgar things as mutton-chops, or cuts of beef, or 
loaves of bread, and they are rather proud of the parson s long, lean 
face which they regard as a distinguishing mark of personal piety, 

when it is only the result of the poverty of provisions I 

But, fellow-men, aside from all pleasantry or sarcasm, in the Levitic 
ae^ there were no students pinched with poverty groaning under 
-rievous, galling, grinding debt, incurred at the gateway to the gos- 
pel ministry ; no ministers with aching hearts and burning brains, or 
spirits crushed with a burden of anxiety about their bread, were ever 
driven, like galley-slaves, to their daily toil; no desponding hours on 
the dying bed of priest about provision for the loved ones he must 
leave behind ; no widows and orphans of God’s servants were left 
without a living ; no aged and infirm prophets of the Lord left house- 
less and homeless as they were nearing their eternal rest, to be starved 

into the gates of glory ! . . . , o ^ j 

III. Let us now exa77iine this subject of Mt7ustcrial Support under the 

Apostolic Age. . . . 

Sometimes we hear the cry that ministers are ‘‘mercenary hi^re- 
liugs ” because thev ask to be supported by the people for whom they 
labor ! In the narne of an honorable and hard-working body of men, 

I repel the charge in sovereign disdain And I ask all who have 
such ideas to examine the fundamental principles of ministerial sup- 
port as laid down in i Cor., chapter 9, by as honorable and- large- 
hearted a man as ever walked God’s green earth^ the venerated 

Apostle Paul. , ^ -i 

1. Paul argues that it is the duty of the Church to support her 

ministry on Se general principle that the laborer is wo 7 dhy of his hire 
( 7 v). “ Who goeth a warfare at any time at his own charges? Who 

planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who 
feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?” 

Paul insists that it is according to the general law of God, nature, 
and humanity, that it should be so, and not a mere clever piece of 
human device of church offi('ers to extort money from an unwilling 
jieople (v. 8-10). “Say I these things as a man? or saith not the 
law the same also ? For it is written in the law of Moses : Thou 
shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. 
Doth God take care for oxen ? or saith he it altogether for our sakes? 
For our sakes, no doubt, this is written : that he that ploweth should 
plow in hope ; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker 
of his hope.” (Dent. xxv. 24 ; i Tim. v. 18). 

2. Paul argues further that the demand for a comfortable support 
is not u7^T£asonable.) because those who are ministered unto in spiiitual 
realities are more than repaid for all the tem]^oral tithes they bring to 


SECOND GENEEAL COUNCIL. 


691 


God for the supply of his servants (ii v.) we have sown unto 

you spiritual thmgs, is it a great thing if we sliall reap your carnal 
things? See Gal. vi. 6. ‘‘ Let him that is taught in the wc^d com- 
municate unto him that teacheth in all good things.” 

3. Paul reminds the Corinthians of the recognized principle 
i^itLevihcal law, which he asserts is of perpetual application ; namely t 
^ lhat they which minister about holy things live of the things of 
the 1-emple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the 
altar? and we have seen how magnificently they did live under the 
ceremonial dispensation 1 


4. To pl^ce the matter beyond all question, and to crown his argu- 
ment with the highest authority, Paul asserts that it was the solemn 
ordination of the Lord Jesus Christ himself that the Church should 
support her ministry (v. 14). Even so hath the Lord ordained that 
they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.” Christ him- 
self said : “ The laborer is worthy of his hire” (Luke x. 7), and ‘‘ The 
workman is worthy of his meat ” (Matt. x. 10). 

But, says the objector, '‘Did not Paul earn his living by making 
tents of goats’ hair?” Yes, Paul was, in a good sense, a shrewd 
politician, and when he went into a new missionary field he went 
without charge to the people among whom he labored in the gospel, 
and he said (i Cor. ix. 12) of his fellow-apostles, that they suffered 
all things lest they "should hinder the gospel of Christ.” The peo- 
ple of a new field had no sentiment, no sympathy, educated in favor 
of Christianity, and consequently would not pay to listen to a travel- 
ling preacher discourse on subjects against which the human soul has 
a most bitter and diabolical prejudice. 

But, mark you, when that same Paul addressed himself to churches 
already established, he fearlessly and emphatically lays down to them 
the law of the great King and Head of the Church, and presses upon 
them their solemn duty to God, their fellow-men, and their own im- 
mortal souls, as men who already knew something of the incomparable 
value of the gospel of Christ. 

You see, too, how the early Christians understood this matter, and 
how they appreciated their exalted privileges, for when an emergency 
arose they sold their possessions and brought the money and laid it at 
the apostles’ feet, "and distribution was made unto every man ac- 
cording as he had need ” (Acts ii. 44, 45 ; iv. 33-35). 

5. And Paul argued that they should give generously to the great 
work of spreading the gospel, because in giving they were but exer- 
cising a gift of God—W-i^ charisni of liberality, the exercise of which 
would be an unspeakable blessing to their own souls, as well as to 
others. I firmly believe that this grace of giving is what Paul denom- 
i'\ates the " unspeakable gift,” and it is but honoring the third person 
of the adorable Trinity to make this declaration. I know this expres- 
sion is generally supposed to refer to the adorable Saviour ; but when 
you read the eighth and ninth chapters of the Second Epistle to the 
Corinthians, the most natural construction of Paul’s thanksgiving is 


692 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

to make it refer to the grace of liberality, produced in the soul by the 
direct agency of the Holy Ghost.” He calls it the grace of 0. 
bestow^ on the churches of Macedonia” (2 Cor. viii. i)— a great 
favor conferred by God in imparting the Holy Ghost, through tne 
mediation of Christ, to create and develop the spirit of liberality , 
and, therefore, a profoundly proper subject for thanksgiving. Look 
closely at his argument. He exhorts the Corinthians to abound in 
this grace;' which God had bestowed (viii. 6, 7), because it would 
demonstrate the sincerity of their love (8 v.) ; because it is Christ-like 
in its nature (9 v.) ; because he would be greatly disappointed if they 
did not call it into active exercise; because it was only a matter ot 
equality for them to bear their just proportion of the burden of Chris- 
tian work (vs. 13, 14); because their gifts would be administered to 
the glory of God (v. 19; because it would be a proof that Pauls 
boasting of their liberality to provoke others to good works was not 
in vain (ix. 1-5); because their reward would be proportionate to 
their liberality (vs. 6-10) ; and because it would greatly commend the 
Christian religion for them as Gentile Christians to contribute to the 
relief of Jewish Christians, between whom there was at that time great 
alienation of feeling produced by Judaizing teachers (v. 13). 

And then, in view of all these most weighty and significant con- 
siderations, Paul calls this grace of liberality “ the exceeding grace of 
God in you" — vnfpfSdx^^ovaai-', the outstripping, surpassing “grace of 
God in you,” “which causeth through thanksgiving to God," and 
“ the administration of this service,” he says, “ not only supplieth the 
want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivinp unto 
God;" and he concludes with that burst of praise for this soul- 
expanding grace of the Holy Ghost : “ Thanks be unto God for his 
unspeakable gift I" “Unspeakable,” av(xbir}yrjtu>, extraordinary, in- 
calculable, indescribable “ gift ! ” and the word is not too strong. 
See how the apostle Peter speaks of other gifts of the Holy Spirit. 
The joy of the believer, for example, he characterizes as “joy un- 
speakable and full of glory ; ” and this charism of liberality is most 
assuredly an “unspeakable gift.” “Unspeakable, because it is the 
m3Sterious unction of the infinite Spirit of God; “unspeakable,” 
because of its marvellous triumph over the idolatrous covetousness of 
our selfish natures; “unspeakable,” because of the immeasurable 
blessings it confers upon our revolted race; and “unspeakable,” 
because of the revenue of glory it brings to the grace of God, as under 
this heaven-born power the apostles were enabled to go everywhere, 
preaching the word, making the conquests of the Church like the tri- 
umphal march of invincible legions flushed with ever new and increas- 
ing victories! Well might the enraptured apostle say: “Thanks be 
unto God for his unspeakable gift ”— the gift of the Holy Ghost in 
this priceless charism of liberality 1 Therefore, for their own souls' 
sake, as well as for other reasons, Paul would have them generously 
exercise this “unspeakable” grace. 

If an exact exegesis can make this burst of thanksgiving refer 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


693 


directly to the second person of the adorable Trinity, then I would 
say, in view of this unspeakable gift, and all the unspeakable blessings 
flowing from and through this gift, all Christians should give gener- 
ously, sufficiently, magnanimously, warm-heartedly to the relief of the 
poor, the support of the ministry, and the universal extension of the 
Redeemer’s kingdom. 

IV. Glance for a moment at what we shall denominate, for the sake 
of distinction, the Involuntary or Co 7 npulsory Age. 

Succeeding the days of the apostles on down to the opening of the 
fourth century, all Christian contributions were purely voluntary ; but 
upon the accession to the imperial throne of Constantine, property- 
holders were compelled to pay a tax for the support of the Church, 
and here began what we have denominated the Involuntary or Com- 
pulsory Age. 

In the eighth century, when Charlemagne was crowned with impe- 
rial honors by Pope Leo III., he conceived the idea of establishing a 
universal Christian, monarchy, and he bestowed upon the pope large 
temporal possessions ; and also ordered one-tenth of all incomes to 
be paid to the Church under severe penalties for failure, or refusal to 
pay, and the hierarchical system was for centuries afterwards im- 
pregnably intrenched behind these monied munitions, and through 
personal, political, and prelatical corruptions unutterable evils crept 
into the Church of God. 

In the thirteenth century there were two classes of the clergy: the 
secular order, the cloistered and corrupt Benedictines, which had 
office and salary; and the mendicant order, which had neither settle- 
ment nor salary, and which were Prsedatores instead of Proedicatores, 
depending upon mendicity and mendacity for a miserable living, as 
they travelled up and down the earth, seeking whom they might 
devour. 

V, Let us briefly consider the Age of the Reformation. 

At the time of the reformation Professor Pond says : “ In Germany 
it was computed that the ecclesiastics held more than half of the 
national property,” 

Luther, Calvin, Zuingle, Melancthon, and other Reformers opposed 
all union of Church and State, and as a consequence nearly every- 
where that the Reformation prevailed the churches were disestablished ; 
but many good men, however, in different lands favored the union ; 
and the Episcopal Church became established in England, under 
Henry VIII., in 1534; and under the influence of Knox the Presby- 
terian Church was established in Scotland in 1578; the Lutheran 
Church prevailed in Germany and became established there ; the R-e- 
formed Church was supported by Napoleon in France ; after the 
French revolution of 1780, some States recognized the Catholic, 
Lutheran and Reformed Churches ; and thus, in these and other 
countries, we have presented to us almost every variety of national 
ministerial support. 

Soon, however, perplexing troubles arise. Non-Conformists, Dis- 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


694 

senters, and those who were dissatisfied with the difficulties of manipu- 
lating the best-ordered schemes through imperfect political, self- 
interested executors of law, increase in numbers, and organize their 
churches on the voluntary plan; and then we see again churches 
disestablished starting on a new career ; and churches established side 
by side ; each earnest in its own way trying to accomplish the work 
of the Master. 

This brings us down to consider — 

VI. The present Complex, Experimental Age. 

On this broad Presbyterian platform we have delegates from other 
lands representing escablishments, able and godly men who, perhaps, 
believe them to be ordained of God, and wise, politic, practicable, 
expedient ; whilst this General Council is being held in a land where 
the constitution of the government declares “ Congress shall make no 
law respecting an established religion, or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof.” We, in America, are shut up to the voluntary plan of minis- 
terial support, and we are trying to demonstrate to the world the all- 
sufficiency of this plan, where the people are made generous by the 
Holy Ghost, and we have been largely successful in our great experi- 
ment, as certain results demonstrate. 

A century ago we had in the United States only one in every fifteen 
of the population connected with our Protestant Churches, and now we 
have one in every five ; and whilst our population is increasing with 
^mazing rapidity, our church communicants are increasing much more 
rapidly; and it has been estimated that “ the increase of the church- 
membership has been two and a half times greater than that of the 
population.” 

Take, if you please, some specimens of our work, e. g.y we com^ 
menced our general Sabbath-schOol work just sixty-six years ago, and 
we have to-day 886,328 Sabbath-school teachers in the United States, 
and 6,623,124 scholars. These are more than there are in all the 
world besides ! 

MISSIONS. 

And we have not been confining our labors to our own land. In 
1810, when the A. B. of C. for Foreign Missions was organized, all 
the churclies in the United States only contributed ;^i,6oo a year 
to foreign missions, whilst now these churches give annually about 
$6,000,000. 

Of course this is nothing comparatively to what we should con- 
tribute for the evangelization of the world. Dr. Godwin shows that 
Presbyterians, Methodists, Bni)tists, and Congregationalists only give 
annually to home missions $965,000, and significantly adds, “Since 
it costs, according to Wendell Phillips, $1,000,000 to kill an Indian, 
all the evangelical churches of our land contribute as much to evan- 
gelize five or six millions of people as the government pays to shoot a 
single savage ! ” Notwithstanding all this, the churches are making 
progress in the development of the grace of giving. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


695 


AID TO CANDIDATES FOR THE MINISTRY. 

We realize more and more, as the years roll on, the urgent neces- 
sity of an educated ministry, and under our voluntary system all our 
churches are doing something in the way of aiding worthy young men 
to enter the holy office, and by so doing we add to their time of 
active work in the pastorate between four and five years, at an aver- 
age cost to the churches of a little over $100 a year for this added 
time. Reports from the Baptist, Methodist, United Presbyterian, 
Reformed (Dutch) Church, Reformed Presbyterian (Synod), Refoimed 
Presbyterian (General Synod ), Lutheran, Congregational, Episcopalian, 
and Presbyterian Churches, show that aid is furnished students in 
amounts varying from $75 to $350 per year. Whilst most of these 
denominations report no falling off in the number of candidates for 
the ministry, there has been a large diminution in the Presbyterian 
Church, owing mainly to the false cry of “too many ministers” 
which we have recently heard so frequently ; and , partly to the dimin- 
ished aid granted to our students of late years. Many of our students 
need more aid than they are receiving. The average age at which 
bur students in America are ordained is twenty-seven, showing a pro- 
tracted struggle with many of them to reach the sacred office. 

MINISTERS AT WORK. 

When a minister enters upon his public work he consecrates to the 
Church his talents, educated at a cost to himself of from $3,000 to 
$5,000; he consecrates to the Church his labors and his time ; and 
he shuts himself out of fields of pecuniary profit. Now, does tl e 
Church accept him and his? And if so, are not the people of God 
under the most sacred obligations to see that he is supported, when 
lie obeys Paul’s injunction to Timothy, and gives himself wholly to 
their service — to the promotion of their present and eternal happiness ? 
Churches oblige themselves to keep their pastors free from worldly 
cares and avocations, and many of them keep inviolate their sacred 
obligations, and even do far more than they promise, but how ('learl} , 
sharply, definitely, conscientiously, generously, do many others 01 
them keep their solemn, binding moral and civil contracts in thu 
pirticular! Alas! the facts are painful reading. 

The average salaries of settled pastors in the United States are far 
too low. In the Methodist, Baptist and Lutheran Churches, about 
S500 ; in the Presbyterian, about $600, but under our sustentation 
scheme, we try to make the minimum $1,000 ; in the Congregational, 
about $700; in the United Presbyterian, $896; in the Reformed 
Presbyterian (Synod), $920; in the Reformed Presbyterian (General 
Synoci), nearly $1,000 ; whilst over the sea in the Irish Presbyteria 1 
Church, the minimum is $500; in the Free Church of Scotland, the 
minimum is $1,000; in the English Presbyterian Church, the rnird- 
mum is $1,000. 

In our various denominations in the United States, our Home Mis- 


696 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

sionaries are aided in amounts varying from $300 to $1,200, and our 
Foreign Missionaries sent out from the United States, in amounts 
varying from $500 to $2,000. _ . , , 

'riie salaries of pastors in the United States are raised by pevv-ients, 
subscriptions, or weekly offerings in envelopes, and the various plans 
have their advocates and opponents. 1 hose which have lately been 
trying the plan of “weekly offerings’' are meeting with great success, 
and it begins to look as if Paul’s plan of raising money “upon the 
first day of the week” for Christian work was the inspired and most 
effectual way of developing the benevolence and beneficence of God’s 
people. 

DISABLED MINISTERS. 

When our ministers become disabled our churches nearly all make 
some scanty provision for them, so that, at least, they are not speedily 

starved ! , ' , » .... 

About one-half of our disabled or superannuated ministers live com- 
fortably on their own private resources. One-tenth of the ministers 
or their families in the Presbyterian Church in the United Slates, re- 
ceive aid from the Board of Relief, and it has given aid, since its 
organization in 1849, upwards of 4,000 families, in sums of from 
$50 to $500, amounting in all to more than ^i,ooo,oco. 

'rhe Reformed (Dutch) Church has an Endowment Fund for the 
relief of the disabled, which is supplemented by collections. The 
Lutheran and Moravian Churches have endowment funds, and other 
denominations, without any general systematic plans, still, through 
local organizations, manage to afford some relief to the needy ; but 
there is, nevertheless, wide-spread and heart-crushing distress among 
our venerable and venerated servants of Gotl and their dependent 
families. 

PRACnCAL WORK. 

What are the practical things to be aimed at by our Churches in the 
matter of ministerial support ? 

I. Every congregation should endeavor to supply a suitable vmnse 
or home for its pastor. About one-third of the Congregational 
(Turches in New England, and one-half of the Moravian, and three- 
fourths of the Reformed (Dutch) Churches of the United States are 
supplied with manses. 

During the first hundred years of the history of Christian Churches 
in America, a manse, with a glebe of from twenty to one hundred and 
fifty acres of ground, was almost invariably provided by each congre- 
gation, so that, in 1800, the churches and manses were nearly equal. 
Now, however, the churches twelve times outnumber the manses in 
the Presbyterian and United Presbyterian Churches of the United 
States, as shown by valuable statistics gathered within a few years by 
Mr. Joseph M. Wilson, of Washington City. 

One-half of the money paid by the Board of Home Missions in the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 697 

Presbyterian Church in the United States to its army of missionaries 
goes to pay house-rent ; and ministers in the United States pay more 
money for house-rent than all their churches contribute to Home Mis- 
sions, Foreign Missions, and Education combined ! 

When congregations had their parsonages in early times, pastors 
were more comfortable, more free from care, labored to better advan- 
tage, and continued in their pastoral charges mucli longer than they 
do at present. A parsonage is a permanent investment, which brings 
a rental revenue or saves a rental outlay to pastor and people for all 
time, and both are permanently benefited. 

2. A plan of Life and Health Insurance^ which would in no way 
interfere with present operations, is an entirely feasible project. The 
Episcopal Church has taken a step forward, and has organized a 
Clergyman’s Insurance League, through which congregations can aid 
their ministers, but other churches have not followed their example. 
Various popular benevolent institutions, and numerous societies for 
mutual aid have already solved the problem of relieving the sick and 
disabled ; and life insifrance companies are doing their work and 
growing rich with their success, demonstrating once again that “ the 
children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children 
of light.” 

In this connection consider that the average rental paid by Presby- 
terian ministers of the different denominations in the United States 
for parsonages is ^130 per annum. If each church had a parsonage, 
this amount paid for insurance would make a very comfortable provi- 
sion for many ministers and their families; for, remember, our minis- 
ters are ordained on the average at twenty-seven, and die at fifty- 
four, thereby averaging twenty-seven years from ordination until the 
period of death. Then, as the agents of a reliable company inform 
$130 ^ twenty-seven years would secure ^8,000 for the 

family at the decease of the minister ; or it could be invested so as to 
secure him weekly dues while sick or disabled, and have something 
handsome left for his family at his decease ; or it could be paid on an 
endowment plan, and secure the payment at the end of thirty years of 
$5,000 to the insured minister, or the same amount to his family in 
case of his decease prior to that time. 

3. Salaries should be increased. Henry says, “A scandalous main- 
tenance makes a scandalous ministry.” A Sustentation Scheme, effi- 
ciently operated, seems to be the golden key to open the door to 
brighter days. A Parish Endowment Fund in the Established Church 
of Scotland of $15,000, yielding an annual income of $600, has 
proven successful in raising the salaries of poorly paid ministers under 
the Establishment, where they have about as many poorly paid 
preachers as the churches operating under the Voluntary System. 
'Phis idea of an Endowment Fund can easily be engrafted on Susten- 
tation. Whilst the Sustentation Scheme has not proven a success in 
the Protestant Episcopal Church of Ireland, because the people had 
not been trained to give to church support prior to disestablishment, 


698 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

it has been a very decided success in the Presbyterian Church of Ire- 
land where, in addition to the Regium Donum received from the 
Government, the people had been accustomed to pay pew-rents. At 
the disestablishment of the Irish Presbyterian Church, m 1869, the 
ministers commuted their annuities and created a permanent endow- 
ment. In addition to this, a Sustentation Fund has been raised by a 
system of monthly collections through envelopes, which adds £<)o a 
year to each minister’s support, so that the minimum salary there of a 
minister is $500, and generally the salary approaches or exceeds 

Dr. Chalmers successfully worked up the Sustentation Scheme in 
the Free Church of Scotland, until the minimum salary there is $i,ooo. 

The Sustentation Scheme of the Presbyterian Church of the United 
States was bright with promise for a time, but our large new territory 
operated by the Board of Home Missions presents great and peculiar 
difficulties where churches are weak and scattered, and it will require 
time and experience to bring it into successful operation in this coun- 
try. But it so greatly stimulated our new organizations to contribute 
to the general benevolent operations of the Church, as well as to seli- 
support, that we cherish the hope that its most excellent features may 
be soon so improved as to be made applicable to new as well as old 
mission fields, and successfully operated under our Board of Home 
Missions, which now has charge of both departments of Home Mis- 
sion work in the Presbyterian Church in the United States. 

4. Our churches all need a Supply Fund. 

We do not possess the appointing power in our Presbyterian 
churches which our Methodist and Protestant Episcopal and Moravian 
brethren possess, or, rather, we do not generally exercise such power, 
so as to keep our ministers continually employed, simply because we 
have no adequate provision for the payment of appointees ; and we 
should, by all means, raise a fund in all our Presbyteries which they 
could devote to the payment of temporary supplies, and thereby bring 
unemployed ministers in contact with vacant churches ; and our strong 
congregations should contribute generously to this Supply Fund to 
enable the weaker Presbyteries to accomplish their God-given work. 

Few of our churches have any provision made for the regular pay- 
ment of supplies where ministers without charge preach for vacant 
congregations. A few of our denominations, however, have a Supply 
Fund regularly provided. The Reformed Presbyterian Church (Synod) 
and the Home Mission Board of the Reformed Presbyterian Church 
(General Synod) send supplies to vacant churches, and see to it that 
each 'supply is paid at the rate of $15 for each week’s service. 

The Moravian Cliurch have what they call the Provincial Elders’ 
Conference, consisting of five ministers, elected at each Synod, and 
this board makes ministerial changes; has been in the habit of paying 
the expenses of the removal of ministers from one charge to another ; 
and pays supplies sent to fill the pulpits of vacant churches ; and here 
we have some practical hints for our other denominations, which may 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


699 

solve, to some degree, the problem of how to secure employment for 
our W. C.’s who are able and willing to work. 

With some such provisions our Presbyterian Churches, whose com- 
municants outnumber any other Protestant denomination in the world, 
would all be more efficient in disseminating the gospel ; and when all 
the Presbyterian Churches throughout the world are more bountifully 
baptized with the grace of liberality, and are able to see eye to eye, 
and combine their forces in some harmonious plan of consecraie/l 
effort as one mighty sacramental host, as the United, Re formed, Pies- 
byterian Christian Church, what a tremendous power she will be in 
the hands of the God of Sabbaoth ! 

In the light of the substantial agreement of the Churches forming 
this Alliance in the “Consensus of the Reformed Confessions,” it, 
does not seem to be a Eutopian dream to expect a combination of our 
ecclesiastical forces on a general basis of union, such as we see illus- 
trated in the union of the Commonwealths of the United States, each 
sovereign in its sphere, regulating its own affairs, and yet all united 
under one general constitution, binding upon all, forming a sovereign, 
free, and independent government. Whth such a union for the evan- 
gelization of the world ; our rivalries on new territory discontinued ; 
with an adequately supported ministry in the home and foreign fields, 
free from all worldly cares and avocations, and their numbers vastly 
increased ; and with the mighty energizing power of the Holy Ghost 
moving each anabassador of Christ to grand endeavors on behalf of 
our lost humanity, we shall present to the world one of the sublimest 
spectacles, and one of the most irresistible, on-sweeping powers the 
nations of the earth have ever beheld. 

But how are our congregations to be influenced to exercise the 
grace of liberality and make a generous provision for the support of 
their toiling ministers? Intelligent elders and laymen, whom God 
has made generous, and we have many of them throughout our 
churches, must exert their influence, and our Church courts must take 
more efficient action concerning systematic beneficence, whilst minis- 
ters niust themselves lay aside their modesty and preach the whole 
truth of God just as Paul preached it to the Corinthians. Many of 
our congregations do not sufficiently realize the actual and urgent ne- 
cessities of settled pastors of churches, and, therefore, do not support 
them as well as they are able. Pastors ought to have suitable homes 
— homes on a par with those of their cultivated parishioners; they 
should have sufficient provision for household expenses and the educa- 
tion of their children, many of whom enter the ministry, for, as it is, 
one minister comes from each minister’s family on a general average. 
They should have enough to eat, for a good physical basis is an im- 
portant factor in the problem of success in solid mental labor, and 
poor preaching is often the result of poor provender ! They need 
money for books, in order that they may keep abreast of the times, 
and not become intellectual fossils of their early school days, when in- 
fidels are flooding the world with heresies and false statements in many 


700 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


otherwise captivating works on biology, physiology, ethnology, chro- 
nology, historiology, psychology, and every department of science. 

Ministers should be kept free from worldly care. Oh ! if many of 
our men of means only realized how the inadequate support of most 
of our ministers is producing all over the land burning brains, and 
aching hearts, and broken spirits, and crushed energies, and prostrated 
powers, and physical wrecks, and disqualifying men for the taxing, 
burden-bearing life of their pastors, they would more cheerfully lay 
their money on the altar of the Lord for the use of his Levites ! 
How few look upon pew-rents as a eucharistical offering unto the Lord ! 
as a service of thanksgiving rendered to God with great joy, as the 
Israelites of old looked upon the payment of their tithes to the Lord 
for the Levites ! ‘ . 

Far be it from me to take a gloomy view of the ministerial office, 
for the servants of the Son of God are engaged in a joyous, blessed, 
grand, and glorious work, and they have for their reward the sweetest 
stores of bliss a man can possibly enjoy on earth — the luxury of doing 
good, the pleasure of an apj)roving conscience, the joy of the Holy 
Ghost, and the hope of unending glory ; at the same time, it is lament- 
ably true that their toilsome service is not fully appreciated, and they 
are not generally made as comfortable in their great life-work as 
the people of God, for whom they toil, can well afford to make 
them. 

Let the world but more earnestly consider the worth of ministers 
for their work's sake, with all their failings and shortcomings. Let 
the people be shown more clearly the inestimable value of our churches 
and Christianity, so that nothing shall be regarded as too much done 
for God and immortal souls. Let men consider more closely the 
comprehensive work of ministers, and then estimate their worth. 
They are educators of the intellectual man, for they present before 
the minds of men the most stupendous themes of Revelation — eternity, 
infinity, immensity ! They implant the great principles of substantial 
success in life in the minds and hearts of young men ; they are bene- 
factors of the nation where they labor, by the moral restraints of their 
preaching upon society, and the consequent reduction of taxation 
rendered necessary by the lawlessness of the disorderly ; they incul- 
cate the principles of the best hygienic laws and regulations of phys- 
ical life ; they are cementers of the social compact of government ; 
they are promoters of every form of benevolent institutions ; they are 
filling the world with a good* class of literature; they are advocates 
of the best ways of living ; and they teach the immortal man the 
only way that leads him back to God and glory ! 

Ah ! the ministers of Christ Jesus are engaged in a grand and en- 
nobling work, and are worthy of a generous support ; but whether 
they are paid for their services or not, the truth as it is in Jesus will 
be preached, and the work of God will be accomplished, and every 
faithful minister of the word shall receive as his reward a diadem un- 
speakably more dear than Isthmean crown, and as incorruptible and 
imperishable as the glory of the Lord Almighty. 


V 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 701 

The Council adjourned, with devotional services, until the 
evening. 

Scpienibei^ loih, 7.30 p. m. 

The Council was called to order, at the Academy of Music, 
by the Rev. William Wood, of Campsie, Scotland, President. 

The usual devotional services were held. 

The President. This evening is to be a missionary evening, 
and the Council and the audience are to be addressed by a large 
number of missionaries from foreign lands. 


Address of Rev. Henry Stout, of Japan. 


Twenty-six years ago the empire of Japan was opened to intercourse 
with the outside world Not very long after that time an American 
man-of-war was in the harbor of Nagasaki, and on board of that vessel 
vvas a chaplain. Two Christian gentlemen from China, one who had 
already been many years a missionary in that country, and the other 
a chaplain to the foreign residents in Shanghai, met at the same time 
in that city. These gentlemen were invited by the officers of the man. 
ol-war to accompany them upon a visit to the governor of the city 
In the course of conversation with the governor, which was, of course* 
carried on by means of an interpreter, they heard the governor say' 
that now Japan was open to intercourse with the outside world and 
die Japanese would be pleased to receive anything that the foreigners 
had to bring them, save two things, viz., opium and Christianity 
Of these they wanted neither. They had long seen the evil effects of 
opium upon the Chinese race; and, therefore, they did not wish to 
have opium introduced into their country. They had also had a very 
bitter experience with the Christianity which had been introduced by 
the Jesuits and other representatives of the Church of Rome; and, 
therefore, the governor said he did not wish to have Christianity in- 
troduced into the empire. But when these three Christian men 
returned to the man-of-war they talked over the matter fully, and 
said to each other something like this: “ These Japanese do not un- 
derstand what this Christianity is which they profess to dislike so 
much ; they only know of the corrupt form of it. Let us see if we 
cannot give them true Christianity.” 

They then and there agreed to write three letters to different boards 
of foreign missions in this country, urging the sending of missionaries 
to Japan. Tliose letters were written and answers were sent. In the 
course of a brief time five missionaries from this country found their 
way into that empire. Not very long ago I received a communication 
from one of those gentlemen which contained something to this effect ; 

” When we first came into the empire we had great difficulty in having 
intercourse with the Japanese, chiefly on account of the secret spy 
system we found prevailing there to such an extent; and, for several 


702 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

years after our arrival, when the subject of religion was mooted in the 
presence of a native, his hand would almost involuntarily be applied 
edge-wise to his throat to indicate the extreme perilousness of such a 

^ Those missionaries, however, went to work, and gradually they 
have been enabled to exercise such an influence that if, to-day, one 
of our brethren were to go to Japan, and could take a bird s view of 
the condition of things, he would find in that empire something far 
different from the condition in which it was only twenty-one years 
ago. Instead of a few men trying in secret to propagate the gospel 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, he would find more than fifty churches 
organized and in which are gathered the elect of God. He would find 
that instead of a little handful of representatives of foreign churches, 
there are one hundred and fifty or one hundred and sixty missionaries, 
a large number of whom have acquired a knowledge of the language, 
and are thereby enabled to do with great ease and facility the work 
which they have been sent to accomplish. He would find that three 
of these men, the most educated, cultivated and best trained in the 
language of that country, have been engaged for years upon a transla- 
tion of the New Testament Scriptures ; and that the New Testament 
has been translated and published complete in the language of that 
country; and that a jubilee has been held in the capital of the old 
Tycoon of Japan over the successful completion of this translation. 
He would find still further that already thousands of copies of the 
Gospels the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles, have been scattered 
far and wide ; that a Christian library has already been established ; 
and, what is more marvellous than all, a Christian newspaper is being 
published there week by week, which is carried by the mails of that 
government, which so long held out in strenuous and determined oppo- 
sition to Christian truths, and that being thus carried by the government 
mails is being scattered far and wide among the people. He would 
find that hundreds of thousands of the Japanese, by means of the influ- 
ence that has been brought to bear upon them, have lost their faith in 
the old religion in which they so long trusted. 

After Paul had been preaching for about two years in Ephesus, it 
was said that all the people in Asia had heard the word of the Lord, 
both Jews and Greeks. This cannot be said of all the Japanese by 
any means. No ; there are thirty-five millions of that people ; but 
some hundreds of thousands have heard the word of God from these 
missionaries and are now rejoicing in Christ as their Saviour. 

From the statistics and reports which have come to this country, 
you may learn that fifty or sixty churches have been organized, and 
that there are two thousand seven hundred members who have a right 
to sit down at the table of the Lord. When this is considered in 
connection with the fact that only ten years ago the heathen govern- 
ment of Japan stretched out its hand to crush the little remnant of 
Christianity in the neighborhood of Nagasaki, certainly we must con- 
sider that we live in a day of marvellous things. 


SECOND GENEEAL COUNCIL. 


703 

Beyond this marvellous fact, and in connection with it, I wish to^ 
refer for only a moment, because I know my time is short, to one fact 
more before I leave this country. Some eleven and a half years ago 
I frequently attended Christian meetings. One of the earliest recol- 
lections I have of attending the prayer-meeting is of a petition that 
(rod would throw down the barriers; that he would open wide the 
doors for the introduction of the gospel among the heathen. And 
now I have been back in America for more than a year, and I have 
been in many places where prayer has been heard, in the sanctuary, 
in the prayer-meeting, and at the family altar; and yet it is a fact that 
1 have never heard that petition once. God has heard and answered 
that prayer more quickly, and in a larger measure perhaps, than the 
petitioners ever dreamed that it would be answered. 

Do you realize that in all the East there is but one small country, 
Corea, where the western Church cannot send her missionaries ? and 
yet the Church of Christ in Japan has organized a Board of Foreign 
Missions for the purpose of sending the gospel into Corea. What 
a spectacle ! A native Japanese Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, when 
it was only six years old, organizing a Board of Foreign Missions 
for the purpose of sending the gospel into the very last stronghold 
of Satan in all Asia ! 

Address of Rev. H. L. Mackenzie, of China. 

I would ask you to go with me a little way beyond Japan, to the 
vast empire of China. You there find the most ancient nation and 
the most populous land now to be found on the face of the earth. 
While in Japan there are some thirty or forty millions of people, in 
China there are between 360 and 400 millions of people, the vast pro- 
portion of whom to this day are still heathen, still sunk in the darkness 
of idolatry. We who daily pray, “Our Father which art in heaven, 
hallowed be thy name,” ought to pause and think that one-third part 
of the whole human race is to this day ignorant of tlie name of our 
Father in heaven, and of Jesus Christ, who came to make the Father 
known to the children of men. 

Scarcely a generation has passed since Protestant missionaries from 
this country and Europe entered China. What results have been 
attained? Thirty years ago there were not more than twenty or 
thirty converts in China, and those were scattered in the five open 
ports along the coast of that land. What is the state of Christianity 
in that empire now? You find between fifteen and sixteen thousand 
members of the Church of Christ, men and women, who but a few 
years ago were utterly ignorant of the name of Jesus. These men 
and women are now members of the Church of Christ, meeting day 
by day, celebrating his love at the table of the Lord, and praising the 
glorious name of Him whose gospel has come to them and given them 
peace. 

Not only is this so, but where some thirty years ago there were only 
five places of worship in China occupied by missionaries from the 


704 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Protestant churches of Christendom, there are now between ninety 
and one hundred centres occupied with missionaries from foreign 
lands, scattered throughout the eighteen provinces of that empire ; and 
in connection with those ninety or one hundred centres there are 600 
out-stations, and from those ninety or one hundred centres the mis- 
sionaries go out, and do the work around about theni, and the regions 
beyond them. So that now, taking into account both the centres 
of operation and the out-stations, there are somewhere in the neigh- 
borhood of 700 places in which the gospel is preached week after week, 
and where men and women meet to worship God ; whereas, a few 
years ago those places were sunk in utter darkness, now light has 
dawned upon them, and from those little centres, the . light is spread- 
ing through that land. ^ 

In connection with the converts gathered in at the various stations, 
there are no less than 318 organized churches; between 600 and 700 
boys’ boarding schools; about forty girls’ boarding schools ; betweeit 
200 and 300 day schools ; and twenty-one theological seminaries, in 
which between 200 and 300 students are preparing for the work of the 
ministry among their own countrymen. 

1 think that all these facts, in connection with the missionary work 
in China, show that during the last twenty or thirty years God has 
been blessing the work of those whom you have sent forth to aid in 
spreading the gospel; therefore, there is no cause for lamentation. 
VVe do not come to you to-day in that spirit which was referred to by 
a member of the Council when he said that years ago the reports of 
the work of the missionaries had been so discouraging, that whenever 
they came up for discussion he was reminded of the Lamentations of 
Jeremiah. There is no reason why we should come to you with 
lamentations. We would rather come thanking God for what he has 
accomplished in the past, and with renewed courage for the future. 
If we have anything to lament over, it is that the churches which have 
sent us forth cannot send greater numbers of missionaries to China. 
In the language of Dr. Murray Mitchell, it will require almost an in- 
undation of missionaries to occupy that vast heatlien land, and to 
carry on successfully this great battle of Christianity. 

I think that God in his providence has more especially called 
America to perform an important work in the missionary field of 
China. If there is any one thing at which I rejoice more than an- 
other, it is that during the past twenty years I have met many- Ameri- 
can missionaries travelling up and down the coast of China, in whose 
company I have spent many pleasant days. Though a large number 
of missionaries have been sent from this country to China, the number 
is sadly in need of reinforcement. The cry comes continually from 
China, “Send us more men ! ” As you have heard from Mr. Stout', 
who has spoken of the missionary work in Japan, the whole East is 
open now to intercourse with foreign nations. It will not do for the 
Christian people to cease their missionary efforts in China until its 
eighteen provinces are covered by these missionaries, and by a people 
who bless the name of the Lord and receive him as their Saviour. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 705 

Had there been time I should like to have referred more especial! v 
to the field in which I have been engaged during the last thirty years 
—the field occupied by the Presbyterian Church of England in south- 
ern China. I may here say that the Presbyterian Church of England 
the Reformed Dutch Church, and the London Missionary Society- 
have been engaged for thirty years in this great work. Two of their 
missions have done practically a great deal of good by means of that 
which has been referred to in this Council as co-operation. The mis- 
sionaries of the Reformed Dutch Church and the Presbyterian Church 
of England have united to form one native Church. What they have 
aimed to accomplish has been a self-propagating, self-protecting, and 
self-susfaming Church ; and now, in Amoy, there is a native Presby- 
tery, having no ecclesiastical connection whatever with the Churches 
which have sent out those missionaries. In my visits to that Presby- 
tery, I have had the pleasure of witnessing the native pastors and the 
native elders taking part with the foreign missionaries in the work of 
the Presbytery j and those native ministers and elders have shown a live 
and intelligent interest in the welfare of their congregation, and in the 
spread of the gospel among their countrymen. The great aim of the 
foreign missionaries has not been to build up one church connected 
with the Presbyterian Church of England, another connected with the 
Reformed Church of America, and others connected with various 
other churches, but to be the means, under the blessing of God, of 
planting a native Church which shall have its own office-bearers and 
its own rulers, and provide for the expenses of its own work. This 
is the plan which the missionaries have adopted in Amoy for the last 
sixteen years; and if it were adopted by the other Presbyterian 
Churches in China, I have no doubt but that it would be found to 
work as equally a great blessing. 

If time permitted, I should like to give you further details of our 
work in Amoy ; but before I conclude I will briefly refer to what has 
been done in Swatow and Formosa. There are three great centres of 
missionary work-in China, Amoy, Swatow, and Formosa, from which 
radiate in all directions between seventy and eighty out-stations, con- 
taining a like number of native preachers. Many of the churches at 
the out-stations have their own elders and deacons, and from the 
earnestness they manifest in the success of their churches and the 
spread of the gospel, we cannot doubt that this good work will be so 
blessed that it will ere long penetrate the whole land with the light of 
the truth as it is in Christ Jesus; so that, in course of time, "he entire 
people of that mighty empire may be spoken of as a part of Christen- 
dom, rather than as a part of heathenism. Would that I could bring 
before your eyes some idea of the vast difference between heathenism 
and Christendom ! Heathenism could be compared to a pestilential 
jungle, while Christendom is. spoken of as a fruitful, well-watered 
garden. All things foul and' hateful are to be found in heathenism ; 
whereas, in this blessed land we now visit, there is everything which 
cheers and comforts the hearts of those of us who have lived so 
45 


7o6 


THE PRESBYTERIAN. ALLIANCE. 


long amidst the haunts of idolatry. It is a perfect delight for us 
to travel from city to city and from village to village, lor heie we 
meet Christian men and women, and everywhere we meet with 
beloved brethren in the Lord. Oh ! may the tmie soon come when 
we may see such scenes and experience such Christian fellowship 
throughout all the cities and villages of the vast and ancient land of 
China ! 


Address of Rev. Thomas Neilson, of New Hebrides. 

•It will be fresh in the recollection of those who attended the first 
meeting of the Presbyterian Council in Edinburgh, that upon that 
occasion Dr. Dfiff, from his death-bed, addressed a letter requesong the 
members to signalize their first meeting as a Pan-Presbyterian Council 
by engaging in a co-operative mission in the New Hebrides, ihat 
dying desire of Dr. Duff was not complied with. 

A. native of the Old Hebrides, it is now almost fifteen years since 1 
was ordained and went out as a missionary to the New Hebrides, the 
most degraded spot in the Pacific. Our mission is a co-operative mis- 
sion ; and I wish, during the few minutes I have to speak, to direct 
my remarks mainly to the fact of its being a co-operative mission. It 
received its initiation in the city of Glasgow, in the year in which I 
was born, 1838, when the celebrated John Williams, then visiting Scot- 
land, addressed some congregations there of what was tlien the Se- 
cession Church. They gave him large subscriptions in money, and 
he, at their instigation, resolved that he would go out and found a 
Presbyterian mission in Western Polynesia. He w'ent there in the year 
1839, and upon his first landing he and the men who accompanied 
him were killed and eaten. He was followed by Turner and Nesbitt, 
who made a lodgment upon the island in which I have lived for many 
years. After living and working there for eight months, they were 
obliged to flee for their lives, and go to a place where the mission had 
long been established. 

More than thirty years ago, a Presbyterian minister settled over a 
congregation in Prince Edward’s Island, Nova Scotia, had the idea 
strongly impressed upon his mind that he ought to go out as a mission- 
ary to Western Polynesia, and endeavor to establish Christianity there. 
He sailed from Newburyport, in America, and had to go around by 
way of Cape Horn. He joined himself to the missionaries of your 
Society in the Sandwich Islands, and by them received a pass on a 
whaling ship, and then by the London Missionary Society he was 
passed on in another missionary ship to the New Hebrides, where he 
founded a Presbyterian mission. 

That was co-operation. The missionaries of the London Missionary 
Society put their vessel at the service of a Presbyterian minister, for 
the purpose of founding a Presbyterian mission ! 

The next co-operation was when the second Presbyterian missionary 
joined our mission. He was brought down from New Zealand free 
of charge, and was landed in the New Hebrides. There was an in- 


SECOND GENEEAL COUNCIL. 707 

stance of co-operation in founding a Presbyterian mission in Western 
Polynesia. 

In a few words I would now like to give you my own experience. 
When I went out there fourteen years ago there were four mission 
stations opened ; and the missionaries were united in what they called 
an annual meeting. When I left the New Hebrides last year we had 
eleven mission stations opened, and this year we have twelve. Until 
five years ago we called ourselves an annual meeting, and then we 
commenced to call ourselves an annual Synod. I had the honor of 
proposing the change; I was the only one who remarked to them 
that the word Synod is the Greek for meeting. When I returned 
home the first thing I was told was, “ You are not a'Synod ; you can- 
not call yourselves a Synod.” I said that the word Synod was simply 
the Greek for meeting, and that we might as well call ourselves a 
Synod as to call ourselves an annual meeting. 

There has been considerable discussion in the Council upon the 
subject of co-operation in missions, and that has been the main point 
of discussion to-day. We are a co-operative mission in the New 
Hebrides. We have found no difficulty in co-operating. The way 
to begin a co-operative mission, and the way to go on with a co-opera- 
tive mission, is not by asking how you will co-operate, but simply by 
commencing to co-operate. 

We meet every year. When a new missionary comes out, the first 
thing he does is to present his credentials of the church from which 
he received them. _ We extend to him the right hand of fellowship; 
and then we take him around in a mission vessel, or ask him whether 
there is any special field upon which he desires to settle ; and usually 
we settle him upon the field of his own choice. If, however, we 
think there is another field more needful of the services of a mis- 
sionary, we place its necessities before him and overrule his own 
choice ; so that in fact we use the power of a Presbytery in settling 
missionaries. 

At our annual meeting every missionary brings a report with him, 
and, after he has presented it, he is questioned upon it; and in that 
way we again use all the powers of a Presbytery. 

The main reason of our success as a mission certainly lies in the 
fact that we have a mission vessel at our command. This mission 
vessel is supported by the funds raised by Sabbath-school children. 
No church in the world is bound to give it any support, so far as my 
knowledge extends. We draw the most of our support for the mis- 
sion vessel from the Presbyterian Church in Australia and New 
Zealand. 

Our co-operative mission in the New Hebrides was originally begun 
by the two smallest branches of the Presbyterian Church in the world. 
The first Presbyterian missionary connected with it belonged to the 
original branch of the Secession Church. The second missionary 
who joined it belonged to the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scot- 
land. The next missionaries who joined it were brought up in con- 


7o8 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


nection with the Free Church of Scotland. And the last missionaries 
were brought up in connection with the Established Church of Scot- 
land ; while a year before I came away a young missionary, who had 
been brought up in connection with the Presbyterian Church of 
Norway, joined the mission and receives his support from the Presby- 
terian Church of New Zealand. All our machinery works harmoni- 
ously together. 

I have been laboring, as I have said, among the most degraded 
savages in the world — men who run naked, who are cannibals, who 
are lost to all sense of decency and to a very large extent, in some 
cases, to all sense of humanity. Of the twelve missionaries, six of 
them, laboring upon four different fields, have Christian congrega- 
tions, with elders and deacons. The members of their congregations 
have become an intelligent people, who can read and write, who know 
a good deal about geography, who can do sums in arithmetic, and 
many of whom can preach very excellent sermons. We have one 
hundred native preachers, all of whom receive a salary of £(> a year ; 
and many of them can preach a far better sermon to their native 
brethren than I can. A large number have become printers, because 
we have three printing presses in the group of islands ; while there 
are a great many who are able to assist the missionaries in their work. 
But we have succeeded in extending our work over only one-third of 
the group; and there is yet time to fulfil the wish of Dr. Duff sent 
from his dying bedside to the Edinburgh Council. 

Rev. Allen Wright, from the Choctaw Nation. 

We meet here to-night for the purpose of telling the people of the 
great things the gospel of Jesus Christ has done for the world. I do 
not propose to speak of what others have done and may do, but I am 
here simply to say that “ I am what I am by the grace of God.” I 
was born in the time of darkness when there was scarcely a gleam of 
light throughout the whole Choctaw country. I knew nothing of the 
gospel in my childhood, and heard of no belief except the belief which 
was prevailing among the Choctaws — of the existence of men who 
could be transformed into witches, who could fly in the air and shoot 
at people through thick walls as well as in the open air. It was be- 
lieved that these witches tempted the Choctaws to all kinds of vice, 
sin and iniquity, which are common among the heathen people. But 
thanks be to God, in my early days the gospel was sent to our nation 
through the faithful missionaries of the Lord Jesus Christ. I went to 
a mission school. It was there I was taught, in the Choctaw language, 
the truths as I found them in the Bible ; for I did not know at that 
time any other language than the Choctaw. In the course of time 
however I learned a great deal at the mission school, and after a while 
I, fortunately, was sent to a mission boarding school. From that 
time I was gradually prepared for college, and in that college the 
same faithful missionaries exerted their influence. It was in that 
college I first experienced the love of Christ in my heart, and, finally. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 709 

Church, when I was 

niXfr n g<>spel of Jesus Christ where would I be to- 

3 ! Do you suppose I would be able to meet you here to-nigh^ 
and speak of the great things which the Lord has done for me Ind 

mesLnger ofJ“ ceased, for the gospel is the 

Under the influences to which I have referred I gave mv heart to 
Jesus, and I rejoice for the blessings he has conferred upon me It 

Tut mv ILte Afte'‘^ ^ ^ ^’‘^ctiy 

suit my tastes. After completing a course of study in the mission 

boarding school, I concluded that I would study medicine • but I 

becanie uneasy and found in the end that my only course was to 

pmach the gospel of Jesus Christ, who so loved ':ne ap'd gavTwelf 

The first missionaries who came to the Choctaw nation were Pres- 
byterians. I may here say that the Choctaw Indians are natural Pres- 
byterians ; they are great believers in predestination. They believe 
that whatever a man was to do he will do, and that if he is to be 
killed he w, 1 be killed. I can remember many a time whL Indians 

■ » » »' ■ »’ « 

We received the gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is contained in the 
Bible. In the days of my childhood our people were hunters They 
had mostly given up warfare and had engaged in hunting. ' All the 
peopte, with the exception of the children, who were lef? at home 
together with the women, who attended to the cultivation of their 
patches of ground, went off in hunting expeditions, and in that wav 

mea':;nf‘’:Son:° of 

^S'"' 'i;ed in the State of Mississippi, but many 

years ago we crossed the Mississippi river to our present location. We 
have been told that we shall remain there so long as the sun shines 
and the water runs and the grass grows. But I kfow not whether we 
shall be permitted to remain in that country so long. I do hope 
though, that Chrj^stianity will continue to progress among us ^ ’ 
.fi/f respect, at least, was a great ben- 

hfh-? ' ’T' breaking up many former pernicious 

habits and customs, and they were brought into a new state V things 
I here were many among our nation who, having peculiar customs of 
their own, would not mingle with the rest; but when we reached the 
new country we all mixed up together and formed new acquaintances 
So'lhi’tT ^ ^1.^'^“® forsook them and adopted Ltter ones! 

worldf T- condition in regard to 

worldly affairs than ever they were before. ° 

are over eleven hundred communicants in the 
Presbyterian Church; and our twenty-six churches have started anew 


710 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


mission among the wild tribes who are settled upon our western bor- 
ders. At first they did not care about hearing the gospel, for they 
spoke of it as the white man’s religion, and said that theyjiad a re- 
'ligion of their own which was good enough for them. They said 
that the religion which we preach might be suitable for their children, 
who were being educated in the Government schools, if they chose to 
accept it ; but as for them they were too old to learn the new, and 
preferred to be the adherents of their false religion. 

The Rev. A. Mabille, of Basuto Land, South Africa. 

As a delegate of the Basuto Land mission, I rejoice to have this 
opportunity of laying before fathers and brethren of the Presbyterian 
Church, a short resume of the work our mission has done in that part 
of South Africa. 

This mission was begun in 1833, by the advice and entreaty of the 
father of Protestant missions in South Africa, the late revered Dr. 
Philip. 

It began its work when the Basuto tribe was a very small one, and 
has developed and extended, keeping pace with the development of 
the tribe itself. As remnant after remnant of scattered and half- 
destroyed tribes from the interior came to claim the protection of the 
far-famed chief Moshesh, so also was station added to station, until 
seventeen stations were made as many centres of light and life. 
About 1862, when the first band of missionaries had, as it were, com- 
pleted nheir work of clearing and planting, having been the only 
workers, it seemed to be time for Christian natives to share in the 
work. From that time until the present moment, the native catechists 
or evangelists have been found more able and fit to break new ground 
among their heathen countrymen, whilst European missionaries have 
continued to occupy the old stations, and become the instructors and 
superintendents of their native helpers. There are now in Basuto 
Land sixty-nine outstations, worked by one hundred and twenty-six 
catechists and schoobteachers. A great advantage for the gradual de- 
velopment of the work has been that the French mission was, until 
very recently, the only body at work in Basuto Land, and has thus 
been able to follow a systematic plan of working, which, on the whole, 
has proved to be successful. 

The excellency of the native? as pioneers has been further shown 
by two of them having been able, with God’s blessing, to begin a new 
mission hundreds of miles farther north, near the northern limit of 
the Transvaal, among Maquamba and Batsuethla, where there are now 
two flourishing stations and several outstations, worked by the Free 
Church of the Canton de Vaud, in Switzerland. But the churches of 
Basuto Land, in this further development of the work, soon felt that 
it was not sufficient to have their sixty -nine outstations, for the main- 
tenance of which they themselves provide all the needful expenses, 
amounting to about ^1,500 a year. But wishing to have a share with 
other churches and missionary bodies in the evangelization of the in- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


711 

terior of Africa, they decided, with the concurrence of the Home 
Paris Committee, to send first two natives as explorers to tribes resid- 
ing north of the Limpopo. When these returned, bringing a favor- 
able report, the churches sent first a missionary and some native cat- 
echists, who, after having been incarcerated by the government of the 
'fransvaal, were peremptorily ordered to return to Basuto Land. At 
last a third party made its way as far as the Zambezi, where it found 
a large tribe speaking the Jesuto language, and having nearly the 
saine customs as the subjects of Moshesh. We hope to have this new 
mii-sion planted on the northern bank of the Zambezi in the course of 
next year; if so, the Lord, the Head of all missions, will grant us this 
exceedingly great jirivilege, for the realization of which four of our 
native catechists have already laid down their lives at his feet. My 
fellow-laborer, the Rev. F. Corillard, who is to lead this newventuie, 
is now holding conferences in England and Scotland, and will shortly 
go the round of the Protestant churches in France, to ask their authori- 
zation and help in favor of this new undertaking. The difficulties are 
many ; the climate is not very good, but, as we believe that the Lord 
has himself opened the door before us, and there are men, both in 
France and in Basuto Land, offering themselves for the work, we dare 
not stand back and be afraid. I ought to add that one of the motives 
which has brought me to America, is the hope to find means to enable 
my friend to start for the Zambezi early next year. For the laying- 
out of the new missions, as we wish to occupy the Barotse Land in 
force from the outset, I ought to be able to collect from friends of 
mission work in this country about ^10,000, to complete a similar 
sum which we hope to receive from the churches in France and Basuto 
Land. There is a numerous Roman Catholic nn'ssion trying to push 
its way on to the Zambezi, by fair or unfair means, and unless we get 
the supplies I mention, we shall have to delay our start till 1882, and 
may then find the place already occupied by our adversaries. 

Another stage of development in our mission dates from 1869. We 
had, for many years, wished to have a normal school, to prepare 
teachers for our day schools, and also to give our catechists some in- 
struction. For, when we began our outstations, we were obliged to 
take our most experienced Christians, such as had given sufficient 
proof of their faith by their perseverance and Christian life, 'fhey 
did well for a few years ; but as the, tribe was then making a strong- 
advance under the fostering care of the English government which 
had saved it from entire destruction in 1868, we opened our normal 
school, where about no young men are being instructed and educated. 
In this school we have a prejiaratory or lower department, the training 
school, properly speaking, and also a Bible class, where young men 
belonging to several distant tribes receive Bible teaching, which may 
enable them to evangelize their countrymen. To this Bible class, we 
are now anxious to add a theological class, in order to prepare native 
pastors. Of all missionary bodies laboring in South Africa, we are 
probably the last who have taken up the question of a native ministry. 


712 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

But we believe that we have followed the regular developrnent of our 
work by not being too hasty in giving ordination to natives, as our 
intention is to make them, if jiossible, equal to us in knowledge, 
while not taking them too much away from their own simple way ot 
living. This, too, will make a mission in the interior of Atrica less 
costly than it would be, were they reared in the same way as we have 
been. We have also a training school for girls and an industrial 

Another outcome of our gradual progress has been to give our 
churches a full Presbyterian organization. Before 1882, missionaries 
were, as it were, absolute in everything. Since then, we have had 
elders at first ; after a few years, we felt the need of having regular 
Presbyteries, and consistories, and a Synod. This one meets once 
every two years, and we have cause to believe that this organization 
has been of great advantage to the consolidation and growth ot the 

Churches. . 1 j -.-v 

As all missionary churches ought to have, we have established in 
ours a very strict discipline, which missionaries exercise not only in 
the churches, but also in their own homes. It has served many pur- 
poses. Although the Basutos are addicted, as a tribe, to much drunk- 
enness, to polygamy, circumcision, and to many unnatural sms, we 
have been able to maintain a rather pure life among Christian profes- 
sors. Cases of discipline, among members and candidates to bap- 
tism, amounting to above 6,000 adults, only reaching, for all cases, 
the number of ninety-eight. Among other good purposes which this 
strict discipline has served, is that, although a Roman Catholic mis- 
sion has now been in existence for more than seventeen years, and an 
Anglican one of a high ritualist type for about six years, neither of 
them has done us much harm, the heathen themselves saying that they 
could believe in a Christianity which requires a holy life from its ad- 
herents and punishes the guilty ones ; but not in a Christianity which, 
as it is, is not much higher in many of its customs than their own 

heathenism. t j • 

The present situation of our mission in Basuto Land is very serious 
and painful. Politically speaking, even before Moshesh sought for 
protection in England against his foes, he and his people had been 
the faithful allies of the English government. Since their annexation 
to the British empire, they have fought for it several times against 
other native tribes. Last year, the Cape government; which is more 
or less independent from the Home government, have resolved upon 
disarming the Basutos, giving no reason whatever for this unnecessary 
and aggrieving policy. After having tried all legitimate means to get 
redress, a part of the tribe has rebelled against the Colonial govern- 
ment, blood has been shed, and 1 am much afraid that the rebellion 
may become general. Our work is now at a standstill, and we much 
require the prayers of all friends of missions, to ask the Lord to inter- 
fere and not to allow his work to be destroyed or even stopped. I 
trust that this passing allusion to a very painful subject will not pass 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 713 

unnoticed, and that, even during this conference, fervent supplication 
may be made to our Lord who is both able and willing to hear his 
children in all their distresses. 

The general influence of our mission upon the tribe has been good. 
The tribe generally observes the Lord’s day. Circumcision, cattle 
marriages, even polygamy have been much assaulted, and their hold 
upon the tribe has been weakened, though not as much as we could 
wish. At the time of the annexation of Basuto Land to the British 
empire, circumcision might have been abolished ; the chiefs and the 
whole tribe asked for its abolition, but the English governor was afraid 
to take that step. The education of the tribe is advancing, there 
being above 3,000 children in the day schools, for which the govern- 
ment, out of the revenue of the country, makes us grants amounting 
to above ^4,000. Nearly one-third of these 3,000 children belong 
to heathen parents. Civilization is also progressing, and the Basutos, 
in most respects, can favorably compare with other native tribes of 
South Africa. 

A means of extending our influence, even much beyond our border, 
has been the books we have printed at our mission press, several of 
which have been reprinted in Europe. Our fourth edition of the New 
Testament of 15,000 copies is nearly exhausted. A pocket edition of 
the same, with references, is now in the press. The second edition 
of the whole Bible is also in the press (of lo^ooo copies). We are 
now selling the second edition of the “ Pilgrim’s Progress. ” We have 
lately put in the hands of the Basutos a book on Church history, one 
on Bible history. We have also historical and doctrinal catechisms, 
school-books, tracts, etc. Our hymn-book, the fifth edition, is now 
being printed in London, with the second edition of the tunes in the 
‘‘Ionic Sol fa Notation.” I may also mention a monthly paper 
which has 800 paying subscribers. We have also two colporteurs at 
work, who are mainly maintained by the Sunday-school of the Dutch 
Church of Bloemfrutein, the capital of the Orange Free State. 

Thus the Lord has blessed the work of his servants and has given 
us abundant cause to bless his name, as he has made manifest to the 
Basutos his great love and his great mercy by giving them the gospel. 
Many already are those that have gone to their everlasting rest, after 
having fought the good fight and kept the faith. Many are those that 
still love a consistent Christian life. We have raised many Eben- 
Hezer in our mission, and we trust to raise many more still in times 
to come. To Him be all the praise and glory. 

This is a plain and unvarnished description of the Basuto Land Pro- 
testant mission, and I beg from all the brethren who may be interested 
in it, to remember it before the Lord ; for to me it is plain that 
advance and success in the mission work can only be got by the fer- 
vent and persevering intercession of the united evangelical churches. 
Nothing else, with fiiith in that work, will cause able and enthusiastic 
men to rush into the mission field in sufficient numbers and procure 
the necessary means ; for until now, through want of this united action, 


714 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

we have still to say, with sad hearts, The laborers are^ f^v, O Lord, 
aiid the means are insufficient. May the Lord teach his Church what 
she has to do, and to do it quickly. ^ For he is coming. ^ 

I cannot sit down without expressing how happy our mission is to 
have some relations of Christian fellowship and interchange of opmion 
with the mission of the Presbyterian board of America m Naml. 

In the year 1866, and again in 1870, whilst our work was undergomg 
a severe trial, they helped us not only with words of sympathy, but 
also with deeds of kindness. We have heard, with much pleasure, ot 
its proposed advance in the country of Mozila. May our com.mon 
Lord and Master guide them and us also, so that we may always work 
side by side with brotherly feelings and mutual help. 

Rev. Dr. Blaikie. — I desire to say to the audience, that 
the new mission referred to by’’ the Rev. Mr. Mabille as 
about to be established under the auspices of the native mis- 
sionaries in Basuto Land, is in one of the districts through which 
Dr. Livingstone passed in his great journey through South 
Africa ; and few things would have cheered the heart of that 
great missionary more than the intelligence that such a mission 
is about to be established in the heart of that country. 

Rev. S. C. Ewing, of Alexandria, Egypt. 

I suppose I need not say anything about Egypt as a country. It is 
known to all readers of the Scriptures, and to all who have studied 
geograrffiy, and those who read the newspaper, for the neighboring city 
of New York has lately begged an ornament from Egypt. This looks 
to me like the basest act of vandalism that has been perpetrated in 
modern times. I can look at it in no other light than that New 
York city has actually robbed Egypt of Cleopatra’s Needle. We 
have still Pompey’s Pillar there; we have still the great Pyramids; 
and we have still there the temples which were built three thousand 
years ago. They are built on firm foundations, and rest on strong 
pedestals, arrd you will never bring them here. Thanks be to God, 
he has also built pillars in Egypt that neither the rapacity of London 
nor of New York can ever remove. They are the pillars of Presby- 
terianism, pure and unadulterated ! 

In referring to the missionary work in Egypt, I may preface my 
remarks by saying that the United Presbyterian Church of North 
America has a mission there, and has had it there for a quarter of a 
century ; and all over Egypt the natives receive their instruction from 
the Presbyterian Church of the true blue stamp. We have organized 
congregations, with native pastors and native elders ; and before God 
and this great assemblage, I can testify to God’s goodness manifested, 
and to the power of his grace, not only through the efforts of the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 715 

missionaries, but more specially through the efforts of native pastors 
and native elders, by means of whom he has raised up our people to 
the position wherein they can receive all the benefits of the Christian 
faith., ihese native pastors preside over congregations, aiid every- 
thing in those congregations is conducted on Presbyterian principles; 
and they work well. 

God seems to have blessed the church that I have the honor to rep- 
resent, even before there were native pastors ; but I think, perhaps, 
that it is better to speak of the Presbyterian view of the case. Before 
I went there, twenty years ago, a Presbytery, by an order of Assembly, 
was organized, and the first act performed of any consequence was to 
ordain a missionary. A missionary was brought up and educated, 
partly by the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland ; and he has 
made a very good missionary. 

I may say here, by way of parenthesis, that there have lately oc- 
curred two cases of the best union in Presbyterian circles I liave ever 
heard. lhat good brother united with us and joined our church, and 
there has been beautiful harmony ever since, and there is no danger 
of anything else. Our good brethren from the South — the Associated 
Reformed Church of the South — wished to be represented in our good 
work, and they sent out a very estimable young lady. We happened 
to have a very estimable young man there at the time, and there was 
a most beautiful Presbyterian union formed between them; and it has 
worked beautifully ever since. 

I may mention that the Presbytery was formed when I went out 
there, and that it was in operation. I took my certificate from the 
Presbytery of Allegheny, one of the most orthodox Presbyterian 
churches in the country. I presented it to that Presbytery, and I have 
rejoiced and boasted, I believe, in being a member of the Presbytery 
of Egypt. 

Some time later in the history of our work, young men commenced 
to be prepared for the ministry, and they were ordained as soon as we 
could ordain them. Our custom is, that as soon as we ordain them 
we enter their names upon the roll, and call upon them to pronounce 
the benediction ; and from that time there is not a particle of differ- 
ence between a brother so ordained and myself or any other member 
of the mission. The rule has worked perfectly. Thei*e is no more 
harmonious Presbytery in the Presbyterian Church, I will say, than 
ours. 

We have our theological seminary and we have our college ; and, 
although few in numbers, the Lord is working among us. We have 
there a very respectable people to work with and to work among. 
They are people just as devotedly attached to their religion as Dr. 
Cairns or myself are to our religion. They come to the services, and 
do not talk about a Church two or three hundred years old. No; 
they say, “St. Mark preached the gos])el to us, and perhaps Peter 
did ; and are you come here now to upset all our faith and belief? ” 
It takes some time for men of th.at description to become persuaded 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


716 

that their church is in error, and even after they are persuaded it takes 
a good deal of time to convince them that they ought to leave the old 
Church and join the new. Thanks be to God, we have a Presbytery 
there, and nearly half of the members are natives, while the number 
is increasing rapidly every year. 

I do not know whether I have time to extend my remarks in this 
direction as far as I would like, but there is one thing I would like to 
say before I conclude, and 1 hope I shall be permitted to do so. I 
have heard the remark made in this Council that what was most needed 
in the missionary fields was an inundation of missionaries. I say, 
may the Lord save us from that inundation in Egypt ! We need more 
missionaries than we have, and I suppose every mission in the world 
needs an increase of the number of its missionaries, but we do not re- 
quire an inundation of them ; no, not by any means. Christ had only 
twelve apostles, and by means of twelve apostles he established his 
Church. His Church was established not by a great number of mis- 
sionaries, but by a sufficient number of them. If the missionary fields 
were filled with missionaries, there would be very little encourage- 
ment and very little inducement to raise up native ministers. What 
is necessary in every missionary field is to raise up, as speedily as pos- 
sible, native pastors; and the fewer missionaries there are the sooner 
will the object of missions be accomplished. There are not enough 
missionaries in Egypt, to be sure, and the same remark may apply to 
other mission fields; but the mission field does not exist that requires 
an inundation of missionaries. We need a sufficient number of mis- 
sionaries, but no more ; and that mission work will be done the best 
when the congregations which have been established by missionary 
efforts are presided over by native pastors. Mission work is accom- 
plished when the Church undertakes to perform the work which is ne- 
cessary to be done within a certain boundary. 

While a little good has been accomplished in Egypt, we regard what 
has been done merely as the opening of the door to the great terri- 
tories in Central Africa lying between Alexandria and the equator. 
In that region there is no mission yet established, but attention is 
being turned now to it. The late Viceroy of Egypt was a very good 
man in some ways, and a very bad man in others. He extended the 
territory of Egypt almost to the equator, and wherever this extension 
of territory went, there telegraphic communication was established, 
and the gospel was circulated in the Arabic language, in which the 
Scriptures have been beautifully translated. The work would have 
progressed towards the centre of Africa, if the Egyptian government 
had only held on to their territory there. I find, however, that my 
time is exhausted, and I must hastily close these remarks without 
referring to this feature of the missionary work in Egypt. 

The R’iV. Dr. Blyden was to have spoken on the next sub- 
ject; but, in his unavoidable absence, a graduate of Lincoln 
University, Pennsylvania, 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 717 

The Rev. Solomon P. Hood, of Liberia, spoke on “ Presby- 
terianism for Africa,” as follows : 

It will not be expected that I should do justice to a subject assigned 
to the Rev. Dr. Blyden, President of the College of Liberia; but 
that the sons of Africa, numbering one hundred and fifty millions of 
souls, might not go unrepresented, I have been asked to present 
sornething in their behalf. If you hear but a feeble cry from these 
millions, it is because there is wanting a proper medium between them 
and this assembly. 

Africa alone of the continents has remained a dark spot in the 
geography of the world. Has she been overshadowed by the frown 
of God ? Have her people loved darkness more than others? Or has 
Africa not yet heard, through the Church, the call of Christ to re- 
pentance and faith and salvation ? 

For twelve centuries a broad and impassable barrier of Mohamme- 
danism, reaching from Arabia to Gibraltar, separated the native 
peoples of Africa from the Christian Church. Her sons were sought 
out, not to be instructed in the gospel, but as her ivory and gold, to 
gratify the avarice of other nations. Africa was long left in midniglit 
gloom, scarcely yet broken into dawn, to feel after the unknown God. 
The wrongs of the African race should be written in tears instead of 
ink, and on sackcloth instead of parchment. Africa, long secluded 
from the observation of the world, is now beginning to come into 
view. And God is asking the Christian nations to fulfil his commis- 
sion, and carry the gospel to that continent. 

The Republic of Liberia, small when compared with other nations, 
is yet destined to do much good, though it shines with a feeble light 
in the^ midst of so great darkness. It is said to have a population of 
one million five hundred thousand souls, including the newly annexed 
kingdom of Medina. The territory of Liberia comprises the most 
beautiful, fertile and salubrious of the West African country; and 
contains some important tribes, among which are the Veys, who have 
invented an alphabet and reduced their language to writing. The 
Republic has resisted the influence of heathenism. She has stood firm 
against the encroachments of superstition. She has* completely 
annihilated the slave trade from seven hundred miles of her coast. 
She is known and respected far in the interior; and she is in pleasant 
relations with the leading powers of the world. Liberia is the door to 
the whole valley of the Niger, dense with a population everywhere 
friendly and hospitable. The coffee cultivation is extensively pur- 
sued. The college of Liberia, over which the Rev. Dr. E. W. 
Blyden is president, is in efficient operation, and the trustees have 
lately resolved to remove it into the interior, where many of the chiefs 
are seeking education for their sons. We know not yet what the 
destiny of Liberia will be, but she may be the wedge by which the 
power of God will force open the continent. 

More than all other countries America is indebted to Africa. The 


7 i 8 the PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

two continents have been linked together by the 
in an inseparable union. As has been said, Livingstone and Stanley 
did not uncommissioned make their perilous journey t 
iun<^les of Africa. Emancipation and enfranchisement in this countr> 
havl not yet unfolded half their meaning. W ho shall say what con^ 
nection is yet to be developed between the explorers on the old world 
and the armies of the. new? This bringing into prominence of the 
mother country just at the time of the uplifting of her exiled children 
is a coincidence in the unfolding purposes of God. He who, a^co^^- 
ing to the counsel of his will for his own glory, hath 
whatsoever comes to pa:s, did not permit five millions of human 
beino-s to be for two centuries enslaved in a land of ChrisUan civiliza- 
tion without a special design. The American slave has given a signal 
example of a Christian spirit in bondage; and the freedmen have 
given unmistakable evidence of improvement since their ^^^eration. it 
this bruised branch rudely torn from the mother vine has flourished thus 
in a foreign soil under the most adverse circumstances, what may we 
not hope that Christianity will do for the crude unimpaired African on 
his native soil? Mighty capabilities lie hidden beneath the heathenism 
of that unexplored land. The diamond in its crude state, or imperfectly 
polished, is distinguished by its action in the light which falls upon it 
Throw the reflection of your Christian light upon Africa, if you would 
know what she is. Some think that Africa is to be evangelized by 
the colonization of the Anglo-Afncan. Others have thought that 
colored men completely educated, and thoroughly imbued with the 
spirit of the gospel, should go back to their mother land as missionaries 
of the cross. Others have proposed to bring the native African to 
Christian lands and educate and Christianize him, and send him back 

to Christianize his countrymen. r r -i 

Where so many ways are possible there can be no excuse for lai lure. 
The general indications of providence are unmistakable. Here is a 
people who have lost the traditions and institutions of their own 
fathers, while they have kept their physiological and mental charac- 
teristics, and who have come into possession of the Anglo-Saxon an - 
guage, of Anglo-Saxon institutions, and of the Anglo-Saxon Bible. 
These possessions mark them as the men to carry the truths which 
are embodied in this language, to transport these Bible institiitions to 
the land of their forefathers. And if the Presbyterian Church has an 
interest in this result, let her bear a part in giving to chosen colored 
men unstinted educational qualifications to act as her representatives 
wherever Africans are found. * ^ ^ 4 .- 

But the duty lies not alone with the American people. All nations 
have united in despoiling Africa; let all nations unite in upbuilding 
her She does not ask back her gold, nor her human flesh, but that 
which is richer than gold and sweeter than life— the immortal pnncf 
pies of Christian truth. The cry comes to-day from one hundred and 
fifty millions, groping their way downward in the gloom of heathenism, 
with the camp-fires of civilization blazing in a circle of light all 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


719 


around them. We know that something has been done ; but what 
compared with the vastness of the work? Why might there not be a 
mighty uprising of the Christians of the world in a crusade to wrest 
the continent of Africa from the hands of Satan ; a crusade not car- 
rying the sign of the cross, but the power of the cross — not to recover 
the land of the cross, but to plant the cross in a land that knows not 
the crucified One. To-day the propagandists of Islam travel from 
village to village, without commission, without salary, or any kind of 
compensation, reading the Koran, and giving instruction to wonder- 
ing natives who never before knew anything better than a fetish made 
of serpents’ fangs, or leopards’ claws, or of the skulls of slain enemies. 
If Mohammedanism has power to win the African, shall not Christianity 
win him more effectually? The Presbyterian Church is peculiarly 
fitted to conduct the work in Africa. She exalts the essentials of 
Christianity, and keeps the non-essentials in subordination, and, 
therefore, lifts up those whom she trains to the high places of religion. 
She does not train in the small, the little, the ritual, the formal ; and, 
therefore, does not make fanatics nor foster superstition. The peoples 
who are Presbyterians have not made Presbyterianism what it is; but 
Presbyterianism has made the peoples that embraced it what they are. 
What it has done for Scotland and for Holland it will do for Africa. 
It is no weaker now than when Knox prayed, or when the Puritans 
landed on Plymouth rock. 

We plead for Africa, because she has been longest neglected and 
suffered most. And we present her to this Alliance of the Presbyte- 
rians of the world — a continent which God hath lifted up in suffering, 
that all men might be drawn to her in sympathy. 

The Rev. Joseph D. Beattie, D. D., of Syria. 

I feel that it is good to be here. We have had testimony from dif- 
ferent missionary fields, from the east and from the west. I feel it to 
be a privilege to hear the sound of my feeble voice in this great as- 
semblage upon this important subject. No doubt all missionary opera- 
tions carried on in different countries possess the same features. But 
in Turkey missionary operations are carried on under circumstances 
different from all other countries. It is the empire of nationalities, 
speaking different languages, made up of a multitude of peoples; and 
these different peoples and nationalities have become the subject of 
different missionary operations. In Syria we find one of the missions 
of the class to which reference was made here to-day, carrying on co- 
operative work as successfully as it has been carried on in other parts 
of the world. 

These different peoples and nationalities speak different languages, 
and it is impossible in most cases for missions in one part of the field 
to co-operate directly with the others. It is true, however, that the 
missionaries themselves can have intercourse with each other, by 
means of representatives from one mission to another, and there can 


720 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

be a sympathy and fraternal feeling extended to all. But direct co- 
operation among the natives, I suppose, is in many cases absolutely 
impossible. This fact is very apparent in Syria and the different 
provinces of Turkey. We have there Jews and different Chnstian 
sects besides the various tribes in Northern Syria. Ihese dmerent 
people have been made the subject of missionary effort by different 
missions sent out from this country and from Europe. In the Holy 
Land, or Palestine so called, the church mission has carried on its 
work with great success, making Jerusalem its base of operations, for 
the purpose of operating among the Jews and the different sects 
throughout the so called Holy Land. To the northward is the Pres- 
byterian mission. It originated and started under the auspices of the 
American Board ; but on the union of the two great bodies of the 
Presbyterian Church in this country, it fell under the sway of the 
Presbyterian Church in accordance with the provision that was ar- 
ranged between the American Board and the Presbyterian Church, 
that all missions manned by Presbyterian missionaries should come 
under the sway of the Presbyterian Board. It was found that with 
the exception of one or two men in that field, all the missionaries were 
taken from the Presbyterian ranks ; and hence from that time to the 
present that' field has been operated by the Presbyterian Church. 
Farther to the eastward, and beyond Lebanon, is a union mission es- 
tablished in Damascus, which was originally under the auspices of the 
United Presbyterian Church, and the Presbyterian Church of Ireland. 
This mission was carried on successfully, and when it was found that 
the work of Egypt was growing so important as to require all the 
force of the United Presbyterian Church to be operated in that field, 
that church abandoned her work in Syria, and it was taken up by the 
Presbyterian Church of Ireland. That work is now being conducted 
under the auspices of the Irish Presbyterian Church alone. In ad- 
dition to these missions, there are other small missions in operation in 
the vicinity of Mount Lebanon. 

In 1856 the Reformed Presbyterian, or Covenanter, Church sent 
out a mission to be located in Syria. The instructions given to the 
missionaries were that they should locate in Syria, and seek counsel 
from missionaries on the ground, so as not to occupy territory which 
had hitherto been occupied by those who had preceded them. That 
field was examined, and it was found that the only part of Syria that 
could be successfully occupied by a new mission, without interfering 
geographically with the missions which had been already established, 
was Northern Syria — a territory inhabited by tribes that were probably 
the most debased of all the different nationalities and peoples that go 
to make up the multitudinous population of the great Mohammedan 
empire. 

I may here say that there was as degraded a people in Syria as there 
was at any time in the New Hebrides, or in the dark continent of 
Africa. They were a people who were socially, morally and politi- 
cally debased. They were worshippers of the heavenly bodies. They 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 721 

have their liigh places, which are their altars and their ^ods. Their 
places of worsliip are located in connection with groves, or on large 
trees, or high mountain-tops. The tribes are not only very supersti- 
tious, but their religion is a mystery. Some of the mystery attending 
their religion has been spoken of by a writer who operated among 
them for a time. I refer to the Rev. Samuel Leidy, who wrote a 
work in reference to their religion called ‘‘ The Asian Mystery.” He 
made some discoveries in regard to the mysteries of their faith, but 
tailed to reach the real mystery of their religion. It has, however 
been partially divulged, and from what has been learned, we find that 
It is a secret order. Those who are introduced into that religion 
become members by a regular process of initiation. It is a religion 
open only to the males, the females taking no part in their unholy 
rites. I heir mode of introducing a member is accomplished bv 
taking a boy. in early youth, of about eight or ten years of age, to one 
01 the religious chiefs, who schools him for awhile in some of the 
rnysterms ol the faith. He is then sent back to his friends for a period 
of probation, and if he shows fidelity and ability to retain the mys- 
teries so far committed to him, after a time he is again returned to 
the religious chief, and advanced a little further into a knowledge of 
the mysteries which surround their religion. He is then again sent 
back to his friends, and by gradual process his knowledge becomes 
more extended, until at last he has gained sufficient information to 
make him eligible to become a member of their religion, but only 
after he has shown himself capable of retaining all the secrets com 
mitted to him , and then, upon a day appointed, in the presence of 
the assembled chiefs, he is duly initiated into this unholy brotherhood. 
From that time he is bound by an oath that he will never divulge the 
secrets intrusted to his care. From that moment the individual who 
enters as a member into this dark brotherhood, never comes back 
again to the light. He is sealed up forever, and if he ever attempts 
to come forth to the light, or to disclose the mysteries which he has 
learned, he does it at the peril of his life. This is no myth. An 
instance is known in which one of the brotherhood once disclosed 
some of the mysteries of this dark religion, and his life paid the 
penalty. 

It was amid such surroundings that the missionaries of Syria entered 
upon their work of converting these heathen ; and it was a dark period 
in the history of our work. I have alluded in the course of these 
remarks to the Rev. Samuel Leidy, who first began this work in Syria. 

I may here say that I regard him as one of the most noble and heroic 
men that has ever occupied the missionary field. Single-handed and 
alone, at his own expense, he entered the mountains of those be- 
nighted tribes, purchased land, erected buildings, employed teachers, 
and entered upon the work of evangelization. But the power of those 
heathen was so herculean that he was unable to withstand the strain 
to which his mind was subjected. His brain was turned by the severe 
labor he performed, and he returned to England an insane man. 

46 


722 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


You may perhaps wonder at this mishap which befell this honored 
man, but upon reflection I think that you will find that there is 
no occasion to wonder. I can imagine no place in the missionary 
field where the mind of the missionary could be subjected to such 
constant strain as in the field in which Dr. Leidy once operated, and 
m which otliers have succeeded him. Cut off from home and friends, 
and from all sympathy with those around him, the missionary leads 
the life of Robinson Crusoe ; for, although he lives, and moves, and 
has his being among those who are men, yet it is only one with the 
strongest frame that can bear up and withstand the troubles and dif- 
ficulties which crowd upon him. 

The Rev. George C. Constantine, of Athens, Greece. 

While listening to the different reports, I almost forgot that I had 
been requested to make an address to-night. My heart is so full of 
the riches of the love of God that I almost imagined I Avas permitted 
to see a Pentecostal blessing repeated. We have had addresses 
testifying to the good work done in the missionary field in various 
parts of the world. We have heard of men so degraded that they 
had lost almost all that was human in their nature, but the soul and 
the grace of God had made them Christian men, civilized men, 
and men with hearts to accept the teachings of the gospel. I, there- 
fore, say that I had almost forgotten that 1 was to speak; and if I had 
nothing more to say, I feel that I could stand before you to illustrate 
the great work which has been done by our missionary brethren, and 
^he wonderful power that is in the gospel. - It has been said that 
.Stories are always best impressed upon the mind of the reader when 
they are illustrated with cuts, and I may stand before you here to- 
night as a cut to illustrate all that has been said. 

I am not only a missionary in Greece, but I am a Greek ; and I am 
what I am by the grace of God and the gospel sent to Greece by our 
missionary friends. Greece cannot bring as flattering reports as you 
have heard from others. Oh ! I would have hung my head and pre- 
ferred to call upon you to have a prayer-meeting during the ten min- 
utes given to me ; but I was afraid to ask the privilege, for I have 
learned during the few days that I have been with you that there are 
rules of this Council which cannot be changed. 

Greece does not contain as many millions as some of the nations 
spoken of to-night ; it has only a population of from five to six mil- 
lions. There are not many churches there, and not many members ; 
but I do feel that Greece holds a very tender spot in every Christian 
heart. We have felt that we had your hearts in the progress of Chris- 
tianity in our midst, and every word I address you shall be in behalf 
of poor Greece, which so much needs the help of your missionary 
workers. 

After four hundred years of slavery, Greece became an independent 
nation in 1827. It had its first king in 1833, when eight hundred 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


723 


thousand people were liberated. When the people of Greece became 
a free nation, they had no schools and no learning. They had no 
papers; and, I would almost say, they had no means for any improve- 
ment spe a truejieart. But, from 1833 up to the present time, there 
has existed in Greece such a system of education that it can now be 
said, that the ratio of men and women who cannot read and write is 
less than in the United States. Up to 1862 we had a Constitution 
vvhich would not permit a pthering of the people without the permis- 
sion of the police, and which would not give freedom to the press ; 
but in 1862, with the advent of the new king, new principles were 
introduced, and to-day Greece has a Constitution which has but two 
limits to freedom, viz. : no man has a right to speak against the per- 
son of the king, and no man has a right to speak against the Christian 
religion. 

Up to 1862 the opposition to the missionary work had been not 
only from a portion of the people, but from almost the entire popula- 
tion ; but to-day such has been the change which has been wrought in 
Greece, that we can have all the freedom we desire. We can now 
gather in any place we please ; and it was but lately that I had the 
pleasure of standing on Mars Hill in the presence of three hundred 
people, under the beautiful sky of Athens, in the very presence of the 
objects which Paul saw when he preached the gospel to the people in 
olden times. We can now publish anything we please, and write any- 
thing we please, under the provisions of the two restrictions which I 
have named. In Athens there is a Presbyterian Church. Three papers 
are published. From five thousand to six thousand' copies of the 
Scriptures have been 'distributed in Greece; so that, with all the 
opposition and with ail the difficulty which has surrounded us, we 
are able to bring even this little report of the condition of our mis- 
sionary work, and lay it before this great Council. There is an influ- 
ence yet to be exerted and felt in Greece, and there is a preparation 
for still further missionary work, which is yet to come from the united 
efforts of the Christian men and vvornen of the world. 

It affords me pleasure to speak of a missionary work which was begun 
by women. What men could not do for sixty years, three women 
have accomplished in Smyrna. They have been the means of bring- 
ing the people together and of convincing them of the power of th^e 
gospel. One of these women, an American, belonged to the Congre- 
gational denomination ; another, a young lady, to the English Church ; 
and the third was a Scottish Presbyterian, perhaps the best of them 
all. I think the work which has been performed by these three wo- 
men affords good evidence of the results of co-operation in missionary 
work. Their work was commenced in an humble way, and one of 
the first steps which they took in the inception of their efforts was the 
opening of a coffee-shop. It was the establishment of this coffee-shop 
which occasioned one of my visits to Smyrna. I went there and found 
these women in the midst of the coffee-shop. It was a beautiful room, 
painted perfectly white, with tasteful decorations, and above all, upon 


724 the PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

the different tables was the Bible printed in eighteen different Ian- 
i^uao-es The manager of the coffee-shop is a Christian man, and 
durfng the day, when the shop is filled with its various crowds of 
people, the English and the Scotch ladies are present, watching all 
the movements of those ‘who come to patronize the establishment. 
People are constantly entering, drinking a cup of coffee, reading 
something which may interest them, and then quietly taking their 

departure. r j 

The work which this Scottish woman, to whom I have referred, has 
individually accomplished has been so wonderful that I almost feel 
that the Lord understands the Scottish language better than any 

other. 1 • 1 r T 

I find that my time is exhausted, but before I leave this platform 1 

wish you would remember that there are 1 20,000 Greek-speaking peo- 
ple in Smyrna. There are 250,000 souls in that city begging for the 
bread of life ; and hundreds and hundreds who never could have been 
reached, except by the efforts of the missionaries, are to-day under 
the influence of the preaching of the word of God. Such is the press- 
ing demand for missionary work in Smyrna that I have decided to go 
away from the beautiful field I have occupied for the last eighteen- 
years, and commence my work in that city. I would ask you, in con- 
clusion, to let us have your prayers and your sympathy ; and may the 
Lord bless you for all I have enjoyed in company with you during my 
visit to your pleasant city. 

Rev. Narayan Sheshadri, of India. 

I wish you would look upon me as a cosmopolite delegate to the 
Council ; and I hope that I will be regarded as such throughout the 
States where I mean to go. Thirty-seven years ago I belonged to the 
class of Brahmins ; I was a Brahmin of the Brahmins. My features 
will doubtless remind you of the great orients who lived more than 
3,000 years ago. They were your first-cousins. Thirty-seven years 
ago, when I was a Brahmin of the Brahmins, in my pharisaical pride, 
I did not wish to listen to the gospel of Jesus Christ because I thought 
it would make me very uncomfortable; for we considered that a 
Brahmin was a god upon earth ; a living, acting god. There is at 
least one friend I have in this world who remembers me in all my 
heathenism, and when I was filled with all the bigotry and supersti- 
tion that ignorance could produce. But God emptied me of Hindoo- 
ism. He emptied me of all the fallacy which pertains to Hindooism, 
as well as of all the philosophy which pertains to that religion ; for 
you must remember that there is considerable philosophy in Hin- 
dooism. 

It would be impossible for me to tell you the means which God 
adopted to convert my soul, or the manner in which I was emptied 
of all those Hindoo doctrines. It will suffice for all purposes to say, 
in one word, that I was a changed man among the people in India, 
and that from that time forth I devoted my heart to God. I may say. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


725 

however, that, even in the midst of all my ignorance, when I lived 
believing in a false religion, my heart experienced a craving for 
another religion. My heart warmed after a religion which could, 
satisfy the cravings of my soul ; and I am happy to say that that reli- 
gion I found in the Lord Jesus Christ. It was the truths of the gospel 
that made a deep impression upon my mind, and the principal of 
these truths which so impressed me was the atonement of the Lord 
Jesus Christ on Calvary. In reading the Scriptural truths I became 
convinced that God could be just to the sinner, and would be the 
justifier of him who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. I became 
convinced that while the religion of Jesus was calculated to fill people 
with awe, the overflowing mercy of God would remove that awe, and 
beget in all people confidence in the belief that we are God’s children 
for whom he freely gave up his Son. 

After studying for the ministry for about eight years, I was ordained 
a missionary to my countrymen. I labored long in the city of Bom- 
bay, which has a population of 800,000 ; and is just about the size of 
Philadelphia. Some years afterwards an opportunity was given me 
to go into the interior of the country, and my dear friend. Dr. Mur- 
ray Mitchell, assisted me in my efforts. He had previously spoken 
to me of a couple of Christians in Bombay; and he asked me if I 
would not go there and visit them. I was glad to go ; and I made a 
report to him upon the subject of the state of Christianity in the 
hearts of these two Christians. I found them sound in the faith ; and 
not only sound in the faith, but they had imparted the knowledge that 
they had received to their relatives and friends. 

In the year 1864, when I paid my first visit to Jalna, I found 
there two Christians, neither of whom could read, and two catechists. 
In 1880 those two Christians have multiplied into 600 Christians, and 
the two catechists have multiplied into twenty catechists, and sixteen 
Bible-women and six or seven school-masters. In the year 1864 there 
were only two communicants, and now we have more than 300 com- 
municants in the Christian Church in Jalna. In 1864 none of the 
converts could read or write ; and now there are more than 400 young 
men who read the word of God in their own tongue. In the year 
1864 there was not a single Bible-woman, but since that time a nor- 
mal class has been formed ; and although we cannot call it a theo- 
logical seminary, yet it has grown to be a school of quite extensive 
proportion, and the young women who are being taught in that nor- 
mal school aspire to become our Bible-women. 

Through the kindness of the Free Church of Scotland, I have been 
allowed to carry on my mission work unrestricted. That Church has 
given me ample scope to carry on my mission work. Recognizing 
the fact that our native converts might be subject to trouble and 
annoyance from persecutions, I conceived the idea to have a place of 
our own in which we might be located, so as to be removed from the 
difficulties which were likely to arise about us. I therefore applied to 
the Nizam’s government. You probably know that the Nizam is a 


726 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


governor, and has been knighted for the great assistance he gave to the 
English government in 1857. He looked upon my application with 
a favorable eye, and granted me about 800 acres of waste land ; and 
upon 300 acres of this land our new settlement has been located. 
The name of this new settlement is Bethel. In the starting of the 
settlement 500 acres were put aside to be placed under cultivation, 
and I am happy to say that they have been cultivated to a profitable 
extent. The remaining 300 acres granted to us have been utilized in 
various ways. Bethel stands upon a rising slope of ground, and the 
highest spot upon that ground has been selected for the worship of 
God. We have built there a substantial church, of brick and mortar, 
and it has a capacity to hold about 500 persons. A nice platform has 
been erected in the church upon which stands the preacher of the 
gospel. We have services in that church every morning, and the 
people come there with their Bibles and hymn-books, and there we 
read the songs of David once a month, and every day we read five 
psalms, so that we get through the whole book of Psalms in a month. 
We have good psalmody there, too. 

In forming this settlement, it was our object to bring together every 
man, woman, and child that it was possible for us to obtain ; but the 
number has been too large for us to accommodate them. In our im- 
mediate vicinity there are thirteen or fourteen villages where many 
Christians reside. The catechists are sent from one village to another. 
They leave home early in the morning, entering a certain village, 
preaching there the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then return 
home. In this way Bethel has developed itself by means of her cate- 
chists. The country around this settlement of Bethel is a fruitful 
one; more than two hundred and fifty mango-trees line the little 
streets. The mango is a fruit from which quite a source of revenue is 
obtained. 

Several missionaries have spoken of China, and of the desire to 
have a grand college for the Chinese, who are anxious to acquire a 
knowledge of the English language. I can only say, in concluding 
this brief address, that I can indorse all the information which has 
been given to you as coming from that great empire; and hope that 
those 360,000,000 of people will soon be brought to the Lord Jesus 
Christ, by a grand effort upon the part of those who are most deeply 
interested in their welfare. 

The Rev. C. Chiniquy, of Kankakee, Illinois. 

With breathless attention and unspeakable joy I have heard the 
great things which the Lord has done among the heathen. During 
all the time I have been listening to the thrilling addresses, the 
thought has been forcibly impressed upon my mind that one great 
work has been forgotten. It is a grand idea to send missionaries to 
distant lands, to destroy idolatry, and to give light to the poor idol- 
aters; but, Protestant brethren, you forget that you have at your 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 727 

doors that which you consider a branch of Christianity, when it is 
nothing but old paganism coming back under a Christian name. 
Protestants, you are greatly deceived ! When you speak of the Church 
of Rome, you believe that it is a Christian Church ; but in the pres- 
ence of my God, with seventy-two years of my life passed away, with 
the grave before my eyes into which I must go in a few short days I 
tell you that Romanism is nothing else but baptized paganism » 

What are you doing to give light to those poor idolaters who liave 
embraced that religion? In the Church of Rome it is true that 
they worship a Christ ; they worship a God whom they call their 
Saviour, and whom they call Jesus Christ. I know that this is so ; 
but the Jesus Christ they worship, and the God they adore, is not the 
same God and Jpus Christ whom we worship. They believe that thev 
can make that Christ with a wafer, and make that God with their own 
hands ; and they have no other God but that one. Hear the voices 
coming from Knox, Calvin, and Luther ! Hear the voices of all the 
reformers of the past ; and they tell you unanimously that Romanism 
is idolatry ! The day has come when you must wage the same fight 
against that system of idolatry that you have done in the missionary 
fields of China, Japan, and Africa! 

It will be said that it is impossible for the missionary to reach the 
Roman Catholics; but in the presence of God I am happy to say that 
there is a simple way to reach the ears and the hearts of the people 
of the Catholic Church. It you go to them they will laugh at you, 
and they will not pay any attention to what you say ; but send into the 
mid;)t of them a priest who is well known to be a good man, and im- 
mediately you will see that the large halls in which he will speak will 
be too small for the Roman Catholics who shall come to hear him. 
By means of a converted Catholic priest, the Roman Catholics can be 
saved. Save their priests, and you can save the people. 

It will doubtless be asked how can the priest be converted? Most 
of the priests are not absolutely infidels, but they well know that their 
religion cannot be the religion of Christ, for nine-tenths of them 
know that^ they cannot make God with a wafer. They know that 
Purgatory is a fable, and that auricular confession is an abomination ; 
and while they tremble, they do not know what is the truth. They 
know that they do not belong to the true religion, and that they are 
just like Paul when he went to Damascus. They know that they are 
the enemies of the gospel to which the Protestants cling so firmly. 
They are the enemies of your religion ; they preach against it, and 
they would like to destroy your churches, your government, your re- 
public, and your God. They are just like Saul of Tarsus, full of rage 
against you. 

It will be remembered that when Saul was on his way to Damascus, 
he heard the voice of Christ saying to him, “ Why persecutest thou 
me?” Saul heard the voice of Christ, but did not know him, and 
he .said, Who art thou? ” Christ answered, “ I am Jesus Christ.” 
And then Saul was blind spiritually and corporeally, and he said. 


728 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


^‘What wilt thou have me to do?” The priests of Rome hear that 
voice. Christ speaks to them and says to them, “Why do you per- 
secute me ? ” The priests answer Christ by saying, “ What can we do ? 
Where is the religion? Where is the truth?” Christ had prepared 
in advance the answer which he gave to Saul. He had prepared a 
home or a refuge for Saul ; and Christ said to him to go to such 
a place, and then he would hear what he would have to do. Saul, 
blind spiritually and corporeally, was taken by the hand, and he v/ent 
to that place, wherein he wept and cried. God then sent Ananias to 
him, and when Ananias spoke to him, the scales fell from his eyes and 
he saw the light, and he became the great apostle of the Gentiles. The 
priests of the Catholic Church are asking Christ to-day what they must 
do. It is the duty of the Protestants to prepare for those priests a 
home and a refuge. They cannot flee from their Church without some 
home and refuge, for if they desert their Church they will be followed 
by the cursing and maledictions of 200,000,000 of men ; but if a home 
and a refuge is prepared where these priests will be welcome, Protes- 
tantism will be blessed, and the truths of our religion will be spread 
among a people who are to-day seeking for the truth as we have 
found it. 

Before I close these remarks, I would like to ask you who were the 
men of the great Reformation ? Were they not converted priests of the 
Roman Catholic faith? Luther was a priest, and we all know that after 
he had passed a year in the monastery, he began to feel the presence of 
God, and read the Scriptures with a deeper interest than he had ever 
done before ; and then, after he had been there a year praying alone, 
he went out as a giant and attacked the walls of Rome, and the walls 
of that great, proud Babylon fell down in Europe. From whence 
came the great power of Knox? Was it not after he had been in 
Switzerland, and passed two or three years in solitude, and, in a refuge 
prepared for him ? I have seen the house where he lived during those 
lonely hours, and have examined it with interest. Is it not the fact, 
that from his solitude he went back to Scotland and fought such 
a gigantic fight that the walls of Rome fell to the ground before him? 

I have endeavored to convince you that if a home and a refuge is 
prepared for the priests of the Catholic Church, who are now anxiously 
awaiting the hour when they shall sever their connection with it, 
hundreds and thousands will join the ranks of Protestantism ; and 
now in conclusion I have one favor to ask of this great Council, and 
that is, that you shall allow me to go to your congregations and 
beseech their interest in the establishment of this home and refuge for 
priests of the Catholic Church who are anxious to become con- 
verted to Protestantism. Then before long you will be able to do a 
great missionary work in the conversion of the Roman Catholics of 
the world. 

The Council then adjourned, after the customary devotional 
exercises, until to-morrow morning. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


729 

EIGHTH DAY’S SESSlOxN. 

Friday, October ist, 1880. 

The Council was called to order in Horticultural Hall at 9.30 
o’clock, Dr. Prime in the chair, in the absence of the Rev. 
Abraham R. Van Gieson, who had been appointed President. 

After devotional exercise the minutes of yesterday were read 
and approved. 

Prof. Calderwood, from the Business Committee, reported 
the following arrangements for the day: 

That twenty minutes time be allowed for making reports of com- 
mittees ; twenty minutes to the paper on our relations to the Churches 
of the European Continents; to the several reports fifteen minutes 
each; and fifteen minutes to Rev. Antonio Arrighi, from the Free 
Church of Italy. It is further recommended that the discussion 
thereafter shall be, first, upon home missions and evangelization 
work , and, second, upon the training of candidates for the ministry. 
As to the evening it is suggested that, as we have fewer representa- 
tives to hear than last night, the time to each be extended to fifteen 
minutes. It is further announced that the Rev. Mr. Reveillaud has 
arrived from Prance, and it is recommended that twenty minutes 
be allowed him to address the Council through his interpreter, the 
Rev. G. Theophilus Dodds. It is further recommended that there 
be no discussion,' and that the whole evening be given up to the 
addresses arranged for. 

The report was agreed to. 

Prof. Calderwood. — The Business Committee have received 
a paper from Prof Halsey, of the Northwestern Theological 
Seminary, of Chicago, who is kept from the Council by sick- 
ness ; and they recommend that it be printed in the volume of 
reports. 

The recommendation was agreed to, and the paper will be 
found in the Appendix, p. 921. 

Prof. Calderwood. — The committee have further to express 
regret that the length of the programme makes it impossible 
to arrange for the reading of several papers which have been 
volunteered, but had not been previously arranged for. 

HELPING THE EUROPEAN CHURCHES. 

The report of the committee on the modes of helping the 
Churches of the European continent was called for : 


730 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Rev. Dr. Blaikie. — I regret that neither of the two gentle- 
men, who were appointed conveners of this committee, has been 
able to be present at this meeting of the Council. The report 
of the committee has therefore been intrusted to me. It is very 
short, and I can briefly state the substance of it. 

It begins by adverting to the two purposes for which the 
committee was appointed : in the first place, to give any such 
guidance or help as might be in their power to any churches 
who desire to be so helped ; and, in the second place, to aid in 
making provision for the religious wants of English-speaking 
people on the continent, whether travellers or residents. The 
report goes on to say that the committee has met several times, 
but has been greatly hampered in its proceedings by there 
being no convener of the American committee. The first recom- 
mendation which it makes is that the Council shall appoint an 
American committee, a committee on this side of the water, 
with a convener and secretary of its own, that should co-operate 
with the corresponding committee on the European side. Then 
the report goes on to mention that considerable progress has 
been made in carrying out a scheme for aiding the Waldensian 
pastors. 

The expectation was that the Rev. Dr. Robertson, of Edin- 
burgh, who originated that scheme, would be here for the pur- 
pose of explaining it. But I am sorry to say that he has not 
been able to come. Dr. Marshall Lang has a letter from him 
which he will submit to the Council after I have concluded. 
I may state, however, in connection with the Waldensian scheme, 
the nature of the communication received from them. 

It is not identical with the Waldensian mission scheme. It 
is very important that the Council should keep that distinction 
clearly in view. The^Waldensian mission fund”is a fund for 
aiding the Waldensian Church in their mission work in the 
peninsula of Italy ; but this Waldensian pastors’ aid fund is a 
fund for helping to enlarge the very inadequate salaries of the 
pastors and professors in the valley church-the pastors of the 
old original parishes connected with the Waldensian Church. 
We have heard a great deal about a Waldensian mission fund, 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


731 

at least many of the Churches have ; and when Prof. Comba, or 
any other Waldensian, comes to any of our countries to ask 
help, it is most creditable to them that they ask it not for 
their pastors, but for the purpose of promoting mission work in 
Italy. 

Now it occurred to Df. Robertson and other friends that the 
time had come when something ought to be done to improve 
the condition of the pastors of the ancient parishes. It has been 
ascertained that the incomes of those pastors are very inadequate. 
The sum that is allowed them would be barely sufficient for a 
priest, and the salaries are generally graded in Italy on the idea 
that the pastor is a single person. They are utterly inadequate 
for the maintenance of a family. It is ascertained that sixty 
pounds a year, or three hundred dollars, is the sum which these 
Waldensian pastors have for the maintenance of themselves and 
their families. A scheme was organized to increase their sala- 
ries to one hundred pounds, or five hundred dollars. Part of 
this should be done in the valleys themselves by the people, and 
another part of it should be undertaken by the Presbyterian 
Churches connected with this Alliance. This proposition was 
submitted to the committee, whose report is on your table. It 
was very favorably entertained, and the committee thought that 
the best way to accomplish this would be to raise at once a 
capital sum, the interest of which would be sufficient to give the 
proposed addition to the salary of each pastor. The total sum 
required for this purpose is ten or twelve thousand pounds, or 
fifty thousand, or perhaps, at the outside, sixty thousand dollars. 

The committee proceeded to consider how they would en- 
deavor to raise such a sum. We thought that in Scotland, 
small though that country is, we could manage without difficulty 
to raise the half of it. We thought that England, Ireland and 
the British colonies might raise about two thousand pounds, or 
ten thousand dollars; and we hoped that, if the proposition 
were favorably entertained in the United States, the balance of 
the whole sum might easily be obtained here. Then we deter- 
mined we would not go beyond our own country until w^e heard 
something from it. Our anxiety was that, before the Council 


732 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


came to Philadelphia, Scotland should have done its part. I am 
happy to inform the Council that the contributions which have 
been made to this fund in Scotland amount now to not much 
less than five thousand pounds; and when the proceeds of a 
bazaar of ladies’ work, which is to be held very soon, are re- 
ceived, we fully believe that the Scottish contribution will be 
six thousand pounds, or half the sum needed. 

I am happy to add that something has been done in England, 
in Ireland and in Canada. I spent the month of August in 
visiting various parts of Canada. I did not receive there much 
in the shape of money, as you might expect at that season of the 
year; but I am happy to say that wherever the matter has been 
broached, it has met with a very cordial response. I am glad 
to think that it only requires to be stated in order to bring about 
the response that is desired. 

Now, that is the scheme which the committee desire to explain 
to the Presbyterian Council ; and, if you shall accept their desire 
that a committee for this side be appointed, it would fall to that 
committee to consider whether they can take up the subject and 
make any further contributions to the fund which has been so 
agreeably and so successfully initiated. I do not presume to say 
anything more on the subject. I am only sorry that neither of 
the conveners nor Dr. Robertson is here, because they could 
have stated the case in a way very different from that which I 
am able to do. 

I do not think that it is the design of this Alliance to lay itself 
out, under ordinary circumstances, for the raising of money on 
behalf of the churches; but there are peculiar circumstances 
which may occasionally justify a deviation from that rule. I think 
the best thing is, that every church should be led to consider what 
is its duty in reference to these churches that are struggling with 
want and with poverty ; and I hope that we shall feel that we 
do not discharge all our duty to them wEen we merely say to 
them, “ Be ye warmed and filled.” 

Before I sit down I would respectfully submit to the Council, 
for the consideration of its committee, whether it might not be 
the right thing next year to do something in the way of showing 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


733 


sympathy and interest on behalf of the Bohemian Church. Next 
year is the centenary of the Edict of Toleration which suffers 
the Bohemian Protestant. Church to exist, although we know 
that Edict of Toleration has been a most imperfect one; and 
no longer ago than the time when the Evangelical Alliance met, 
the restrictions on the liberty of the Bohemian Church were so 
scandalous that the Evangelical Alliance sent a deputation to 
the Emperor of Austria to remonstrate with him on the subject. 
I do not presume to say in what form we ought to show our 
sympathy with the Bohemian Church in connection with that 
interesting centenary but I feel sure the Council will likely be 
of the opinion that in some way it is desirable that we should do 
so. I do not wish, in speaking of these churches, to overlook 
the claims of other continental churches that we desire to cherish 
and greatly love ; but I cannot but feel when I look around this 
wall, and when I see in one compartment the story of the Wal- 
densian Church, and in the opposite compartment the story of 
the Bohemian Church, it is not unsuitable that on an occasion 
like this special reference should be made to both of these. 

The Rev. Dr. Lang, Glasgow. — The regret which I feel on 
account of the absence of my dear friend. Dr. Robertson, is very 
much modified by the assurance that in Dr. Blaikie’s appeal a 
chord has been touched in your hearts that cannot fail to vibrate. 
But reference having been made to Dr. Robertson, it is only 
right that, with the leave of the Council, I should read, at least, 
a part of the letter which he has sent, and which he desired me 
to read. Some of my American brethren may ask. Who is Dr. 
Robertson ? Well, I think almost all Americans know a place 
called Edinburgh. You call it “ Edin^//;^, ” and we in Scot- 
land call it “ Y.Uwiboi'oL Those who have been in Edinburgh, 
of our American friends, certainly have found their way to the 
Greyfriars’ churchyard. The most sacred spot to you in all 
Scotland, perhaps, is the tomb of the old Scottish martyrs. I 
have seen a great deal of weeping in our Assembly about that 
tomb. 

I recollect when my friend Dr. Shaw (of Rochester), whose 
eye I catch, did us the honor of coming to us, there was quite 


734 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


a little weeping scene at the General Assembly of the Church 
of Scotland. First of all the old Moderator who was in the 
chair : I saw his face working and nose twitching, and his eyes 
beginning to get dim; and when the allusion was made to the 
old martyrs’ tomb, he fairly gave way. Then Dr. Shaw, in his 
turn, gave way when he was addressed by the Moderator in 
reference to the same tomb. 

Well now. Dr. Robertson’s church is in the Grayfriars’ 
churchyard. But the chief claim that he has upon your atten- 
tion to-day is, that he is the survivor of two or three men to 
whom the Waldensian Church was very dear — Thomas Guthrie 
and Dr. Gillies, of Durham, and others. The mantle of the others 
has fallen upon Dr. Blaikie. But my friend can speak to you 
with something like authority, from the fact that he is the 
oldest friend in Scotland of the Church of the Valleys ; and, if it 
will not be a trespass upon your time, I shall read a part of the 
letter he has sent. He begins by expressing his regret at not 
being with us. I had taken his berth in Glasgow, and fully ex- 
pected he would-be here, but tlie infirmities of age have pre- 
vented him; and so he sends you this greeting. He says: 

To the General Presbyterian Council at Philadelphia : 

Brethren beloved in the Lord : — It is with very deep regret that at 
the eleventh hour, and having made all necessary arrangements for 
my voyage to America, I find myself obliged to decline the honorable 
appointment of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland as 
one of her delegates to the General Presbyterian Council, summoned 
to meet in Philadelphia. At the first memorable meeting of the 
Council in Edinburgh, owing to temporary illness, I was rarely able 
to attend, and then only as a deeply interested spectator of your pro- 
ceedings. And now after having so long indulged the sanguine hope 
of being permitted to engage in loving conference with so many hon- 
ored brethren from all parts of the world, I find myself again debarred 
from this privilege by no temporary ailment, but by infirmities which 
must go on increasing with increasing years. I regret this not from 
any hopes that my presence could have added anything to the wisdom 
of your councils (though I might argue with an ancient sage, “Sane 
non solum ver, sed autumnus solet bona adferre”), but perhaps 
chiefly because I shall thus be prevented from pleading in your As- 
sembly a cause which for half my lifetime has been very precious to 
my own heart— the cause of the beloved pastors of the ancient Wal- 
densian Church, from which I trust you will have certain delegates 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


735 

with you. I know that my valued friend, Professor Blaikie, will bring 
before you their claims on the sympathy and assistance of their Pres- 
byterian brethren with an eloquence which will need no words of 
mine to enforce. But claiming as I do to be the oldest friend of “ this 
ancient stock of religion ” (to use the words of the great Milton) now 
living in our Scottish churches, and who for nearly forty years has 
taken a lively personal interest in their preservation and prosperity, I 
cannot but feel it specially incumbent on me to ask to be permitted, 
with much anxiety and earnestness, to solicit the attention of the 
Council to the “ appeal to the Presbyterian churches of Great Britain, 
Ireland and America on behalf of the pastors of the Waldensian 
Church of Italy,” which has been issued by your Continental Com- 
mittee. It was after a visit which I paid to the valleys for the express 
purpose of ascertaining the circumstances of the pastors that I sub- 
mitted the matter to the consideration of the Scottish branch of your 
Continental Committee. They took it up with a warmth and zeal 
which charmed me, and it was under their direction that I prepared 
‘‘the Appeal,” embodying the result of my inquiries. The American 
members were at once consulted, and it was bv the authority of the 
whole Continental Committee that the “Appeal” has been circulated. 
Our object as there stated is to augment the miserable salaries of the 
pastors, so as to place them and their families on the right side of the 
starvation line. ;£^6o per annum is the amount of each of their 
salaries at the present moment, and this I fear subject to serious de- 
duction, owing to the heavy taxation under which Italy at present 
groans. I need not observe how inadequate this sum is to afford even 
the necessaries of life to a family, and far more to afford a suitable 
training to the sons of the Vaudois Manse, in order to fit them for 
filling their fathers’ place in the ministry of the word. All we ask of 
the Presbyterian churches in Great Britain, Ireland and America is to 
raise the small sum of ;^i 2,000, ^which will add ^20 to the salary of 
each of the pastors and professors. This, I doubt not, would have 
been effected long ago but for the depressed financial condition of both 
countries; and now with happier prospects before us, I cannot believe 
that the slightest difficulty will be experienced. A large proportion 
of the required amount has been already subscribed in Scotland, which 
every effort is being made to increase. It is most gratifying also to 
know that our efforts on behalf of their pastors has stimulated the 
Vaudois themselves to make no inconsiderable sacrifices for the same 
purpose. The last time I had the honor of addressing their annual 
Synod at La Tour, while explaining what we proposed for their 
benefit, I earnestly urged on the people the obvious obligation of 
themselves doing their utmost to place their pastors in a more com- 
fortable position. This appeal has been heartly responded to. The 
Vaudois, with few exceptions, are perfectly unable to contribute much, 
even for a purpose so essential not only to the honor, but even to the 
existence of their church; but they are proving themselves willing “ to 
their power; yea, and beyond their power,” while the few who have 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


736 

the means have manifested a spirit of liberality worthy of all praise. 
We have also good reason to hope that the evangelical section of the 
Church of England will not be behind their Presbyterian brethren in 
concern for wliat regards so intimately the honor of oirr Protestant 
Christianity ; and I have received assurances that before the close of 
the present year there will be inaugurated in London a movement in 
aid of the Vaudois pastors from an entirely English and Episcopal 
point de depa7d. All this entitles us to cherish the hope that by our 
united efforts the honored and beloved pastors of the brave old church 
of the Waldenses will soon be in circumstances, however humble, yet 
of comparative comfort and independence. 

Had Providence granted me the privilege of addressing the Council 
personally on this subject, I am conscious I should have done so with 
much warmth, for it is a cause in which I feel a deep personal in- 
terest ; for, as I have already stated, I have been long and intimately 
acquainted with them. I visited them years previous to the era of 
their civil and religious emancipation (1848), and while they were yet 
under the iron heel of Rome, suffering an amount of cruel oppression 
and bitterly painful and humiliating disqualifications, and exposed 
to insults and injuries, the very possibility of which in the nineteenth 
century was absolutely astonishing. Since that period I have been 
frequently among them, and assisted at their annual Synods ; and it is 
with pride and thankfulness that I have watched the noble use they 
have made of their lately acquired liberties. They have already 
overspread Italy with a network of active and successful missions, and 
have planted the standard of the gospel on the islands of Sicily and 
Elba. 

All this is well known to the members of the Council, and not a few 
are persuaded that on the success of these missions the temporal and 
spiritual prosperity of the kingdom of Italy depends. And who 
among us, dear brethren, will venture to set limits to the importance 
of their successful result to one common Christianity? It is with 
great thankfulness that I am able to say that our Scottish churches 
have nobly supported this evangelizing work ; and not less so that with 
equal zeal, though it may be with diminished power, owing to the 
commercial depression under which this country still labors, they have 
frankly adopted the cause of the pastors of the native Church, the 
fountain-head of these important missions. Of the general Christian 
worth and devotedness of these men of God, I have no need to write 
unto you. Many of the brethren are personally acquainted with 
them, and all who have visited their romantic valleys will bear honor- 
able testimony in their favor. As an example of this, and in con- 
cluding this — I hope, not obtrusive — letter, I may be permitted to 
quote the letter of a lady who has lived among them, and has even 
had her children educated in their schools: ‘‘I do not think,” she 
says, I ever saw so many good people congregated on one small spot 
of earth, so noble-minded and unselfish, so brave and cheerful, and so 
willing to serve God for nothing. It was, or ought to have been, an 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 73 y 

education, to make acquaintance with the professors and their fam- 
ilies.” 

Brethren, to you, under God, I humbly commend this holy cause. 
Your Continental Committee has generously adopted it, and, I doubt 
not, the Council will approve what they have done, and then complete 
success may be considered as already achieved. 

Brethren, beloved in the Lord, may the Lord himself, the great 
Head of the Church, preside in your convocation, direct your delib- 
ations, and overrule for his own glory your councils! 

May the noble city in which you assemble acquire from the charac- 
ter of your proceedings a new title to its illustrious name, “ the city 
of Brotherly Love \ and I pray you to forgive the egoism of my 
closing syllables, humbly echoing the language of the great apostle : 

Though absent from you in the flesh, yet shall I be with you in the 
spirit, joying and beholding your order and the steadfastness of yout 
faith in Christ.” Amen. 

Yours, in the Lord Jesus, 

Wm. Robertson, D. D., 

Edinburgh, August 28, 1880. Minister of New Greyfriars. ' 

That is the letter, and I earnestly trust that you will enable 
me to gladden the old man’s heart by saying that that little pile 
of $Tp,ooo has been in part, at least, subscribed already by 
America. You will never miss it. ^30,000 distributed over 
your five thousand congregations, is only $6 a congregation ; 
and, considering the good you will do, itwid come back in pos- 
itive blessings to your churches. 

Both as an Englishman and as a Scotchman, I have some in- 
terest in speaking on this matter. In the time of Oliver Crom- 
well, there was a great deal done for this old church. He thun- 
dered at the gates of the house of Savoy; he. wrote letters; he 
declared that the whole power of England would be brought to 
bear unless these persecutions which they were subjected to at 
the time ceased. He offered — and I do not know but it would 
have been a great blessing if his offer had been accepted — to 
take the Vaudois from their valleys and place them in Ireland ; 
but what was more still, he raised the sum of, I think, ^^34,000 
(I am not exactly sure as to the amount), for the benefit of the 
Waldensian Church. I am obliged to testify that only a portion 
of that money reached the Vaudois ; the rest of the money was 
— well, I suppose I had better just say it — pocketed by King 

Charles II. He was a sweet and amiable youth, Charles IL, and 
47 


738 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

that was one of the delightful works that crowned his career. 
Not that you may think that only kings do these things. I sus- 
pect there are jobs in the political world, even in America, 
that may stand over against that ; but that was his little job. 
All we ask you to do now, is to help us to send an- equal sum 
of money to that which would have been sent if this sum had 
not been pocketed. 

I am sure, brethren of America, that there will be only one 
feeling in your hearts, and that feeling will be to rise up at once 
to send this sum to our poor, yet loving-hearted and glorious, 
brethren in the ancient Church of the Vaudois. Do it quickly f 
He does twice who does quickly! And it will be something 
that will mark the proceedings of this Council if, at the end of 
it, the ancient Church is gratified by the assurance that you have 
borne them in your hearts and sympathies, and remembered 
them in your kindly benefactions. 

The following is the Report, referred to by Dr. Blaikie, at 
leno-th. It was referred to the Business Committee : 

Edinburgh, July, 1880. 

The first General Council, at its meeting here in 1877, appointed a 
committee on “the continent of Europe” in the following terms: 
“The Council rejoices that its membership includes so many repre- 
sentatives of Presbyterian churches of the continent of Europe ; and 
considering that the difficulties which several, if not all, of these 
churches encounter from the aggressions of Ultramontanism and infi- 
delity, as well as from other causes, entitle them to the special interest 
and sympathy of the Council ; and considering, also, that it will be 
impossible for the Council, at its ordinary meetings, to receive from 
the delegates and associates that detailed information regarding their 
respective churches which the delegates may wish to give, the Council 
instructs the Business Committee to nominate a special committee of 
the Council, for the purpose of conferring, on behalf of the Council, 
with the Continental delegates and associates, receiving such informa- 
tion as they may have to offer; and for the further purpose of con- 
sidering the interest of Continental churches, and also the provision 
made over the Continent, for the English-speaking residents, American 
and British.” The primary idea in naming such a committee was the 
affording of our brethren from the Continent an opportunity of sub- 
mitting, and a channel through which to submit, any questions affect- 
ing their progress and well-being, in regard to which they might de- 
sire to confer. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 739 

The committee, however, was also, as the resolution above quoted 
explains, to consider the interests of Continental churches and the 
provision made on the Continent for English-speaking residents, 
American and British. 

It is to be regretted that the committee has not been in circumstances 
to give more full effect to the purposes for which it was appointed. 
This has, to a large extent, arisen from there being no American con- 
vener or secretary, with whom communications could be kept up and 
joint action secured. 

The British members of the committee have occasionally met, and 
it is, in some degree, satisfactory that steps taken to secure larger in- 
comes for the ministers in the valleys of the Waldensian Church have 
already achieved a certain measure of success. In view of the fact 
that although neither of the conveners is to be at Philadelphia, Dr. 
Robertson and Dr. Blaikie, who have taken a specially active part in 
this movement, are to be present at the second General Council of 
our Alliance, it is not necessary to write fully as to this Waldensian 
matter, in regard to which they will convey the most recent and com- 
plete intelligence. 

With regard to the wider question of carrying out in the future, with 
larger effect, the matters referred to this committee, it would seem to 
us very desirable that separate American and British committees 
should be formed, with conveners and secretaries of each, through 
whom communications may pass as to the practical working out of 
schemes likely to benefit the continent of Europe, in relation to the 
interests of the Evangelical Churches there. 

The different branches of the Presbyterian Church in Britain have 
Continental committees, and, in a larger or lesser degree respectively, 
assist the native churches, and seek to make provision for English- 
speaking residents abroad. It seems to us very clear, however, that a 
very much larger amount of work in these directions might be ac- 
complished, if the American and British Churches were in communi- 
cation with each other as to a division of the field, and other matters 
of detail. 

The joint conveners of the committee beg to assure the Council 
of their readiness to afford any help in this country which may be in 
their power; and of their hearty desire to co-operate with the con- 
veners of an American committee, if the suggestion as to the appoint- 
ment of separate committees, acting in concert with each other, shall 
be found to commend itself to the Council. 

In name and by appointment of the committee. 

Jas. Alex. Campbell, 

D. Maclagan, 

Joint Conveners. 

Dr. Prime. — The suggestion of Dr. Lang, that each of the 
five thousand churches shall give six dollars a piece, will be re- 
ferred to the churches for their consideration. 


740 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Dr. Prime subsequently said : I will inform the Council that 
to carry out Dr. Lang’s suggestion, that the American Churches 
.should give six dollars a piece to the Waldensian Fund, I have 
received one hundred dollars from the city of New York, as the 
beginning of this subscription. I have only received the sub- 
scription, but as I turn over the card, I find the name of our 
friend, the Hon. William E. Dodge, on the back of it, and there- 
fore it is good. 

Dr. Calderwood. — It has been agreed that a sub-committee 
should be appointed to bring in minutes expressing the views 
of this Council on the question of co-operation of the various 
churches on the respective mission-fields ; and the committee is 
as follows : Dr. Paxton, of New York ; Dr. Brown, of Virginia; 
Dr. McLeod, of Birkenhead ; Dr. Knox, of Belfast ; and Henry 
Day, Esq., of New York. 

The Rev. J. S. Macintosh, of Belfast, read a paper, as follows 
on 

OUR RELATIONS TO THE CHURCHES OF THE 
EUROPEAN CONTINENT. 

A hopeful spot, this Council of Philadelphia, to lift up and urge 
afresh the old command, Bear ye one another’s burdens. To the 
Presbyterian brotherhood met in this Friend-founded city of Brotherly- 
Love, the cry of the hard-pressed brethren of the Continent will not 
come in vain for help. If there be any Church that is the Church of 
brotherhood, it is our Presbyterian ecclesia, wherein only one is Mas- 
ter and all are brethren. Not difficult then to plead here for those 
dear for their fathers’ sakes and their own. Nor difficult either in 
this land of the free which has sheltered the homeless thousands, and 
like Britain has gained rich reward through the Huguenots of France 
and the many Presbyterian fugitives from bitter Continental persecu- 
tions, to plead for the children of the freemen who taught and fought 
for holiest liberty in the dark despot home of the past. 

Remembering what America owes to the north of Ireland and 
Scotland, what Ireland and Scotland owe to Geneva and Germany, 
and they to the Hussites of Prague, and the Vaudois of the Alps, I 
pray for due recognition of these blessed offices, and fitting embodi- 
ment of our gratitude, in seasonable helpfulness, to the faithful Presby- 
terian Churches of the continent. 

I may be permitted to say that the fitness of things is to-day 
slightly illustrated in myself. I deal with the Internationalism of 
Presbyterianism, and I do it as a true Internationalist — partly Ameri- 
can, partly Scotch, partly Irish, and largely continental. As an In- 
ternational Presbyterian, then, I speak before the representation of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


741 


the two most international people of the world — the composite men of 
insular Britain and continental America, regarding our friends in 
Europe, our relations toward them and modes of helping them. 

And for this great Council, that gives at once visibility to the uni- 
versality of Presbyterianism, and voice to our common brotherhood, 
what question more proper and pressing than the relation of the hap- 
pier, stronger, richer, more unembarrassed churches of America, of 
Britain and her colonies, to the old churches of Hussite and Walden- 
ses, of Huguenot and Bohemian, and to the many brethren who, from 
Sweden to Sicily, from the vineyards of France to the wheat-fields of 
Hungary, are really one with us in doctrine, organization, and aims. 

I. We should stand to them in a steadfast relation of thoughtful 
sympathy. 

Sympathy, true, hearty, unmeasured sympathy ; sympathy, I repeat 
and emphasize, not patronage : for patronage, yes, its merest semblance, 
would sorely wound the delicate sensibilities of keenly-feeling friends, 
and injuriously hamper them. But sympathy soft as light and genial 
as sunshine, will open their hearts to us, prove impulsive to them in 
best directions, and refreshing to ourselves. With it will come the 
truer unity of the faith. What claims to our sympathy they have ! 
Claims all the needy have. But there are varieties in claims. The be- 
nighted heathen have the claim of brotherhood, but before me the Jev'^ 
and the Continental Presbyterian stand with the claim of Parenthood. 
Who does not sympathize with a noble ancestry? I knowhow the bes-t 
hearts of this young nation thrill towards the homelands. Are these 
children of the witnesses not dear for their fathers’ sakes, who were 
likewise ours ? 

Now sympathy may either be general and vague, or special, defi- 
nite, and thoughtful. Much of the general and the vague exists ; we 
must lift this into the higher and the better — the special, definite, 
thoughtful. I know the readiness to respond to the witching old 
words, Waldo and Huss, Wittenburg and Geneva, the gentle Coligny, 
and the Silent William ; I know the wistful looks and the fast-flowing 
stream of complimentary words as deputies appear before us from 
Belgium and Spain, and from Elberfeld and Lisbon ; but we want 
concentrated sympathy. That will prove the expulsive and impulsive 
force of a true affection. Such sympathy alone will move ourselves, 
and prove to our friends a pearl of price. 

That sympathy cannot exist without knowledge ; it must be born 
of and nurtured by knowledge ; comprehensive yet exact, fresh and 
ever-deepening. To know these old, long-persecuted, still preserved, 
hard-working seniors of Bohemia and Piedmont and France, these 
hopeful and sturdy juniors of Spain and Russia, is to have fellow-feel- 
ing ; to deepen that knowledge is to glow with sympathy. Those 
knowing them best and longest are their kindest friends. 

There is pressing need of this love-breeding knowledge. To me it 
has been often a cause of great surprise that the present conflicts and 
present conditions of Continental Presbyterianism are so little under- 


742 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

stood. Men read the history of the Reformation, and with^ moved 
hearts peruse the tearful tales of the victims of Montfort, Guise, and 
Alva, and Philip the Bigot ; but they forget to follow the chequered 
pathways by which the martyr’s children have come to reach this 
Council chamber. How few have studied the' unbroken succession of 
the faith in Bohemia and Hungary — the revival of life and missionary 
zeal in the peak-girdled valleys — the changeful experiences of Holland, 
and France and Spain. 

What shall be done to bring in the broader day of clearer light, lor 
this were most valuable help to our continental brethren ? — Let us util- 
ize the pulpit, the platform, the press, the Congregational library, the 
Church Assemblies and Synods, to spread information. Curipsity is the 
guide toHhe student’s haunts; and frequent though passing pulpit 
references will awaken curiosity which will betake itself for satisfac- 
tion to the missionary reports, the Presbyterian papers, and the 
Congregational library. The formal declaration of our essential one- 
ness in confession and experience, so admirably wrought out by Dr. 
Schaff and others, will reveal our common brotherhood, deepen the 
churches’ sense of it, and quicken our expression of it. What a field 
is here for the popular lecturer ! what names to conjure by — the Vau- 
dois and the Vatican, Hussite and Huguenot ! what scenes to paint, 
Antwerp, St. Bartholomew, and the Spanish Inquisition ! what men 
to portray, Waldo and Huss, Luther and Calvin, Coligny, and Wil- 
liam the Silent ! To our church meetings delegates from the varied 
continental folds should be invited ; to their Synods we should go m 
turn. In these days of constant travel, the American and British 
Presbyterian tourist could find at once health, pleasure, and profit by 
visiting our co-religionists in their historic and attractive homes. If 
the botanist finds essential the study of his plants in their native spots, 
shall it be thought strange that I counsel examination of our friends’ 
labors in their work-fields? for only when we see their unfriendly en- 
vironments, can we realize the truth and toughness of their grow- 
ing life. Frequent tourist-groups toil across the Mer de Glace to 
visit the Jardin, and wonder at the fresh vegetation and defiant efflor- 
escence amid that death waste of shingle and ice. Is no charm to be 
found in the little fresh gardens blooming amid the glacial fields of 
scepticism and the dreary wastes of superstition ? 

The knowledge gained in these varied ways would prove the sub- 
stantial oneness of the widespread Presbyterian communion in creeds 
and confessions, a vitally important fact — evidence of a grand Church 
unity and most weighty admonition, not to be startled by, nor exag- 
gerate, the peculiarities and varieties found in our brethren’s modes of 
expansion and forms of worship. 

Thus we should come to understand the varying problems, to warmly 
sympathize with and prudently lead and help in the varied struggles of 
the varied lands,— the battle of the orthodox for purity of faith and 
fuller Presbyterianism in the Prussian and Bohemian Churches, the 
scholastic struggles of Hungary and Belgium, the perplexing difficulties 


SECOND GENEEAL COUNCIL. 


743 

of our Swiss and Dutch friends, contending against a blighting 
scepticism, and the injurious influences of rationalizing professors, in 
the Italian missionary work, in the present embarrassments of our 
French friends, troubled within by false brethren, and oppressed 
without by the multiplying demands made upon them, in the efforts 
of the young Norse Churchmen to overtake the spiritual destitution 
of their country, to encourage and develop their colportage system, 
and to stir up their Church to a new life, at once healthy and culti- 
vated, scriptural, and aggressive. 

This knowledge and sympathy will make us keen-eyed to each pass- 
ing struggle, and sharp-eared to each sudden cry for help. It will 
qualify for speaking the seasonable word to the weary; it will justify 
and strpgthen for speaking, the warning truth, in love; it will repress 
all foolish flattery, and free from all sentimentalism and weakness ; it 
permits and sustains the bold frankness of brotherly faithfulness, so 
that if we have to advise, admonish, and remonstrate, we shall do it 
with that grace of sympathy that shall be our best apology, and with 
that gentleness of sympathy so resistless and persuasive. 

II. There should be, secondly, the relation of trust and confi- 
dence. 

Such knowledge and sympathy will lead to a well-grounded trust 
and hearty confidence in our continental brethren, at once restful to 
ourselves and helpful to them. Occasionally persons are met who 
ask. Is any real good being done upon the Continent? Are these con- 
tinental churches really alive ? Have they not many strange usages 
in worship? Are they fit to grapple with the difficulties of the situa- 
tion ? Is the gospel really preached in Germany, Holland, and Swit- 
zerland ? 

These questions betray wide-spread doubt as to the competency of 
the continental Presbyterians to understand and manage their own 
affairs, and a half-formed notion that we ourselves should step in and 
take the work into our own hands. I plead this day for fullest trust 
and deepening confidence. Within the bounds of nearly all these 
churches I have sojourned longer or shorter time; and whether wor- 
shipping in the old cathedral at Trontheim or the Dom at Berlin, 
with the Swiss at Basle or the Italian in Naples, with the Paris bankers 
or the Madrid cigar-makers, in the new temple at Rome or the old 
church at Prague, I have heard the gospel, seen the essentials of truth, 
and looked honest brethren in the face. This Council, by its greet- 
ing and its esteem, says, We believe these continental brethren ; we 
are satisfied that you largely understand your individual work and 
special problem ; we leave you free, and encourage you to work out 
your own task in your own way, not foolishly imitating us, but moving 
in independent pathways congenial to your separate national spirit 
and character. Individuality belongs to separate masses, as to sin- 
gle men. Individuality exists in families, in cities, in masses, and 
churches. Now over against that individuality, summoning it forth to 
distinct and appropriate activity, and so educating it, is placed by the 


744 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Master a specialty of work. On individuality and work, as heaven- 
lent talents, alike are seen the image and the superscription of the 
King, who gives to each his own work. 

Now, in my opinion, we do largely help these friends — help them 
among our own people at home, help them in their own communities 
and in the very doing of their work — by making it plainly felt that 
we fully trust them to understand and work out, and under God 
accomplish their own distinct problem. 

Fair and wise.and brotherly enough is it, to satisfy ourselves that in 
each case the unique task is seen and understood and able to be under- 
taken. At times the outsider, calm, critical, unflurried because dis- 
passionate and irresponsible, makes keener, more exhaustive observa- 
tions than the hard-pressed and overtaxed insider ; and the watcher can 
often help materially the toiler. Such aid I would give, and such aid 
I know they would welcome most gladly. We may help our Italian 
brethren to the out working of their problem, by pointing out the ur- 
gent necessity of union and co-operation ; of the presentation to the 
countrymen accustomed to church order, regular clergy, stately ser- 
vice, and solemn sacraments, a church as orderly, a clergy as learned 
and duly ordained, chaste service, and attractive churches, together 
with Avhat Italy has only lately known, a full gospel and free people. 
We may ask our French friends, how they propose to meet their in- 
ternal difficulties and treat with their keen, analytic, patriotic country- 
men now in revolt against Rome, so as to prove that the Reformed 
faith can best answer the questions of the thinker, satisfy the con- 
sciences of the earnest, make inviolate the purity of the home, and 
bestow a safely-guarded liberty on the land. We may say frankly to 
our Belgian friends, rare opportunities are just now yours. You can 
show your brethren a church that leaves the state free on its own do- 
main, and yet does not neglect the souls of the children nor the 
wants of the poor: and to our Dutch and German co-religionists, 
give good heed to the safe guarding of the orthodox faith and the 
perfecting of your Presbyterian freedom and order. 

These things and many more we may say, comparing our keen, 
<{uick views with, and correcting them by, their deeper and more 
patient searches, and largely help them. But then, lest we hinder and 
injure, let us in trust and confidence stand aside, that they may in 
their own way do their work. The alteration of their national spirit 
and character would be a serious loss to us all, and a more serious ob- 
stacle to them. Let there be the sternest abstinence on our part from 
all attempts to run them into our moulds — yes, watchfulness against 
it, for unconsciously we may tend that way. Let them, remembering 
the attraction of the greater bodies and their own fondness for us, 
avoid unwise imitations, let them appropriate all that is wholesome 
in America, Britain, Australia, but let them fully assimilate it, and let 
it appear only in their own shape and hue. Encouragements to this 
independency are, from my own observation, needful, and they are 
really helpful to the wisest workers in the Continental churches. We 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 745 

want unity of life with variety of form, which is the manifestation of 
individuality and the charm of society. Churches should be like the 
gospels the same in their divineness, distinct in their humanness. 
Surely, there must be variety of outgrowth in Norway and in Naples 
in the German and the Spaniard. Let us guard this variety ; it makes 
t ie real unity more striking, and it is charming over against the dead 
unitormity of Rome. As in garden roseries all are roses, yet shade 
and petal, shape and size and sweetness, are distinct, so in the Lord’s 
rosery of Presbyterianism we want the deep rose of Italy and the fair 
rose of England, the old rose of Bohemia with the new growth of 
Spain, the healthy perpetual of h ranee with the sweet and hardy 
briars of Scotland. 

1 rusting and confiding in our brethren, I would most strongly 
deprecate competition or rivalry. I would not transplant our churches 
to their shores, or begin institutions rivalling in any way the native 
communions. Where native churches are doing God’s work in their 
own best way, seeking to solve honestly, though slowly and often per- 
plexingly, their own questions, I would bid them God -speed and 
help them by leaving them in full trust amplest room, and fullest free- 
dom of action. 

Co-related with this trust, but important enough to be made stand 
out distinct is the recognition of their past services to our common 
cause, therefore I say, 

III. There must be the relation of honest brotherly esteem. To 
own and honor for their work is to help. On our part, it is only 
honesty; for them it is strengthening consolation, sweetest encourage- 
ment, and mighty impulse. Who has talked with these continental 
brethren by their own firesides, or heard them in their billowy Ital- 
ian or breezy French narrate their receptions in our Synods and As- 
semblies, and does not know what happy thrill of heart and gladsome 
flush of face are theirs beneath our brotherly “ well done ! ” 

Nobly they deserve the recognition. ’ Their hard, oft-desperate work 
has been well done, with a perseverance in which patience has had 
her perfect work, and a prayerfulness that would not be refused. How 
nobly they have struggled amid circumstances almost destructive; 
been reduced by persecution from over 2,000 churches to less than 
500, robbed by prosecution, and tyrannously denied their synodical 
rights ; and there defrauded of churches, schools and colleges, and for- 
bidden to meet in open communication ; here hampered in their 
growth by state jealousies and mean factions ; and there burdened 
with poverty and almost exhausted through emigration ! Yet all has 
been conquered for Christ. 

^ What splendid results they show for the toil of the years just passed ! 
The thought stirs one’s blood. In France and Switzerland they have 
won the respect of the best and noblest men ; have largely told upon 
society and the political world ; have furnished potent men like Vinet, 
D’Aubigne and Pressense to the literary ranks of Presbyterianism ; re- 
organized scores of fallen churches, restarted a winning fight for ortho- 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


746 

doxy, spread by means of the Central, Evangelical and Genevan Socie- 
ties a network of mission churches, stations and agentsover the land from 
Cherbourg to Maggiore. In Italy they have poured, out of Alpine 
valleys and hidden city-conventicles, little but dauntless bands that 
liave stretched the chain of Presbyterian fortresses from the snows of 
Mt. Blanc to the gardens of Sicily. In Holland they have fought a 
good fight, in congregation and college, against a withering rational- 
ism, and have formed a national Sunday-school union, with temper- 
ance, Christian and missionary associations. In Norway a young 
party has risen in the Church that toils bravely for a purified faith, a re- 
vived life, an aggressive colportage work, and national sobriety. In 
Hungary earnest congregations and devoted ministers are striving 
against heavy odds to maintain the fine old confessional schools, that 
the children of the land may be still taught the faith of their martyred 
sires. In the Bohemian borders the breath of spring is at last stirring 
to the joy of many hearts, and Spain is opening a hundred doors from 
Santander to Cadiz for the wise preacher and prudent colporteur. 
Not forgetting what the Spirit’s might has wrought among the heathen 
by means of our American and English, our Scotch, Irish and Ger- 
man missionaries, I ask does the romance of missions contain one 
chapter more thrilling than the past two decades of Continental Pres- 
byterianism? Whether you take your stand on gray Gibraltar’s rock, 
looking up over Spain, or run up the long Norwegian Fiords heark- 
ening to an earnest young Norseman, or through the charming Rhine 
valleys, talking to some pious peasant, or wait with Rochedieu or 
Anet, to understand the Belgian struggle, or hurry from point to point 
of marvellous France with Fisch or Lomaux, or climb with the Swiss 
colporteur up to the mountain chalet, or drop into a prayer-meeting 
in Prague, or listen to the gospel hymn floating past you to the Vati- 
can, you are startled by the prophetic changes, and these are the 
men honored of God to introduce them. 

While it is joyous and honorable for us to own their good works, 
for them it is largely helpful : helpful indirectly among their country- 
men, helpful directly to themselves ; for the appreciative narration of 
their aims and their success in our periodicals and papers is a contin- 
uous stimulus. The circle of living witnesses cheers them forward in 
their up-hill path, and teaches them that aid shall be theirs when they 
need it. This recognition is incitement to ourselves, a summons to 
new and more liberal modes of help ; the reasons for, and provocative 
unto, enlarged generosity on the part of our congregations. 

IV. Generous giving there should be ; for there must be the relation 
of ready and generous helpfulness. 

This hour is the time for quick and generous aid. Sympathy and 
esteem must crystalize into solid gifts; brotherliness prove itself in 
giving those things that are needful. Remembering the general pov- 
erty of these Continental churches — their own marked liberality — re- 
membering that all ordinary home work is maintained out of their 
own resources, and that aid is asked only for their aggressive mission 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


747 

work, I say that we should be to them the sons of consolation, giving 
generously to them. ^ 

For Christ’s sake we would not, for our own sakes we dare not, 
neglect the evangelization of the Continent. The interests at stake 
are too serious. The Reformed faith must be preserved ; the pestilent 
infidelity of Europe must be attacked; insolent and aggressive Ultra- 
montanism assailed. This triple task can be done — best, easiest, 
cheapest— through these churches. As Christlieb, Naville, Pressense’ 
Reveillaud, Comba and Gavazzi prove, they understand the fight for 
the faith. Through them we can best assail Rome. She attacks us 
in our strong places of German unity, English society, American 
schools, and we must imitate her tactics, pressing her hardest within 
her entrenchments ; and this can be done without weakening one point 
of our lines by these trained bands of Continental Presbyterians — men 
of vvar, all of them, from their youth up. Let us see they be not 
crippled, through scanty supplies. 

Two kinds of gifts there must be: gifts of regularity and gifts of 
emergency. There must be gifts bestowed regularly, counting on 
which our brethren may plan and measure regular work; periodic 
donations for mission, colportage, Bible wagon, and press work. 
These regular grants should be multiplied and increased in amount. 
Our past offerings have been sadly inadequate to the necessities, and 
the^ number of contributing churches- too small. Each progressive 
society, and all Presbyterian communions, have been, and still con- 
tinue to be, indebted to the Continent. Why should not each aid the 
churches toiling to send pious Frenchmen to Canada, pious Germans, 
Dutch and Norsemen to the west, Italians and Spaniards to the sunny 
south ? 

In this department of regular help, there might well be division of 
labor — special churches taking up special fields, or special churches 
and activities in certain wide fields. We should thus secure the work- 
ing of each continental district, and by concentrating intensify our 
sympathy and expand our liberality. . 

In the great popish strongholds, as Belgium, Italy, and Spain, regu- 
lar aid should be given to schools, orphanages, hospitals, and theol- 
ogical halls. The last is urgently and supremely needed in Spain. 
Help to schools and colleges produces, perhaps, quickest and broadest 
returns. Build and equip them, and you recruit and multiply rapidly 
the ranks of the efficient teachers and missionaries. 

Very important results flow from the education of continental stu- 
dents at our theological halls. The presence at Glasgow, Edinburgh, 
Belfast, and other seats of learning of French, Italian, Spanish, Hun- 
garian, and Norwegian youth, has yielded a manifold return. 

But there should be also gifts of emergency. Startling emergencies, 
sudden and unexpected possibilities for good, come upon our conti- 
nental friends, demanding instantaneous effort. A change of minis- 
try, an electoral revolution, the removal of some active enemy, the 
passing whim of a district, offer sudden opportunity to evangelistic 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


748 

adventures. But these quick efforts need money. We should be 
ready to aid our friends in seizing the flying moment. 

In many of the chief cities and towns of Europe, Presbyterianism 
needs greater visibility in appropriate churches. Could a wealthy 
congregation or some generous Christian find a worthier monument 
than a fitting church built from love to Jesus, and in grateful memory 
of martyrs and confessors? 

And giving, pray, and praying give — yes, more abundant than gifts, 
more kindly than esteem, more intense than sympathy, give them 
prayer — prayer for wisdom, for tact, for glowing zeal, deathless perse- 
verance, the sacred passion for souls, the growing realization of Christ’s 
constraining love. Continue instant in prayer for them, for they are 
worthy. As I look at them and think of what they have borne and 
dared since the days of the Kuttenberg silver-mines, of the corpse- 
strewn Alpine snows, the blood-dyed streets of Paris, the dragonnades 
of Alva, and the inquisition of Seville, onward to these present hours, 
I seem afresh to hear apocalyptic voices : These are they who have 
come out of great tribulations ; and they have overcome by the blood 
of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. Let us pray for them 
abidingly, believingly, lovingly. 

Sooner then, perchance, than we yet dare dream may come the reward 
of the martyr’s work — the fulfilment of Buchanan’s dying desire, the 
continent for Christ. What gain for the world were that, the pro- 
found German, the resolute Hungarian, the subtle Italian, the inge- 
nious Frenchman, the hardy Norseman, the industrious Belgian, the 
shrewd Hollander, the clever Swiss, the stately and devout Spaniard, 
all mastered by Christ, all busy for him ! 

Happy hour : yet shall it be ! To me this Council is its augury. 
Centuries ago was the Unitas Fratrum : here, at the feet of the Elder 
Brother, have we re-made the unity of the Presbyterian brotherhood. 
To-day we strengthen it ; and shall we not go forth cleaving closer 
than the holy band of Thebes ; and like the old Roman guard, making 
common cause, wielding common weapons, facing common foes, hail- 
ing and serving — living for and dying to — one common Lord ? 

The Rev. Adolph Monod, of Carcassonne, Aude, read the 
following report on 

THE STATE OF RELIGION IN FRANCE. 

I. A superficial observer might be induced to consider as almost 
hopeless the religious state of France at the present time. To explain 
the causes of this, we must trace the late history of Church and state, 
which in France, as in all Roman Catholic countries, are unfortunately 
mingled together. 

Thirty years ago, under the second republic, French democracy, far 
from waging war, offered peace to the Roman Catholic Church, which, 
being dissatisfied with the late government of Louis Philippe, seemed 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


749 


at first to accept what she could not prevent. These were the times 
when the priests used to bless everywhere the “liberty trees.” But 
under the banner of liberty they soon took the lead of the reaction 
that prepared and followed the election of Prince Bonaparte as Presi- 
dent of the Republic. The prince acknowledged their co-operation 
by giving back Rome to the Pope in 1849. Through the law of 
1850, the clerical party obtained the illimited liberty of secondary in- 
struction, and the enormous privilege, granted to the members of re- 
ligious congregations, to be exempted from the examinations required 
of lay school-masters. Lastly, Roman Catholic bishops ratified by 
their proclamations and their te Deums^ the coup cC etat of 1851, which 
put an end to the too unsuspicious Republic. They hailed in the 
president who had just perjured himself, “the new Cyrus sent by the 
Almighty, and the restorer of religion” . . . which no one threat- 
ened. Such high services were duly recognized by the emperor, but 
finally dearly paid for by the country. In 1870 a declaration of war, 
in which religious fanaticism and dynastic interests were combined, 
cost Napoleon his throne, and brought France to the verge of ruin. 

Therefore, when the Republic was restored and welcomed by the 
French nation, no one could possibly entertain any further illusions 
about the good-will and tender mercies of the Roman Catholic 
Church towards democracy. Unfortunately for our people, the great 
mass of Frenchmen, both the religious and irreligious, identify Ro- 
manism with Christianity and religion itself. So on the part of de- 
mocracy, there was a deep and but too well justified distrust, which its 
most popular orator has uttered in these henceforth historical words, 

le clericalisme zwila V ennoniD ' On the part of the church, there 
was a sullen and constant hostility which proved blind enough to 
overthrow one after the other, under the united flags of the monarchic 
parties, Thiers and Joules Simon, the two men in France who, by their 
consummate skill and superior moderation, were able to make the best 
of bad circumstances for the Catholics, and to establish, as they said, 
a conservative Republic. 

Such was of late, such is still the state of things. Rome has her non 
possumus and her syllabus. Democratic and secular France answers, 
“We will not have this to reign over us, and we will know this time 
how to defend ourselves.” In the meanwhile, irreligion and infidelity 
seem to gain ground among all classes in France. This is a general 
fact in Europe, and it is also a fact peculiar to our country, which, as 
has been said, labors under that evil that most Frenchmen, from the 
masters of public opinion down to the common people, make no 
difference between authentical Christianity and Romanism. Only 
one million of Protestants at the utmost, which belong for the greater 
part to the Presbyterian Reformed Church, are free from this fatal pre- 
judice, and contribute more or less to prove it false ; but who are they 
for such a heavy task and such a large people ? 

II. The glorious past of the French Reformed Church is well 
known. She had for her educator, in every sense of the word, Calvin ; 


750 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


for her persecutors — a single prince excepted ; I mean Henry the- 
Fourth — the kings of France, elder sons of the Romish Church ; for 
her restorers she had Antoine Count and the equitable laws of the first 
Republic ; for her spiritual renovators, the men of the revival at the 
beginning of this century. The first Napoleon, fiiithful in that respect 
to the spirit of the revolution, recognized in 1802 the legal existence 
of the French Reformed Church, and gave to this acknowledgment 
a formal consecration by inscribing the Protestant pastors, together 
with the Romish priests, on the budget of the state. After centuries 
of atrocious persecutions, the sons of the Huguenots asked then for no 
other rights than the right of existence. Napoleon was not friend 
enough of any liberty to grant to the Reformed Church its self-gov- 
ernment. The decree of 1802 kept silent about the General Synod; 
it only acknowledged the consistories and the provincial Synods, 
the latter of which, however, were never assembled. The Bourbon 
kings of both lines did not show themselves more generous than the 
emperor, though Louis Philippe, especially in the first years of its 
reign, sincerely endeavored to maintain liberty of conscience and 
worship. The short-lived Republic of 1848 alone suffered the General 
Synod to meet once without an official convocation. But in that as: 
sembly there prevailed still the party opposed to the confession of 
faith, which was not yet the anti -synodal party, so that the standard 
of the Reformed Church was not unfurled. 

Twenty-three years later, in 1871, the government of the third 
republic called officially together the XXXth General Synod of the 
Reformed Church of France, which met in Paris in the following year. 
Since 1848, the confessional, evangelical or synodal party, as one 
may call it, had, notwithstanding the constitution of a free Church, 
gained a strong majority (62 against 46) which carried against the • 
anti-confessional, Unitarian or “liberal ” party: ist. That the Synod 
had a competency about matters of faith ; 2d. That the Reformed 
Church had a positive Christian faith which the Synod embodied in 
a short declaration; 3d. That pastors, in their ordination, and lay- 
men, to become electors of the Church councils, should henceforward, 
though to a different extent, adhere to the common creed. The fol- 
lowing year, the dissenting minority having proved powerless, either 
to make the law in the Synod, or to divest it of its essential and con- 
stant rights, made their secession and refused to resume their seats in 
the assembly. The gov-ernment acknowledged the entire legality of 
the General Synod, registered its declaration of faith, and published 
the religious regulations for electorship (which latter concession has 
been recently, in fact if not in right, recalled by the new council of 
state), but refused to call again together the official Synod until both 
parties in the Church had come to a preliminary agreement. 

Six years were spent in vain exertions either to obtain a change of 
policy on the part of government, or to reconcile the minority backed 
by government. At last the synodal majority, which now embraces 
about two-thirds of the Reformed Church, realized this: “We must 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 751 

give up, at ieast for the present, the hope of getting together the 
official Synod where the majority makes the law for the minority, 
which would be strictly lawful. 

“ On the other hand, if there is no Synod whatever, which has been 
the case for the last six years, we have the minority oppressing the 
majority, which is utterly unjust. There still remains a third policy, 
which consists in assembling, without asking the consent of the state, 
^ free ox non-official Synod where the delegates of all synodal churches 
will freely meet together. In that way the majority shall, in fact, 
give up their claim to govern the minority, but, at least, they will 
avail themselves of their undeniable right to self-government. The 
state would not, of course, officially acknowledge such free meetings 
(defenceless, as such, against the encroachments of civil power), but 
the Church, so long bereft of order and unity, both for its internal 
discipline and outward work, would spontaneously and gladly accept 
their moral authority. In that way, too, a great and single objection 
to the official Synod would fall to the ground : nobody could any 
longer say that it appeals to the state to enforce its decisions.” 

This view of the matter forced itself upon the synodal party, and 
the former leaders of the majority in the official Synod became those 
of the free movement. The provincial Synods were held in nearly 
all the circumscriptions, and appointed delegates to the general free 
Synod which assembled in Paris in November, 1879. The most im- 
portant resolution of this assembly was a solemn declaration that they 
renounced to claim from the state, if not the convocation of the 
official Synod, at least the legal enforcement of those of its resolutions 
that had not yet been published by the government. So was the door 
opened to conciliation ; the majority made use of their liberty, but 
left untouched that of the minority. Those proposals were not answered 
to by the dissenting party. The provincial Synods have met again 
this year (1880); a new free Synod is to meet in 1881 at Marseilles, 
and the free synodal system will work henceforth regularly, if God 
permits, under the protection of public liberties. 

This was, at all events, a great fact in the history of the French 
Reformed Church which, after she had been so long deprived by per- 
secution and despotism of its traditional government, took for the first 
time possession of itself and of its rights. While the Synodal Reformed 
Church is emerging, as has been said, out of that confused mass which 
is called the official church, the anti-confessional minority appears 
isolated and powerless. Without any spiritual common ties, it seems 
bound to decay more and more through the difficulty of recruiting 
new pastors, and through the exodus of several of the elder ones who 
exchange the ministry for secular callings. Have you not witnessed 
in the United States the decline of the Unitarian and Universalist con- 
gregations in spite of all the genius of a Channing and a Parker? 

It is the permanent committee of the general free Synod which has 
sent us, as the delegate of the Reformed Church of France, to this 
CEcumenical Council of the Presbyterian and synodal churches. 


752 THE FRESB\TERJAN ALLIANCE. 

III. After having summed up as briefly as possible* the external and 
ecclesiastical situation of the Reformed Church in France, we shall 
speak of its religious activity. 

None of those present will ever forget the pastoral convention that 
met at Nimes in 1871, when France was still bleeding from all the 
wounds made by war. We were, so to speak, standing by the lifeless 
body of our country, and we deeply felt that the gospel alone could 
revive her. Then and there was founded the ‘'Home Evangelical 
Mission,” which has been represented in this country by a special 
delegate at the meetings of the Evangelical Alliance in 1873. Ihe 
object of its founders was both to awake the churches and to stir them^ 
up to evangelize France, by forming, in the middle of every congrega- 
tion, a special “group” of Christians, something like a little church 
in the large one. The home mission was soon led to appoint special 
agents to visit the congregations in various districts. Lastly, taking 
advantage of the progress of religious liberty, and of our people s eager- 
ness to hear what is quite new to them, it has, under the special care 
of a branch committee formed .in Paris, lectures given for Roman 
Catholic people. Through the several circles of its activity, the home 
mission has remained, under the same direction, faithful to the same 
spirit, both Christian and patriotic. The pecuniary means are but 
too scanty, but the help and sympathy of French Christians steadily 
kept it up. 

An Englishman, Rev. Mr. MacAll, and his wife, have_ opened in 
Paris several meetings, where the gospel is preached in its strength 
and purity without any direct controversy against Romanism, or allu- 
sion to daily political topics. Success was thought impossible ; it far 
exceeded the most sanguine hopes of our English brethren. Mr. 
MacAll has, up to this day (ist October, 1880) twenty-four places 
of meeting in Paris. From Paris the movement has spread with the 
same success in Marseilles, Lyons, Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Nimes and 
other cities. In Marseilles especially, which I know well, there are 
six stations with 1,969 seats and about 3,000 attendants every week 
during the winter season. Marseilles is a most important strategic 
place for evangelization at home and abroad. 

These are the new works. For about fifty years, the Central and 
Evangelical societies have been at work in PTance, the one more pe- 
culiarly among scattered Protestant, and the other among Catholic 
people. The former one had, since its foundation, forty-three new 
reformed congregations recognized, and their pastors supported by 
government. 

It is not only with popular classes that Protestantism finds favor. 
Among the most eminent French thinkers, Renouvier, a moral philoso- 
pher, has shown in his review, “The Philosophical Criticism,” the 

* This must be our apology for the many deficiencies of the above and of the fol- 
lowing. We direct the reader to the extensive and valuable paper that has been 
read fast year (1879), on this same subject, by pastor Babut, at the meetings of 
the Evangelical Alliance in Basle. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


753 

necessity for good citizens to get free from Romanism, and to have 
themselves and their families inscribed as Protestants. He holds that 
this “ change of religious inscription and education is the only effica- 
cious means for France and the Republic to avoid the dangers that sur- 
round them. The mere negations of so-called free thinkers are power- 
less against superstition, because they have nothing to put in the place 
of what they vainly try to pull down. France wants a true and better 
religion instead of worn-out Romanism. Romanism teaches, after 
all, a merely conventional faith ; but the human soul, if it has nothing 
else, will still retain those stones for want of bread.” Those truths 
have been very forcibly explained by Mr. Renouvier in several most 
suggestive dialogues. But they ought to step out from the narrow 
circle of learned or enlightened men, and make their way into the 
masses of the people. Two men which are both, like Renouvier, come 
out of Romanism, have especially undertaken this task; Mr. Bou- 
chard, by writing short, pungent and popular tracts ; Mr. Reveillaud, 
by lectures, which have been held with success in several places, and 
by issuing a weekly paper. The Signal 

Never, perhaps, were the circumstances more favorable. France, 
in spite of a religion that is fallen far below the average culture of the 
people, seems to take more and more possession of itself. It has, in 
the last ten years, founded and perseveringly fostered a lay and liberal 
government which would not consider any more Romanism as the 
state religion, but rather as one religion among others, all having equal 
rights. The high Catholic clergy vainly exert themselves against the 
manifest tendencies of the nation. 

On tlie contrary, there is a kind of pre-established harmony between 
the actual institutions of France and the Synodical Presbyterian institu- 
tions of the Reformed Church, so that never before were Protestants 
so prominent in all the high situations of the state, and that it might 
be said of them: Non numerantur sed ponderanturd" They are 
chosp, of course, not as Protestants, but as most devoted to republi- 
can institutions, and as most capable of understanding and fostering 
them. This goes so far that, when the Presidency of the French 
Senate recently became vacant, there were three candidates brought 
forward by the Republican majority of that assembly, and all of them 
Protestant. Facilities unknown as long as clericalism has ruled over 
the country are offered for spreading everywhere truth as well as error, 
and, to use the words of the Lord, the fields are white already for 
harvest. Let us pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest that he will 
send forth laborers into his harvest ; let us pray him above all that, 
after they will have faithfully planted and watered, he will graciously 
give the increase ! 

48 


4 the PKESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

The Rev. A. F. Buscarlet, of Lausanne, read the following : 


REPORT ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF SWITZER- 
LAND, ESPECIALLY OF FREE CHURCHES. 


It may be thought an easy task to give an account of the religious 
condition of a country that numbers only twice the inhabitants of 
New York, 2,800,000, and of which the Protestant population is only 
I 866 000. You have rightly, however, allotted as much time to 
Switzerland and its Protestant churches as to far larger countries ; for 
the ''reat question of the day— the relation of Church and State— is 
being worked out in Switzerland most thoroughly ; and few countries 
offer such marvellous variety and such extraordinary contrasts. These 
arise from the history and the general character of the people, and of 


their government. ^ _ , 

Switzerland is, as you know, divided into twenty-two cantons, each 
of which has its own government. Seven are Roman Catholic, twelve 
Roman Catholic and Protestant, and three are Protestant. The so- 
called national churches should really be called cantonal churches ; 
for each canton has its own separate church organization, its own 
sviiod, its own theological school ; and where there are regularly or- 
ganized Free churches, as in Neuchatel, Vaud and Geneva, the^ same 
cantonal divisions exist, so that you find there at least six distinct 
churches and six theological halls— two at Neuchatel, two at Lausanne, 

and two at Geneva. r 

Dean Glider, of Berne, whose admirable paper read at the meeting ot 
the Evangelical Alliance at Berne takes up the very subject allotted to 
me, and forces me to seek simply, if possible, to complete and illustrate it 
by facts, declares that it would require fifteen short reports on the differ- 
ent cantons in which evangelical work is going on, to give any idea 
of the religious condition of Switzerland, and that even then it would 
probably be a very imperfect one. These differences, no doubt, as- 
tonish those who are accustomed to more centralization in the govern-' 
ment both of Church and State, but are the natural effects, not only of the 
different circumstances in which the several cantons were formed, and 
the manner in which the reform was established amongst them, but 
also of the love of independence, and of the very marked difference 
of character which distinguish the populations of these different can- 
tons. Their laws were lately printed in five different languages— in 
German, French, Italian, and the two dialects of Romansch. Three- 
quarters of the population speak German, only one canton, Ticino, 
and a few tow’ns of the Grisons, Italian, and three French Genevaj 
Vaud and Neuchatel. 

The commune is a reality in Switzerland, and if the communes are 
often jealous of each other, and zealous not to be outstripped in works 
of yniblic utility, such as good roads, education, etc., a fortiori, does 
this rivalry exist between the cantons. This cantonal feeling has 
something to do with the separation of churches one from another. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


755 


At the same time there are everywhere two deep undercurrents, one 
ever flowing outward to the unknown depths of darkness, unbelief and 
materialism; a^nother current carrying upward all those who believe 
in our Lord and Saviour, in his atonement, in his resurrection, in his 
sovereignty. Where Christ as the head of his church is firmly ac- 
knowledged, there the different members can harmoniously work 
together, and soon sympathize most truly with each other. 

Every year the deputies of the several free churches interchange 
fraternal greetings, through their delegates, at their different synods, 
which are held alternately in the principal towns of the cantons ; and 
there is a growing interest felt by these Free Churches in those 

national evangelical unions,” which are springing up in most of the 
cantons. These evangelical unions, whilst striving to keep evangel- 
ical Christians in the national churches, and to prevent their joining 
churches independent of the state, are practically free churches 
within the national or cantonal church ; a gathering together of those 
who are determined to use the measure of freedom still left them 
within these most democratic, and yet most Erastian, establishments, 
so as to counteract their rationalizing tendencies by preaching the 
gospel, and by offering religious teaching to the catechumens who 
do not wish to receive their ‘‘ instruction religieuse ” from men who 
deny Christ’s divinity, his atonement, his miracles, his resurrection, 
the supernatural. 

I must seek to lay before you a short account of the religious con- 
dition of the several Protestant churches of Switzerland. The subject 
might be divided into three branches. We have the German, the 
Romansch, and the French-speaking churches. Amongst the latter, 
in the three cantons of Geneva, Vaud and Neuchatel, we have both 
national and fully organized Free churches. All the so-called na- 
tional churches are under the “surveillance” of their cantonal gov- 
ernments. The churches of German Switzerland are as a rule ration- 
alistic or Reformist, with the exception of Basle, and Schaffouse. 
Berne is only partly evangelical ; Eastern Switzerland, German and 
Romansch ; Zurich and St. Gall, etc., is rationalistic, under the influ- 
ence of the Zurich school of theology. A few of the older men amongst 
their pastors are orthodox; the younger men are not. The seed 
already sown by these men is bearing its bitter fruits, and they are 
themselves beginning to tremble at the sight of the harvest of total un- 
belief in the supernatural, which is ripening fast amongst the school- 
masters and amongst some of the people, thanks to their influence. 
Trained in the government normal schools, these masters are very 
often atheists. They oppose the pastor. He is no longer allowed to 
inspect their school. They give so-called religious instruction to the 
children. A manual published at Berne by a pastor, the director of 
the normal school there, eliminates the miracles from the life of 
Christ. One of these men actually bade the children stand up to 
pray. “ Now,” he said, “ repeat two and two make four. That will 
do; sit down.” Another, vexed by some disturbance, implored 
them in the name of their God to be still. 


756 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

The evil is so great that some hope it has attained its fullest devel- 
opment, and that a reaction will set in. At Zurich, however, public 
lectures, especially intended for artisans, are delivered during the 
hours of divine service; and they are expected to attend them. The 
“Grand Conseil ” declared that no ecclesiastical Council or Synod 
has a right to decide as to the conditions of church membership, and 
that the Church has no officially recognized body of doctrine. Thur- 
govie is so thoroughly the prey of rationalistic teachers, that when a 
wish was expressed that the use of the Apostles’ creed, which forms a 
part of the Protestant liturgical services on the continent, should be 
discontinued, a compromise was made, and the pastor is no longer 
obliged to use it, unless the congregation particularly desires it. The 
Churches of the Cantons of Argovie, Claris, St. Gall, and the Gris- 
soiis are in much the same condition. Their pastors are trained at 
Zurich, at the Synod of the Church of the Canton of Apenzell. In 
1879 it was proposed that the pastors should be obliged to take their 
text from the Bible, and not from Goethe or elsewhere, and that 
they should baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
of the Holy Ghost. The proposal was rejected by a large majority, 
on the plea that there was no longer any law which required these 
usages. You may be a member of the National Church, and a Nihil- 
ist, au* Atheist, a'Deist, or disciple of Strauss or Renan; and every 
pastor is free to preach whatever he chooses, so long as his hearers are 
satisfied. He is a functionary of the State, and has to please the cit- 
izens who pay the taxes. ^ j • • 

The Radical party have now the upper hand in politics, and it is 
seeking to fashion the State Churches in its own image. It is so 
democratic that there is no other requisite for voting in ecclesiastical 
questions than that of being a Protestant citizen. The pa.stor may 
be named by a majority in reality godless, that sets its foot in church 
only to vote or attend service, and the communion on Christmas, 
Good Friday, or Easter Sunday. One poor young rationalistic pas- 
tor was so discouraged by the smallness of his congregation, that he 
asked from the pulpit where the majority had gone that had named 
him. 

In all the Cantons, with but one exception, pastors are re-elected 
every three, five, six, or eight years. In the Grissons, pastor and 
people can separate at six months’ notice. Pastors and school-rnasters 
are named by the communes ; professors of theology by the Council 
of State. The Reformist or Rationalistic party is thoroughly organ- 
ized. 

In German Switzerland, in 1859, an association of pastors was 
formed. They declared their wish to hold aloft the banner of free 
thought in religious questions. The association was organized on the 
model of our evangelical societies. They publish periodicals of doc- 
trine, distribute tracts, and give public lectures. One of these Re- 
formists stated that the difference between themselves and the ortho- 
dox is, that the orthodox believe in the “ Mansarde ” (the Garret) 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


757 


meaning a better world. Their strength lies in their popularity. 
The political papers support them. They know their strength, and, 
occasionally, when the secession of any is rumored, they give way a 
little, and name an evangelical pastor. 

The Radical party has learned to dread disruptions. They do not 
wish an Evangelical to leave the establishment to form powerful free 
churches, but tolerate them because they still lead them. Their 
presence at their Synods gives them very valuable support. As a 
well-known writer in Switzerland says: Without a certain number 
of orthodox pastors, the State Churches could no longer pretend to 
be the National Reformed Churches of the country. They would be 
seen by all in their nakedness and ugliness, and every one would be- 
hold in them recent creations of an anti-Christian spirit. The people 
would then forsake them, and those in power would feel their thrones 
shaking beneath them. By forcing a complacent, timid, and decile 
faith to live alongside of powerful unbelief, faith will be weakened 
and recognize a loss, leaving over an anti-Christian building a flag 
which will float over contraband goods. 

There is no doubt, too, that wherever free churches have bee^i 
formed, they have been obliged to be more careful in the nomination 
of pastors. Against such a current of unbelief the Christians of Zu- 
rich and all that part of Switzerland, using the liberty still granted 
them, have formed private and free associations unconnected with the 
State. They still hope to reform their cantonal Churches from w'ith- 
in, without separating from them. 

Thus, there are several sections of the “National Evangelical 
Union ” in German Switzerland. Very interesting annual meetings, 
in connection with these, are held at Baden, in Argo vie. Two free 
evangelical seminaries have been founded at Zurich and Berne, and 
with excellent results. The school-masters thus formed are much ap- 
preciated by the country people, and are often preferred to those ed- 
ucated in the State Normal School. There are also one or two large 
private schools founded on evangelical principles, such as the institute 
Berber, at Berne, from which a lad can pass straight up to the uni- 
versity. I need not say that evangelical students do not abound. 
Rationalism, and such a position as that presented by these State 
Churches, offer few inducements. Zurich counts some eight or ten 
theological students. 

As a rule the press unanimously admit that public morals are at a 
low ebb. Respect for law and the authorities has diminished. Mur- 
ders are so numerous and accompanied with such cruel circumstances, 
that the people have often asked for the re-establishment of capital 
punishment. Thanks to the law facilitating divorce, cases have fear- 
fully increased. Generally, nearly half the marriages dispense with 
any religious service, and in the towns not half the children are bap- 
tized. Besides the noble efforts made by national evangelical Chris- 
tians to stem such a tide, a small number of Wesleyans, belonging to 
the Albrechts Briider branch, and a still smaller number of Baptists are 


75 $ THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

seeking to uphold the banner of the cross in the Cantons of Zurich, 
Thurgovie, and Berne. 

Though sadly, and not without hope for the future, we pass from 
Eastern Switzerland and Zurich to Shaffouse, Basle, and ^ Berne. 
The small Canton of Shaffouse is still evangelical, and can rejoice in 
not having a single rationalistic pastor. They seek their pastors from 
Basle. The Church of Basle, on the other hand, so long famous for 
being thoroughly evangelical, is, to the dismay of Christians there 
who abhor all ideas of dissent, being undermined and invaded by 
rationalism, thanks to the introduction of universal suffrage into the 
Church. Five rationalistic pastors have already been named by the 
votes of men who came from other Cantons and settled in Basle, and 
who have joined their forces with those of the careless and godless 
already there. Only one-fifth, however, of the children are placed 

under their teaching. , . ^ i 

Evangelical professors still fill the chairs of theology at the univer- 
sity and to it therefore resort all those who will not accept the 
negative teaching of Zurich or Berne, where not one of the professors 
named by the State is evangelical. Professor Vetli, of Berne, who is 
thoroughly so, is supported by a free evangelical society. Ihe Balois 
neologists are much irritated with the evangelical pastors, because 
they will not join them in administering the Lord’s Supper. They 
publish a paper of their own in which they state that, as it is above 
all a feast of love, it would be an excellent thing if the evangelical 
pastors would lay aside all questions of dogma, and would share with 
their colleagues in its administration. But here, too, we may 
hope that the noble work of one of the oldest, most successful, and 
most practical of missionary societies, will continue to act as it has 
hitherto done in the midst of our evangelical brethren at Basle. 

All have heard of the Basle missions, which Dr. Christlieb, in his 
most admirable work on the foreign missions of Christianity, has some- 
what too closely annexed to those of Germany, for it is neither 
Lutheran nor Calvinistic. Founded sixty-four years ago, in i8i6, 
it has trained one thousand and seventy-five young men, either Swiss 
or Southern Germans, as missionaries in its maison des missons. Of 
these, eighty have been employed at a remarkably small ex- 
pense in its own mission on tne gold coast, in India, the Dec- 
can, Abyssinia, Malabar and China. One hundred and fifty have 
entered the service of other missionary societies. Two hun- 
dred and fifty have become pastors of German congregations in 
Russia, Turkey, North America, Brazil, Australia, etc. They 
spend nine hundred thousand francs a year for their school 
of evangelists at Crischona, which prepares and sends out artisans 
as missionaries. Their famous half-penny collecting cards have 
])roduced a third of their income, from 1855 to 1879, 5^780,728 
francs. Their annual missionary meeting is a high festival for Chris- 
tians, and is a centre of reunion for all that love Christ and his cross, 
not only in German Switzerland and Southern Germany, but for 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


759 


Geneva, Neuchatel and Vaud, whence funds are liberally sent to them. 
The evangelical primary normal school, founded on Pestalozzi’s system 
fifty years ago, has educated five hundred and ninety-three Christians. 
I need not speak of the Christian hospitality displayed at Basle on 
the occasion of the last great meeting of the Evangelical Alliance, and 
W'hich proved the practical zeal and love of Balois Christians. 

We must now pass on to Berne. There in the midst of much 
immorality and drunkenness, the vice of Switzerland, notwithstanding 
a national church with no confession of faith, its pulpit thrown open 
by the state to every wind of doctrine, we find a few most earnest 
and faithful pastors, who manfully avail themselves of the liberty they 
have to preach Christ and his gospel, an evangelical society virtually 
independent, holding its one hundred and sixty separate evangelistic 
meetings throughout the Canton, [and thousands gather at its annual 
fete,] and a branch of a very useful society that works amongst the 
Protestants scattered in Romish parts of Switzerland, and has also a 
very important post at Vienna in Austria. 

The great International Congress, for the better observance of the 
Lord’s day, was held at Berne, after the meetings of the Evangelical 
Alliance at Basle, and great hospitality was shown to its members. 
There is also a most living free church at Berne. A member of this 
little church, a man of high position, and of one of the oldest families 
as well, and his wife, have been compelled by the love of Christ and 
of souls, to devote themselves to evangelistic work at Lyons in France. 
Practical Christianity is showing itself at Berne by the opening of a 
large temperance coffee house and workman’s home. Berne itself 
has no rationalistic pastors, but it is far otherwise in the country dh> 
tricts. 

Working our way south we now get to Neuchatel, the home and 
scene of the many labors of that most remarkable of modern theolo- 
gians, the simple, unassuming, and yet most learned, cordial and 
courteous Professor Godet. His influence extends wherever his com- 
mentaries are read, and the very valuable edition of the annotated 
Bible of which he is the editor and to w'hich he is one of the principal 
contributors. Undoubtedly this part of Switzerland, Neuchatel and 
Vaud is more evangelical in its national churches. Calvin’s, Farel’s 
and Vinet’s influence is still felt. There is less readiness to submit to 
the pretensions of the state to rule over the Church, than in those 
cantons where Zwingli’s influence was greatest. 

We may say that all the pastors of the Canton of Neuchatel are 
evangelical, thanks greatly to the disruption of 1873, which was forced 
upon the consistent defenders of Christ’s prerogatives, as head of his 
Church, by a state determined to nationalize and rationalize the Church 
if possible. For this, anti-Biblical lectures were given by men brought 
from Holland and France. These have been discontinued since the 
formation of the Church independent of the state. For this new 
ecclesiastical laws were made. Universal suffrage was introduced into 
the Church. Pastors were to be re-elected for six years ; and recently 


760 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


a legacy willed to the Independent Church (so called to distinguish it 
from the Little Living and Free Church, which was the first founded 
in Switzerland, and is more congregational perhaps in its government 
and discipline) was annulled by the government. In the name of the 
people the authorities demand to have their representative put upon 
the governing bodies of philanthropic institutions founded by Chris- 
tians. The condition of the Canton of Neuchatel is, however, very 
encouraging. The two churches support a mission work in common 
on the gold coast and in Ashantee. Thanks to the radical move- 
ment intended to rationalize the Church, and which declared the 
churches to be public property, the members of the Independent 
Church often use their right as citizens to hold their services in the 
national temples. The services of the two bodies succeed each other, 
and the opening sermon of the Synod at Lode was preached in the 
national church, after which the Synod met to transact its own busi- 
ness in their own building. 

Undoubtedly fiiithful resistance to state pretensions in the Canton 
of Neuchatel has done incalculable good to the cantonal Church. 
The authorities had been misled as to the number of those who sym- 
X>athized with this oi)posing movement. They have had to name 
evangelical pastors so as to maintain their popularity. This is what 
our brethren of the Independent Church declared at the time of their 
disruption : “ The law of May 21st destroys the Presbyterian consti- 
tution of our Church, and precludes its having a confession of faith. 
This Church which the state would destroy, we maintain. We oppose 
the ancient liberties of the Church of Neuchatel, and eternal truth, to 
a state that would give to the negations of so-called liberal Christianity 
authority over divine revelation, and would fashion the Church of 
Christ as it pleases. We are the representatives of the old Reforma- 
tion Church of Neuchatel, of the Church of our fathers, which had 
the honor of being nearly the only Church that was free from all state 
control. We uphold and maintain its Presbyterian constitution ; its 
confession of faith; its liturgy; its theological hall which the law 
suppres.sed and seized upon. To the accusation of schism we answer : 
we do not go out ; but we refuse to go into the new and death-dealing 
building which the state has chosen to erect. A brave soldier fears 
not to face his foes ; but dreads to have them standing by his side. 
AVe fear not free thinkers, but we dread them as colleagues, because 
the conscience of our people is thus warped and the way is prepared 
for the reception of error. It is high time to tear the Church of 
Christ out of the brutal hands of a political majority. An old Hugue- 
not says, Our Reformed Church of France suffered martyrdom ; 
yours, if it accepted this new law, would be dishonored.” 

Though not increasing fast in numbers, the vitality of this Free 
Church is most striking. Very large sums have been contributed for 
the erection of new churches, manses, etc. Like all Free Churches, 
it attracts many to its theological hall, and develops self-denial and 
love for the extension of Christ’s kingdom abroad. They have an 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 761 

admirable normal school, and a very large proportion of their students, 
as well as of those of the Free Church of Lausanne, wish to become 
missionaries, bio funds are raised in any other way than bv church- 
door collections, and from only twenty-two parishes, with 4,000 mem- 
bers, in 1879, they collected 108,600 francs (^4,c;co) for their 
twenty-seven pastors, eight professors, and other expenses connected 
with their churches and theological hall, and ^^180 for evangelistic 
work. Let me here remind you that all the members of the Free 
Churches of Switzerland pay their share of those taxes out of which 
the cantonal established churches are supported. 

Ihe proposal of union between the missionary societies of Neucha- 
td, Vaud and Geneva is on foot. The question as to the mode of 
admitting to the Lord’s table and to the membership of the church 
are the questions that most deeply interest them just now. This surely 
shows their true religious life and their intelligence of the questions 
that are most important in view of its development. 

We must now hasten on to Lausanne, the capital of the Canton de 
Valid, beautifully situated on Lake Leman, and with which the names of 
that most loving spirit, Viret, the reformer, and of the Chalmers of Swit- 
zerland, Vinet, are connected, a centre still of education and literary pur- 
suits. What a contrast Lausanne and Vaud offer in their mental, moral 
and religious activity, to Evian and Savoy ! The race is the same, but 
a huge Jesuit college is the most important building seen across the 
water. ^ No doubt there is much to deplore in the Canton de Vaud. 
There is, as in all Switzerland and the continent, a perfect rage for 
pleasure-seeking, which shows itself especially in the growing desecra- 
tion of the Lord’s day by endless fetes, federal, cantonal, local fetes 
of gymnastics, boat-races, rifle -shooting, singing societies— lasting 
sometimes eight days, beginning on the Lord’s day morning, and 
ending with the following Sunday night. At these gatherings and 
bpquetings, “ Fatherland ! ” is the cry ; but at a so-called divine ser- 
vice held on the Lord’s day for about an hour, in the brief recess 
and intermission of gymnastic exercises, the Olympic games were the 
pastor’s theme. Patrie is more and more the god that is worshipped, 
and Its prosperity and defence, alas, seem quite possible to the minds 
of the speakers, without reference to God and to his will. 

As an agricultural Canton, the people are very conservative, and 
do not care as yet for those changes which their radical rulers seem 
anxious of late to make in the government of their national church. 
Its Synod is not named directly by the people or by universal suffrage] 
as is the case in the Canton of Neuchatel ; but by the conseil d’arron- 
dissement, which is composed of the pastors and lay delegates from the 
Conseil de Parbisse. The Synod’s decision, however, depends on 
the will of the Grand Conseil. At Neuchatel, the Synod has more 
authority whilst it is more directly named by the people. A part of 
the National Church organization in the Canton de Vaud, peculiar 
to Itself, is the commission of ordination named by the Synod, and 
composed of laymen and pastors. The candidate for the ministry 


702 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


makes a public profession of his faith, preaches a discourse, and cate- 
chises a class before he is received. But it is very much of a form, 
and allows some far from orthodox to step through, whilst it still 
declares that it rejects full liberty of doctrinal teaching. When the 
state can name delegates to the Synod and this commission, and when 
the Grand Council has the legal right to alter the ecclesiastic laws, 

what guarantees has a church in such a position? 

Of all the National churches in Switzerland, that of Vaud has still 
most rights, and depends on the will of the masses less directly than 
those of other cantons ; but the political rulers see this and have 
already proposed modifications which show their animus. They pro- 
pose to abolish the Conseil d’Arrondissement — that the Synod be 
named by universal suffrage — that the commission de consecradion be 
abolished. They talk of freeing the people from clerical influences, 
and of freeing the pastors from all spiritual bondage, so as to reduce 
the church more than ever to the position of a servant of the state and 
of a tool in their own hands, to admit indiscriminately every kind of 
anti-Christian teaching into their pulpits, as is done in Germany, 
Switzerland and Geneva, and might some day be done at Neuchatel. 

It is because there is more life at present in this National Cluirch that 
she is being attacked in her very foundations by the radical and unbe- 
lieving party. Let this life go on increasing, and the enemy will not 
rest until he has taken from her the last remnants of the liberty Christ 
gives to his Church, which is his creation, his spouse, not that of the 
state. I do not believe that the separation of Church and state will 
ever be satisfactorily brought about by democrats. It is too valuable 
a power for them to throw it aside. The Church of the Canton De 
Vaud has but very few non-evangelical pastors, but they do and can 
exist. One of them thanked God in my hearing that the Confession 
of Faith had been abolished, and rejoiced in not being a worshipper 
of three Gods, as he called me. 

On the whole, I believe there is progress in religipus life, in inten- 
sity, if not in extent. Very interesting meetings for evangelization 
or treating special subjects are held unitedly with members of the Free 
Church. Several of the arrondissements have published admirable 
appeals for the better observance of the Lord’s day. The religious 
organ of the Church is boldly and unhesitatingly evangelical. The 
amount of good Christian literature, published chiefly at Lausanne, 
and by a distinguished member of the Free Church, is very remark- 
able. This is not peculiar, as far as religious periodicals are con- 
cerned, to Vaud, for thirty-nine religious papers are now published in 
Protestant Switzerland, and besides these Lausanne sends forth num- 
bers of books of a religious character, an excellent and able periodi- 
cal, The Bibliotheque Lfniverselle, a well-known monthly. The Chretien 
Evangelique, and The Eeiiille Religieuse da Cafiton de Vaud. It is 
largely read with the famille in France. There is an admirable tract 
society in Lausanne, which vies with that of Toulouse and of Paris, 
two Bible societies, a Spanish committee (which has an evangelist at 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


763 

Barcelona, and he is doing admirable work with little means), a 
branch society for the better observance of the Lord’s day, and a very 
large number of philanthropic institutions, besides committees in aid 
of the fallen, and of domestic servants, temperance coffee-house, etc. 
We have also at St. Loup an admirable deaconess’ institution, one of 
the four in Switzerland, the others being those of Reichen, Berne, 
and Zurich. There is also a class for training nurses at Lausanne, 
itself founded by Madame D’Gasparin. 

I need hardly say that Dr. Christlieb’s statement that the great Na- 
tional churches are considerably outstripped by the smaller Free 
churches, is proved by the fact that the members of the Free Church 
of the Canton De Vaud stand foremost, although, or rather because, 
they are self-supporting. Christians have to be taught to give, and 
here, as at Neuchatel and Geneva, they are learning the lesson 
nobly. 

The Free Church of the Canton De Vaud is a remarkable church 
in many respects. Its pastors are most intelligent and devoted 
men, passing rich on eighty pounds a year. With only thirty-nine 
churches, their annual budget amounts to 214,000 francs, out of 
which the pastors, and five professors of theology, and five professors 
in the preparatory class, and evangelists who labor at Fribourg, Evian, 
Thouron, and Rommany, in France, are supported. It is also a mis- 
sionary church, and has sent two most devoted men to work amongst 
the Maqewambas, north of Transvaal. One of their evangelists there 
is supported by the Roman Catholic Spanish converts at Barcelona. 
Whilst they have a Confession of Faith, a striking characteristic of 
this Free Church is the freedom enjoyed in it. They leave open, as 
do the Free Churches of France, such a question as that of infant 
baptism, and thus divisions caused by this controversy are avoided. 
There is full freedom left as to the use of the liturgies drawn up with 
the sanction of their General Assembly. 

The Churches, may be said to have two classes of members: those 
who do not wish to attach themselves ecclesiastically to the Church, 
but are willing to do so as to a living branch of the one Church of 
Christ, and those who feel the duty, beside this, of sharing the re- 
sponsibilities as well as the privileges off{3..'ed them in it. It is in this 
Canton that a branch of the English Wesleyans are in the field of 
labor, with a church, and an institution for the training of theological 
students. The Plymouth brethren are more numerous than else- 
where in Switzerland, a proof of spiritual life in the Canton, for 
they love most certainly to fish in fish-ponds that have already been 
stocked. 

I now come to Geneva, that city, the very name of which recalls 
the conflicts of the past for truth and liberty, and is associated with 
the memories of men never to be forgotten in the domain of science, 
art, and theology. Had you entered St. Pierre last July whilst one 
of the National Church pastors was preaching, and had heard him ex- 
claim in the midst of a most excited popular harangue, ‘‘ Geneva is 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


764 

saved ! Geneva is saved ! ” yon might have asked what fearful calanri- 
ity had been averted, and you would have smiled to hear that all this 
ado was apropos of the rejection by popular vote of a proposal brought 
forward by the government to abolish pecuniary grants to any religious 
denomination, to guarantee religious liberty — a step, no doubt, toward 
the separation of Church and state. More than two years ago, an- 
other rationalistic pastor of the Church of Geneva declared that 
democracy alone could save the Church. And what is this Church ? 
“The National Church of Geneva continues to exist,” says a Swiss 
writer, “with this title because she offers to free thinkers, rationalists, 
etc., an institution supported by public funds in which anything may 
be preached — the gospel, Rousseau’s deism, or the denial of the 
supernatural. ’ ’ 

Oh! for an hour of Calvin’s presence, or that of our exiled fore- 
fathers, or of our sturdy, uncompromising Genevese believers, that 
they might repudiate this shameless use of their names, and declare 
that they never sunk the idea of Christ’s Church so low as to identify 
it with those who deny Christ, Christ’s divinity, his atonement, his 
resurrection 1 Let all our Presbyterian churches study the history of 
this controversy at Geneva, and they will see what fatal fruits are pro- 
duced by this alliance with unbelief that a civil marriage has con- 
secrated, under the plea of giving and protecting liberty of con- 
science. 

“ Csesarism is laying its hands on the Church, under cover of pre- 
serving the unity of the Church,” says a National pastor of the Can- 
ton De Valid. They would give her ministers freedom to preach any- 
thing. This liberty, when given, soon proves that it is impossible to 
have unity of action where there isxo unity of principle, and brings 
to light contradictions in teaching which cannot be reconciled. In 
that same pulpit of St. Pierre a pastor, at the distribution of prizes 
for religious instruction, openly repudiated all belief in the super- 
natural, and the following Sunday Christ and his resurrection were, no 
doubt, proclaimed. What can the people think ? What are they to 
believe ? May this not lead to agnosticism ? 

The condition of the National Church of Geneva is deplorable, and 
second, perhaps, only to that of Zurich. Naturally, there is an evan- 
gelical union at Geneva, composed of those faithful pastors who do 
wish the gospel to be preached in the State Church. Alongside of 
this cantonal Church, we find a small Church numbering some hun- 
dred and eighty decided and uncompromising men, ready, indeed, to 
work for Christ with the Christian men of the establishment, but de- 
termined unitedly to confess Christ before men ; and in connection 
with it, though, as far as the majority of its members goes, not as 
part of it, we find the evangelical society of Geneva. In this society 
we have some excellent men of the National Church, one of whom is 
professor in the theological hall supported by it. This hall, which 
is connected with the honored names of Gaussen, Merle D’Aubigne, 
De la Harpe, has done, and is still doing, untold good. A striking 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


765 


and characteristic fact is, that it has at present thirty-two students, of 
whom six are Genevese, whereas not a single Genevese, I believe, 
figures on the roll of the so-called National School of Theology. This 
theological hall has already furnished more than three hundred pastors 
or missionaries to Holland, Spain, and Italy, and especially to France 
and Switzerland ; in fact, many of the most earnest men in the 
National Church of Vaud, Geneva, and Neuchatel studied at the 
Free Church colleges. The society employs sixty-eight colporteurs, 
eleven pastors and evangelists, four teachers and aids, and ten pastors 
who supply six summer stations in the mountains of Switzerland. 

The little band of Geneva Christians is doing noble work for 
Christ. They often originate new and most important movements, 
e. g., the International Society, for the better observance of the Lord’s 
day, of which its indefatigable founder, Mons. Alexandre Lombard, is 
the soul; the Refuge or Home for the fallen, to which pastor Borel 
has given all his manly and tender care;. and temperance society 
meetings on the model of Mr. McAll’s. 

To conclude, the mere handful of evangelical Christians in Switzer- 
land can easily show by their works that their faith is the true faith, 
a faith which proclaims that we are created anew in Christ unto good 
works, prepared of God that we should walk in them ; and, as the 
lovely, sweet-scented narcissus of our Alps centres in a golden crown, 
so Christ and his sovereignty is seen to be a central truth around which 
the most living churches of Switzerland rally, as the white petals of 
that beautiful flower. 

A paper by the Rev. Ferdinand Cizar, pastor at Klobouk, 
near Briinn, Moravia, was, in his absence, read by James Mac- 
donald, Esq., of Edinburgh, on 

THE STATE OF REFORMED RELIGION IN MORAVIA. 

The paper is introduced by the statement that it is signed and 
approved by John Benes, Superintendent of the Reformed 
Church in Moravia, his seal being attached to the certificate. 
It is as follows : 

L. B. S. 

Cum pro tristi conditione familiae suae noster delegatus pastor F. 
Cisar secundi concilii presbyteriani non ipse particeps esse possit, 
proposuimus ei in novissima pastorali consultatione Kloboukii habita, 
ut omnia, quae concilio referre a comite ei propositum est, per litteras 
secretario concilii transmittat et in sua nuntiatione inprimis pro nos- 
trae dioecesis fundatione intercedat. Perlecta nuntiatione in lingua 
Bohemica concepta probamus subsequens angelice compositum exeni- 
plar simul omnibus precibus et a Deo et a venerandis patribus fratri- 
busque petentes, ut fraterna communicatio in articulum pertractantem 


766 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


internum statum nostrae carae ecclesiae reformats et nostrae dioecesis 
fundationem adtentionem conversura et curam nostri similiter actura 
sit, ac nostrae ex longo tempore doloris sociae, ecclesiae Valdensis. 

Cum nunc pro inopia alium delegatum ad vos mittere non possumus, 
per has litteras effenmus preces intimas, ut Dominus omni benedic- 
tione sua in medio coiicilii et extra concilium vobiscum sit atejue 
omnia vestra opera et deliberationes prosperet, universque mundo 
christiano saluti faciat. 

Gratia Domini nostri Jesu Christi et charitas, Dei et communicatio 
spiritus sancti sit cum omnibus vobis. 

Nomine verbi divini ministrorum ecclesiae reformatae in Moravia. 
Vanovice, D. XIX. Cal., September, 1880. 

T. Benes, Superinteiidens. 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

“And I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, 
and for the testimony which'they held : and they cried with a loud voice, saying, 
How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on 
them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of 
them ; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season.” . . . 
— Rev. vi. 9-1 1. 

The Reformed Church of Moravia is not to be mistaken for the 
Moravian Church, to be found in Germany, Great Britain and Amer- 
ica. The origin of both churches, of course, is the same, namely, the 
old Church of Bohemian and Moravian Brethren ; the ^^Unitas fra- 
trum,'' which in the days of yore was emphatically called ^Hcelestis 
hier ar cilia interris'' — the heavenly kingdom on the earth. Some of 
the numerous emigrants that left Moravia during the times of Popish 
persecution settled in Saxony, where Count Zinzendorf helped them 
in forming a new Protestant association, of which the British and 
American Moravians are noAV the representatives. In Moravia, how- 
ever, this denomination has no adherents, and the only Protestants 
that can be spoken of are those belonging either to the Lutheran or to 
our Church — the Reformed Church of Moravia. 

Again, though it were rather a mistake to identify us with the 
Moravians, it were a greater mistake still to make any essential dis- 
tinction between the Reformed Churches of Moravia and Bohemia. 
Both countries do not differ even as much as Scotland and England, 
and form, together with Silesia, the “United Kingdom of Bohemia,” 
included in the Empire of Austria. Our two Reformed Churches are 
mentally closely allied. Our present laws, however, not very friendly 
to any real national and ecclesiastical unity of Bohemian and Mora- 
vian Protestants, divided us in spite of our common history, common 
language, and common confession of faith. We, however, feel our- 
selves as one body, one both nationally and denominationally ; and 
we thank God that we have the opportunity to declare this unity to 
our fellow-believers abroad, especially to the members of the Presby- 
terian Council, expressing at the same time the hope that the Presby- 
terian Alliance may, in some way, help us in the times to come, to 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


767 

form anew the old ^Nnitas fratrum'' which was a perfect imitation 
of the early apostolic Church and an ideal of Presbyterianism. 

We hope all our sister churches are acquainted with our history ; 
but not so, perhaps, with our present condition. So very, very few 
in the Presbyterian Alliance take interest in Bohemia, and nearly none 
in Moravia. And still,, do not we speak the language of JaJm Huss ? 
Are we not living in the “ lands of the Cup aiidofthe Book ? ’ ’ The em- 
blem of the Cup and of the Book, is it not to be seen over the entrances 
of our places of worship, over the pulpit, upon the Lord’s table, upon 
our hymn-books, coffins and tombstones? Well, what does this em- 
blem of the Cup tell us ? It tells not only the old, old story of Christ 
and of his love, but also the sad, sad story of our fathers and their 
sufferings. In our eyes the Cup appears as filled not only with that 
precious blood which Jesus shed because he loved our fathers, but the 
Cup appears also to us as filled with the blood our fathers shed because 
they could not help loving Jesus ! 

^'"The lands of the Cup and of the Book If one hears of Bohe- 
mia and Moravia, and if he loves the word of God, he should not 
forget the fate of the Bible in our lands. He should think of many a 
thousand of Bibles burnt in our country by the Jesuits ; of many a 
hundred Bibles hidden and secretly read at the risk of life for so long 
a time as from 1620 to 1781 ; of many Bibles saved from the claws of 
the Popish ravens only by emigrating and leaving behind all, except- 
ing the Book ! The Book, where the register of the names of the pos- 
sessors is not only nearly wiped away by tears, but often stained with 
the blood of those who losing their lives for Christ found the true life 
in Him ! 

“ The land of the Cup and of the Book ! ” You know it all, rev- 
erend fathers and brethren ! Merle D’Aubigne and others — what 
famous things they have narrated to the civilized world of the ‘■'■Cradle 
of the Reformation I" Alas ! this cradle has become nearly the coffin 
of the Reformation. When three years ago at the first Council one 
of the American deputies asserted, that 'he could not pluck a flower 
from the Scottish soil without seeing it sprinkled by the bloody dew, 
reminding him of martyrs —well, did he then remember also the blood 
of the Bohemian missionary, Paul Cratv, brought to the stake at St. 
Andrews? Do the brethren from Germany remember that their 
Reformation has been saved at the cost of Protestantism in the king- 
dom of Bohemia? Are the brethren from Holland aware that the 
ashes cf our great Amos Comenius are buried at Naarden? Do the 
brethren from England understand that it was their Wycliffe’s doc- 
trine John Huss and Jerome of Prague sealed with their lives at 
Constance ? 

Verily, every true branch of the Church of Christ has its martyrs. 
The Covenanters suffered much ; the Huguenots not less; the Valden- 
sians more ; the cradle of the Reformation f however, overflowed with 
blood shed for the Cup and the Book ! With us not a church merely, the 
whole nation has become a martyr, and has been turned into a cloud of 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


768 

witnesses. Rather a desert^ than a kingdom peopled by heretics was 
the favorite maxim of Ferdinand II. ; and so he reduced by fire and 
sword four millions of heretics to 800,000 wretched but Roman 
Catholic souls. 

Everywhere the children are loved for the sake of their excellent 
and worthy parents. The Waldensian Church is, and deserves to be, 
the darling daughter in the Pan-Presbyterian family. Well, God 
knows it, and men dare not deny it. Just such a loved daughter 
should the Reformed Church of Moravia and Bohemia also be. She 
is the feeble child in the cradle of the Reformation I ” 

STATISTICS OF 1 8 79. 

The Reformed Church of Moravia counts twenty-two parochial and 
four under-parochial congregations or parishes, with 40,869 adherents 
(against 39,000 in 1876), who are widely scattered over an area of 598 
English square miles in 488 different towns, hamlets and villages. 
The whole territory of the church is divided in two seniorate districts. 
The eastern district, with 14,695 ; the western, with 26, 174 adherents. 
The spiritual charge of the congregations is intrusted to twenty-three 
pastors, the most of whom have been engaged in the work of the Lord 
for many years. 

There are only seven purely denominational schools in our church. 
Before the new school laws we had thirty-four. 

The Reformed Church of Moravia has no foreign missions. The 
reason is obvious. The church is very poor, the adherents being 
generally small landholders, or working people without any property. 
And as the latter are scattered mostly in villages, in quarters without 
any industry, they are restricted to farming work, earning wages of 
twenty-five to forty kreutzers — about six to ten pence English money — 
daily. After providing for their own church, the Reformed peo- 
ple in Moravia have hardly anything left for other ways of spread- 
ing the gospel. Beside that, the work calling upon us more loudly 
than a foreign mission does, is undeniably the evangelization of Mo- 
ravia, viz. : a mission to the population, which is almost entirely Ro- 
man Catholic. The first step is taken already. The gospel will be 
brought nearer to the Catholics in the diaspora of the Reformed parish 
of Klobouk. The only, and yet not sufficient, help has come to us for 
this undertaking from the Student Missionary Society of the United 
Presbyterian Theological Hall at Edinburgh. Something will be 
done by the congregation at Klobouk also ; how much, however, can 
be judged from the following illustration of our poverty : 

The members of the Klobouk congregation, if they should sell their 
cottage, their only property, would raise ^^30 to ;£5o. As to 
the land-holders, who are but few, the largest farm represents hardly 
j[f>oQ>. And now how many are beside that who do not possess anything 
at all, and require help from others? To expect from this class of our 
members anything for our congregational purposes, would be unreason- 
able or even hard. And as it is at Klobouk, so it is everywhere in 
Moravia — in many places worse. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


769 


In consequence of this, naturally the stipends of our pastors are very 
small, and in not due proportion to their education, wants and the cost 
of living in this country. The salary of a pastor is upon an average 
^60 a year. Many a congregation, being a wide diaspora, must col- 
lect yearly a sum amounting to the same as the pastor’s salary, for 
travelling expenses within the bounds of the parish — so scattered are 
the single members. 

In spite of the great poverty of the members, and in spite of the 
heavy burden of self-sustentation, the Reformed Church of Moravia 
collects yearly about for several benevolent objects, which is a 

large sum in this country. The greatest part of these benevolent col- 
lections is destined to the Gustav-Udolf Society, and to the minister 
and school-master widow funds. 

THE RELATION OF THE REFORMED CHURCH TO THE STATE. 

The Reformed Church of Moravia is a self-supporting, but, alas, not 
a self-governing church. All the yearly pecuniary regular help given 
from the state to the ‘church is pCi6o for the superintendent (moder- 
ator) ; ^50 for his assistant, and ^40 for each of the two seniors. 
Here and there, where the salary of the pastor is under and his 

congregation unable to better the stipend by its own exertions, the 
state grants (but not always) a small sum to make up the usual for 
the pastor. In short, what the state is giving to our church cannot 
be looked upon except as alms, without which our church would do 
better perhaps than with it. 

The question now is, Why is the scanty help of the state not refused, 
and the freedom, the right of self-government reclaimed ? 

Because the political government of Austria is not willing in the 
least to give us our freedom, and holds us in its grasp without any 
regard to our own desires. Before 1861 the Protestant churches 
in Austria got nothing from the state, and had at the same time 
less autonomy than even now. Now we do have an autonomy, ac' 
cording to the letter of the laws at least ; ‘‘of course our hands and 
limbs are bound in many a respect.” Still it cannot be denied that 
regarding our self-government, we are gaining ground more and more. 
Our sessions, conventions and synods, generally protest against the in- 
trusion of the state in our church matters, and the day, God willing, will 
come when our pseudo-establishment, which is keeping us down under 
the pretext of protecting without sustaining us, will cease. Of course the 
scanty sums granted by the state must be refused in the first instance, 
and there are already among our leading men here and in Bohemia, 
who show plainly what the protection of the state and its “ins circa 
sacra” really means; and that the last word in deciding the vital 
matters of the church belongs to Christ, and not to a king of this 
world. 

“ Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes ! ” This saying is surely not out 
of place, if used by our church against the state. The state pays our 
superintendent and seniors, and what does it claim for that? 

49 


770 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

The last, the deciding word in every important matter. The 
gregations, for instance, have the right of electing their > 

Lcted candidate, however, must be acknowledged by the 
It is the same with the seniors, and the superintendent must be ap 
proved directly by the emperor himself. “Ihe 
preached without any restriction;” every Pf '’'""‘if"’ ™ ^ 
preach onlv in “the bounds of his parish, and the he.r.rs « 

least partly be Protestants. The preaching of the go^pe' ^ f, 1 "^ y 
Roman Catholic audience would be termed making proselytes, which 
is prohibited very sternly, and would be punished . 

The state gives us, according to our constitution, the unrestricted 
right of establishing our own denominational schools, as many as we 
may and can. On the other part, however, the state crushed our 
whole school system, so that we can only keep seven schools out of 
the thirty-four we had not many years ago. Establishing denomina- 
tional schools was the chief design and best hope of our as wel as of 
the Bohemian Reformed Church. In that we are thrown back now, 
and must look for the new (for us) and very difficult (in our scattered 
condition ) institution of Sunday-schools. How unjustly the govern- 
ment has been proceeding in depriving us of 

ing our children early in the knowledge of the truth ! Denomina- 
tional schools are an institution which can be perhaps dispensed with 
in Britain or in America, where the Scriptures are held forth, not by 
a small fraction of the population, but where the Bible has become a 
household book throughout the whole nation. It is not so with us 
In our country, generally speaking, the Bible is a 
seven seals. In our case even the Sunday-schools will be haidly a 
sufficient compensation for our lost denominational schools. 

The Austrian school-laws of 1868 are decidedly against Protestants ; 
not theoretically, but practically ; and if their influence and conse- 
quences be not paralyzed in some way, they will prove themselves, 
though not a death-blow to our Church as such, yet a formidable 
obstacle to our further spreading the gospel. . , 

The school-laws, we said, are not literally against us. They 
the public schools to be interconfessional and accessible to all the 
denominations. It is only a scoffing irony, however, a stroke in our 
face : for the fact is, that the public schools, with perhaps ten excep- 
tions in all Moravia, are Popish through and through. They teach 
our children to say prayers to the Virgin Ma%y, and keep them away 
from the gospel by ignoring or scorning the pure word of Cod. It 
is really an irony to call such schools interconfessional, where pictures 
of saints and crucifixes are displayed, and where the “ heretics are 
cursed or pitied every day. And still the Protestants must pay taxes 
for sustaining those public schools, though just to save themselves they 
are compelled to look for travelling catechizers and other expensive 
methods to counteract the bad influence of the so-called interconfes- 
sional schools. It is, therefore, an embarrassing question for us, how 
to ward off the blow the Romish party is aiming at us by these school- 
laws. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


771 


Well, we rely upon our Lord and upon the aid of our sister churches 
in the West. That such aid can do much for us has been proved 
anew this year by the intervention of the Evangelical Alliance in the 
case of the prosecuted Protestants in Bohemia. 

THE RELATION OF THE REFORMED CHURCH OF MORAVIA TO OTHER 

CHURCHES. 

There are only three denominations known in Moravia — the Ro- 
man Catholics, the Jews and the Protestants. The Protestants are 
represented by the Reformed and the Lutheran. The friendly inter- 
course between the two Protestant churches has been impaired of late 
by several controversies. It is to be complained, that the orthodox 
Lutheran ministers are generally too rigidly confessionalists and very 
intolerant to the Reformed. One might say, that they seem to think, 
that loving Luther means hating Calvin. A great part of the other 
Lutheran pastors again cannot be welcome to us, for the reason that 
they are servile shield-bearers of the government, yearning for a 
thorough establishment of the Protestant churches, and being, there- 
fore, a great impediment in our exertions for regaining the freedom 
and the right of unimpaired self-government for our Church. These 
differences, however, did not lead as yet to an irreparable division, 
and, in some cases, as for instance in the Gustav-Udolf-Society, both 
Protestant churches are co-operating. 

To the Jews we stand in no relation at all, and as to the Romish 
Church, she is the same to us as she was and ever shall be. Our past, 
present and future chief enemy is Rome ! Rome brought to the stake 
our great reformer ; Rome has deprived us of our religious and politi- 
cal liberties, and has kept us down and trodden us unmercifully into 
dust for nearly two centuries. Our heart is sad and full of bitterness 
against Popery even now, for before a hundred years have passed, 
before we could forget the outrages of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries, Rome strives again to suppress every effort vve make for pro- 
moting the gospel. Now, under the prime-minister of the state 
(Taaffe), the old Hydra is holding all the hundred heads up again. 
The bishops of Tyrol are protesting against the very existence of Prot- 
estant congregations, and the government promised to the clericals 
to grant them still more influence upon the schools. In the very 
time, when France stands up against the Jesuits and Belgium against 
the Pope ! Austria remains what she was, the most faithful daughter 
of the Holy See ! ” Every movement of ours is watched, and first of 
all the school-laws of 1868 are turned against us. Yet 

“Our hope is sure in Jesus’ might*, 

Against themselves the godless fight, 

Themselves, not us, distressing; 

Shame and contempt their lot shall be; 

God is with us, with him are we ; 

To us belongs his blessing 1 ” 


772 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


THE INWARD CONDITION OF THE CHURCH. 

As to the inward condition of our Church, both light and shadow 
are to be seen everywhere. Our ranks are not so closed and not kept 
in order so minutely as it seems to be done in the great Protestant 
bodies in the West. No wonder ! Our congregations are scattered, 
and in our special case from the chief army nearly abandoned out- 
posts of Presbyterian Christianity, standing like lonely rocks, afar 
from the continent, in the wide, wide Popish sea. The commanders 
of the chief army should, from time to time, inspect those outposts 
and recommend to them more watchfulness, more discipline and cour- 
age by strengthening their reliance upon the great army behind, and 
the Commander-in-chief above ! 

Verily, we are left to ourselves thoroughly, God knows it ; and our 
stronger sister churches may judge by themselves, if it is right, and if 
just this, our forlornness, has not been the origin of many a shadow 
to be seen around the candlestick of the gospel, planted in the midst 
of us by the Lord. 

Let us speak of our bright aspect. The tabernacles of the Lord are 
amiable to our people. Our pews are too few, our places of worship 
too small for our congregations and audiences. To our services on 
Sundays, a third of all the adherents (J. e., of all the souls, the chil- 
dren included) turn out, the greatest part of the hearers having to walk 
from one to five hours to the house of God. The afternoon services 
of course are less crowded, because only the nearest can take part. 
In many villages, however, where the minister is not residing, our 
people have afternoon services by themselves, conducted by the dis- 
trict elder. Beside the Sabbath services, the gospel is preached regu- 
larly on the occasion of burials in the village or town of the deceased. 
Such funeral services are conducted in a like way as the worship in 
the church, for on such occasions the Roman Catholics are in the 
habit of coming, and give opportunity to the pastor to proclaim to 
them the unknown God. In some congregations are prayer-meetings 
with expositions of the Bible, as, for instance, at Klobouk, Nosislava, 
Herspic, etc., from the ist of December till the seed-time in the 
spring every day early in the morning. Such meetings are elsewhere 
usually held in Lent once or twice a week. Travelling catechizations 
(excurrendo catechizationes) are attended by gray-headed people as 
well as by the young. 

To be sure our pastors are overwhelmed with wt>rk, and in spite of 
that they do not meet the wants of our people. From the statements 
made already, it is evident that the members of single congregations 
are over numerous, and at the same time very thinly scattered over a 
great many places. So it is in Bohemia as well as in Moravia. As 
an example, the congregation of Senior Szalatnay (the delegate to this 
second Council) may be mentioned. Mr. Szalatnay is to take care 
of 2,800 souls living in about thirty-eight scattered villages. The 
present writer has over 3,000 souls in twenty places under his care. 
Such is the condition of nearly all the Reformed congregations, and 


773 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

the consequence is, that the Refonued pastors have to spend the half 
of all the days in the year either in driving or walking about amon*^ 
our people in order to provide them with the one thing needful. Yet^ 
in spite of our being constantly on our feet, our people suffer spiritual 
hunger in a lamentable degree. Any minister present in the Council 
may fancy easily, that it would become impossible even for the most 
active pastor to take sufficient spiritual care of 2,000 or 3,000 souls 
even if they all were living in place. Well, then, if anywhere] 
here may be used the words ; The harvest truly is plenteous, but the 
laborers are few.” 

Alas ! spiritual hunger in our Church in spite of the regular and 
funeial services, all kinds of religious instruction, prayer-meetings, 
confirmations, etc. ! No wonder, however. The present writer, for 
instance, holds morning prayer-meetings every day for a quarter of ^ 
year. But what is it? The people from Klobouk only can come — 
the others in the remaining nineteen villages must stay at home. To 
the Sabbath services 1,000 hearers come to Klobouk quite regularly; 
in case of a storm or rain, however, about 300 only. 

Cannot this critical condition be helped ? Surely it can, and the 
help is obvious, but it is not in our own power. 

The obvious help is : Our numerous congregations or parishes should 
be divided. Out of the twenty-six Reformed congregations in Mora- 
via there should be made fifty ; that would still give upon an average 
817 souls to every congregation. Instead of our twenty-three Re- 
formed pastors, we should have sixty at least; every one of them 
would be nevertheless overbusy. Sixty pastors for our Church, that 
would change the matters considerably. The gospel would not only 
be brought nearer to our distant members, but the gospel would be 
brought into districts where the Popish darkness is so thick, that the 
Roman Catholic crosses himself if only hearing to name a ‘‘ Protes- 
tant ” or “ heretic.” If our Church be left in the present forlorn con- 
dition, if the numbers of congregations and pastors be not augmented, 
the outposts not moved forward, then our own Church, of course, with 
God’s help, will continue to exist with difficulty, and increase very, 
very slowly ; but then also there will come a time where, for instance, 
the name of our dear Pastor Fliedner will be more widely known in 
Spain, than the name of Christ our Lord in Moravia. 

Yet, is it not the duty of our own Church to care for the multiplying 
of our congregations ? Certainly, it is ; and it is not neglected. In 
the last ten years we have formed three new congregations and have 
another two petto.” But what is it? Where are the fifty, the 
hundred? There, reverend fathers and brethren, whereto our power, 
or rather our material poverty, does not reach ! We cannot raise the 
means for sustaining so many pastors, though the average salary is in- 
deed so scanty. Our ‘^Superi tendential Conventus” of 1876 has 
founded the “Diocese Sustentation Fund,” out of which new 
congregations, in the diaspora, should be established, and their pas- 
tors partly sustained. We have collected among ourselves something 


774 


THE PRESBYTERIAN. ALLIANCE, 


already, but after four years of collecting and exerting our own 
strength, we see it plainly now — we shall never reach our end by otrr- 
selves^ being too poor for that ! 

Reverend fathers and brethren, the Waldensian Church has done 
very much for the promotion of the gospel in Italy ; the Reformed 
Church of France works blissfully at home ; the youngest Church in 
our family does much in Spain ; but then, again. Great Britain and 
x\merica do very much for the Churches that are diffusing the light 
of the truth in Italy and France and Spain. 

We, on the contrary, have struggled till now for our own existence, 
and that not in vain. For diffusing the mental light out of the pale 
of our own Church, we have done very, very little; but the great 
Presbyterian family in the West — the rich fountain of strength for 
the missions in Spain, France, and Italy — has done for the multiply- 
ing our forces in Moravia — nothing at all. 

Even Bohemia, our sister and fellow-sufferer, has been happier than 
'Moravia. Bohemia has been visited by many leading ministers from 
•England and Scotland (lately, also, by Dr. Philip Schaff, from Amer- 
ica), and her condition excited sympathies. Many of those visitors 
have been travelling further to Hungary, through the very centre of 
Moravia, but they had no time to spare for us, did not stop to see 
one minister, one congregation of ours ! Who would not think of 
Luke X. 30-37 ? 

Bohemia has got some help already, though insufficient, too. Many 
Bohemian divinity-students have been trained by the Free Church at 
Edinburgh, and several grants have been made for the evangelization 
of Bohemia by all the three Presbyterian Churches of Scotland ; also 
an “Association for the promotion of the gospel in Bohemia” exists 
at Edinburgh, for several years already. 

Our Reformed Church in Moravia, however, has stretched her hand 
out in vain. Only the United Presbyterian Student Missionary So- 
ciety, at Edinburgh, has heard her voice; and Mr. David Baton, of 
the United Presbyterian Church, has provided for the training of two 
of our divinity-students; a third is expected to be provided for bv 
the Free Church. 

No doubt we are thankful for these deeds of brotherly love, which 
fall upon us like drops upon a glowing stone — like drops upon a 
glowing stone ! 

Morazna, 7 iot our Chuz'ch as such, but Morazua as a country, is lost 
for the gospel, if our Church does not find such a helper as the Rev. Dr. 
W. Robertson has proved himself in proposing the scheme for the Waldezi- 
sian Pastors' Fund. 

The Waldensian Church, as a martyr-Church, is in the heart of 
hearts of tlie Presbyterian Churches in- the west. Is there no heart 
of hearts left for us in America? No Robertson for us in the second 
Council, as was in the first, for the Waldensians ? Where -have the 
confessors of Christ’s pure gospel been slain, not by hundreds or 
thousands, but by thousands of thousands? We know it was done in 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


m 


ihe lands of the Cup and of the Book. Ours is a martyr-Churrli, hal- 
lowed by the blood of more confessors than any other in the world i 

Next year the Reformed Church in Moravia is going to solemnize 
her centenary. One hundred years ago Joseph IL gave us his Tolera- 
tion Edict. For an hundred years then our Church has been left to 
herself, struggling for her life and helped by the Holy Spirit only, nr t 
by men. 

Well, send out from you, reverend fathers and breihreit, such as wouta 
feel for the “Cradle of the Reformation” as others did for ihe 
Vaudois ; send them to our Centenary, that they may, in our own midst, 
see better what we cannot sufficiently express here in. a foreign tongue; 
and we are sure that our Robertson champion will be found. 

In the meantime our prayer has been always, and must be even now, 
in accordance with the words : 


In deepest need, in anguish sighing, 

I cry to thee, to thee alone. 

Were I to other help applying. 

Vain were each prayer, each suppliant groan. 
My plaints, O Lord, ascend to thee! 

Oh, graciously, give ear to me ! ” 


CONCLUDING REMARKS. 

There should be far more written, far more details given regarding 
our Church, than has been done here. The present writer, however, 
is restricted to twenty minutes allowed for reading a paper in the 
Council, and, beside that, it is a severe task to him. to write on such 
important matters in a tongue so little in his power as the English is. 

The chief question is, will that which has been put down here 
be read to the Council, at all? We must hope so. We are sure, 
with God’s grace, there will beat several hearts for our Church, in 
the Council. There will be present, we presume, the noble friend 
of the Waldensians, and of ours, and will act according to what he 
wrote in the public press some years ago, saying : 

“What a sense of the mercies of British Christians does Bohemia, 
with its sad history, inspire ! And what mighty claims on our sym- 
pathy and aid does that cruelly persecuted Church possess ! One feels 
it a real privilege to show kindness to those who represent the old 
Protestants of Bohemia. If only one could cheer them after such 
protracted and heart-breaking trials, or if one could but help them to 
gather their scattered forces and break forth on ihe riffiit hand and on thr’ 
left, one feels strongly that it would be a service to the Master, as well 
as the servants, and, assuredly, it would not lose its rewards ! ” 

Yes, help us to gather our scattered forces, and we will break forth 
on the right hand and on the left, and triumph over our enemies, 
shouting with joy, hi tvoj rtaWa ! 

Klobouk, near Briinn, Moravia, August, 1880. F. Cisar. 


776 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


The Chairman. — The Rev. Mr. Buscarlet, whom we heard a 
few moments ago, extends the following invitation : “ The 

• Jubilee or the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Societe Evangelique de 
Geneve, the old_st on the continent in Europe, is to be held at 
.Geneva on the 24th of June next ; and the society extends to 
the Christians of America a cordial invitation to be present.” 

. Please make a note of that, and, if any of you go abroad next 

• summer, be sure to go to Geneva on the 24th of June. 

The Rev. Antonio Arrighi spoke as follows : 

THE FREE CHURCH OF ITALY. 

I rejoice in the fact that the Free Church of Italy is to be heard. 
I would love dearly to show you how, in the providence of God, the 
door was thrown open twenty years ago in that beautiful land for the 
truth as it is in Christ Jesus to be proclaimed to that people. But this 
fact is well known. You are aware also that as long as the Pope 
as a temporal ruler held sway in that country, there was not a single 
chance for the gospel of Jesus to be introduced. Therefore, in the 
providence of God, it was necessary that this great evil should 
be removed. The Bible says there is no remission of sins without 
shedding of blood ; and this evil which has so degraded and demoral- 
;:ized that people, was removed on the battle-plains of Magenta 
.arid Solferino. -Then the door was thrown open to the preaching of 
the truth as it iv. in Christ Jesus. At the moment when Victor 
Emmanuel was declared king by his victorious soldiers on the battle- 
. plains of Italy, while the blood of the dead was still warm, amid the 
..groans and cries of the wounded, the Pope ceased to be ruler of the 
'land, and the temporal part of the papacy was destroyed — buried, 
•.never to be resurrected. I do not believe in the resurrection of the 
temporal power of the Pope. 

. During these twenty years Jesus and he crucified, has been pro- 
. claimed by noble and faithful men, to the Italian people ; and to-day I 
'S'tand on this platform in the name of 10,000 Christians converted by 
i.the labors of these devoted missionaries ; and I repeat to you the 
Avoids of the apostle Paul : “ They of Italy salute you ; ” they of Italy 
' greet you. We of Italy bring to you Christian salutations, in the 
'• name of our common Father, in the name of the blessed Jesus, in the 
.name of true Christianity, and in the name of true Presbyterian 
catholicity. 

The Free Church in Italy was organized ten years ago. It is the 
child of Divine Providence. It was rocked in the cradle of Divine 
Providence; and, therefore, I believe this is the time to do much 
through it in the evangelization of Italy, and the destruction of Popery 
and superstition. Of course, I love the Free Church of Italy, on the 
sanv^ principle that every man should love his own wife much bettei 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


777 


than the wife of his neighbor. I belong to that Church. I am mar- 
ried to it; and, therefore, I love it with all the powers of my soul. 
At the same time, I am ready to take any Christian Church by the 
hand, and say to it, God bless you, God speed you, God be with you 
in your labors of doing good. 

We of Italy have the true Presbyterian spirit. We reason in this 
wise: is the apostolic, the historical, Waldensian Church doing the 
work of the Master? Who would dare to say no? Is the Free Chris- 
tian Church of Italy, or are the thousands of souls who have been 
converted through the instrumentality of that Church, doing the 
work of the Master? Who would dare to say no? The Wesleyan 
Church, the Baptist Church — are all those churches doing good, and 
doing the work of the Master? Who would dare say no? Then I 
say that we, as Christian ministers and believers in the Son of God, 
being fully persuaded that those churches are doing the work of the 
Master, are compelled by all that is pure, by all that is holy, to 
take them by the hands, and to say to them, God speed you, God 
bless you. The man who is not ready and willing to take any of 
those churches by the hand, and to call the blessing of God upon 
them, although he may occupy a position of distinction, although he 
may have all the degrees that a university can give him, is, in my 
humble opinion, very small, very narrow, right here : [Laying his 
hand upon his heart.] 

I stand here and plead in behalf of these Free Christian Churches 
in Italy, and ask your sympathy and your prayers and your active 
co-operation. The blessed Book says, “The poor have ye always 
with you.” The brother who preceded me spoke of the necessity and 
wants of the Moravian Church. Another brother spoke of the wants 
and necessities of the Waldensian Church. But the poorest church in 
Italy is the one that I represent. If you give to the Moravian Church 
thirty thousand dollars, you ought to be able to give to the Free 
Church of Italy fifty thousand dollars. It is the poorest Church in 
Europe, and is doing as much good as any Church ever planted in 
that land. 

I desire to extend, in conclusion, a cordial invitation to you to go 
to the city of Rome, to hold your fourth Assembly in the eternal city. 
The Free Christian Church in Italy is ready to invite you to come. 
The objection will be made that there are no evangelical churches 
large enough there to contain these brethren. Will you let me go on 
a supposition ? Bv the time that this Council assembles, for the fourth 
time, we hope to have possession of St. Peter’s; and no church will 
be more commodious than that. We could almost admit the whole 
Presbyterian city of Philadelphia in it, without going to the expense 
and trouble of issuing tickets of admission. Fifty thousand people 
can be easily admitted into St. Peter’s. And as to the hospitality 
that the Italians will offer, every one of you can be accommodated in 
the Vatican, for it has jver eleven thousand rooms. So I hope yov 
will come to Rome. 


778 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


MISCELLANEOUS DISCUSSION ON PAPERS. 

The Rev. Robert Howie, M. A., of Glasgow. — I feel it diffi- 
cult .to say in five minutes all I would like to say on the subject 
of city evangelization. However I rise to dissent from some 
views that were expressed in two of the papers read to this 
Council, the paper on evangelization (Dr. Wilson’s), and that on 
church life and church order (Dr. Lang’s). If I understood 
those views aright they seem to imply that the work of evan- 
gelization should belong to a certain order of men set apart 
especially for the purpose ; and that it did not belong to the 
ordinary ministry and ordinary members of the Church. While 
I agree with the speakers that there are men who ought to be 
set apart in the way indicated, still I believe grievous injury 
would be done to all the churches, if the idea should go abroad 
that this is not the work of the ordinary ministry and ordinary 
membership of the Church. Indeed, I hold that we cannot 
execute our commission right as ministers unless we are not 
only doing evangelistic work, but going to the open air as we 
get opportunities to do it. 

I speak on this matter from a little experience. I have been 
for twenty years at this work on the Glasgow Green to which 
Dr. Lang refers. I have no hesitation in saying that if I were 
to give up this department of my work I would be doing away 
with that which has been the most productive in spiritual results. 
The command is to go out to the highways and hedges and com- 
pel them to come in, and if ministers are to lead their congrega- 
tions in the right way they will set them the example ; if we are 
to bridge over the chasm that often separates our ministers and 
the people, we will do this kind of work. If we go to the open 
air and make our people feel that we can expend our strength 
in the service of the Master, and have no collection and no pay 
for it, they will begin to feel that we have a genuine interest in 
them, and in that way we will get at those who will not come to 
our churches. 

Dr. Knox referred to the Catholics in Ireland, and said that 
we could not get at them. I can tell him that this is the way 
we get at Roman Catholics in the city of Glasgow ; they gather 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


779 

around by crowds ; they are ready to listen, and many of them 
are brought under the power of the truth. 

It is said our ministers are not well qualified for this kind of 
work. If not, I think we ought to get them qualified ; we ought 
to make this a part of ministerial training. Perhaps a good deal 
of the want of qualification arises from the fact that it is not 
attempted. Down in the Mammoth cave there are fishes that 
have no eyes. I believe all religious capacities become blunted 
through disuse. I was thrust into that kind of work in my third 
year as a student of theology. I went over to Ireland in 1859 
with some prejudice against the evangelistic work ; anxious to 
find fault with it ; but somehow I got a baptism of fire that made 
me feel I must speak, and so I went to a village in the neigh- 
borhood and began. In a week after that the Spirit of God came 
down in such measure that we conducted our meetings night 
after night for three months, and until I went to my last session 
at the theological hall in Edinburgh. I have always felt that the 
preparation I got in dealing with anxious souls during those three 
months was the best preparation I had for the work of the ministry. 

I feel that pastors have another advantage ; they will be much 
more sober-minded than some of our evangelists in dealing with 
inquirers. It is very easy for an evangelist to get a number of 
people of all sorts of temperaments gathered into the inquiry 
rooms, and then tabulate the results ; but "he does not know 
how many cases turn out well. We on the spot have to be more 
cautious, and do not make any rash statements as to the number 
converted. 

A pastor has another advantage : he has a congregation at his 
back. My congregation rejoice in being associated in this 
work. I remember down in Cornwall being interested in a 
peculiar form of fishing that was carried on. There is what is 
called a large seine-net that takes in a great compass of the sea. 
They go out, after the fish are gathered into that, with small 
boats and gather up the fish collected in this way. That is what 
my office-bearers and members of the church are doi ng. They 
go out to the open air to large crowds of three or four thou- 
sand. They are on the lookout for people that seem to be interr 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


780 

ested, for strangers, and they put their hands lovingly on their 
shoulders, and give them an invitation to come in. We do not 
get the benefit of open-air meetings unless we have an after 
meeting indoors ; and in that way we have succeeded in gather- 
ing many thousands into the fellowship of the Christian Church. 

I have met since I have, come to this country, since I have 
been in this city, not a few who have told me of those meetings 
on Glasgow Green, and what a blessing they received from them. 
Some of them are elders in churches in this country to-day. If 
we do that kind of work I am sure we will stir up our people to 
work in other ways, not merely in the open air but by territorial 
district work, so that we will be able to get at the population of 
our large cities. We must have our cities mapped out; we must 
have every district visited weekly ; we should have district meet- 
ings from week to week conducted by the people in our churches; 
and if there are those in the congregation who cannot do this, 
we ought to encourage them at least to bring out the care- 
less and the Christless to the meeting. I remember a man tell- 
ing me he used to get a shilling a day for raising the game, and, 
says he, since I have been brought to Christ I feel that that is 
my work — I should raise the game. I believe our general 
preaching will be helped if we go to the open air. 

Henry Day, Esq., of New York. — I believe, as I judge from 
what I have seen in the north, that the first great difficulty in 
reaching our people is to get them into the churches. We can 
get churches enough, and schools enough, if the people would 
only come. I believe, after consultation with some of the best 
workers, that the means by which we shall accomplish this is 
through the women of the church. Send out the women as 
Bible readers during the week, and they will bring the people 
in. I protest against the idea of converting the worst class 
of people in our community by the most inefficient means. 
It has got to be a practice, if you want to work among the 
poor and degraded, to send out a man who has no experi- 
ence, a man who has just come out of a theological seminary, 
or a man who has no training ; he is good enough for that work 
it is thought— evidently the most difficult work in the church 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


781 


to do. What I say the church is bound to do is this: set apart 
your best men for this work ; continue those men in that work 
as their life-work, and do not, when they show capacity for 
preaching, and for influencing large multitudes, take them away 
and give them to a rich audience. Let these men consecrate 
themselves to the work for their life, when they show the 
capacity for it, and depend upon it you will accomplish a work 
in the large cities of the country that never has been done. 

Our friend. Dr. Knox, that venerable father in the Church, 
stood up here the other day, and read a paper on Ireland ; and 
he seemed to me like Jeremiah weeping over the desolation of 
Jerusalem. We almost wept with him. There is that island, 
not so very small, the gem of the sea, bound to us by ties 
the most tender of all in the world, and oppressed as no nation 
under heaven is. It appeals to us. It is sunken in, I was going 
to say, barbarism. I beg pardon for the word, but I have been 
from north to south in Ireland, and in the south of Ireland I 
have seen absolute barbarism. The people are oppressed 
probably by the land laws, those cast-iron laws that came down 
from the feudal ages, which cannot be or have not been changed 
as yet. But the great oppressor of Ireland is the spiritual 
oppressor. It is Rome wLose stalking ghost you have seen 
brought up before you from every country in Europe as being 
the oppressor of the people. This country is indebted to Ireland. 
We could not get on, we could not carry on the works of 
America, we could not print our newspapers one week, if it were 
not for the Irish. We cannot build a railroad in this country, 
we cannot build a church, we cannot build a canal, we cannot 
get our dinner here, without the Irish. That is no joke, it is the 
truth. Some of the best blood of this country, some of the 
brightest ornaments of the Church, have come from the north 
of Ireland. By every tie we are bound to it. It is a shame to 
the Protestant world that a country so near to England, and 
under the shadow of its flag, under the government of the Queen 
of Great Britain, is oppressed, degraded, ignorant and starving. 
How can they help it ? Let me add one practical word. Talk- 
ing and not acting in anything is of no account. I asked 


782 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


brother Knox what he wanted to have done. Said he, we have 
a large institution that sends colporteurs all over Ireland; if you 
could help us to support these colporteurs, to distribute books 
and send men among these people, you would do a vast deal of 
good for Ireland. Ask these brethren from Ireland how you 
can help them, and then render them material aid. 

George Smith, Esq., LL. D., of Edinburgh. — This seems a 
proper time to allude to a question which does not find its 
place nominally on the programme of business at this stage, but 
which nevertheless has underlain many of the papers to a large 
extent, and especially the subject of evangelization, which we are 
now discussing. The work of the Church, whether at home or 
abroad, can be done only through two agencies : one of these 
agencies, the great agent, which is preaching the word of God 
through the pulpit, has been somewhat fully discussed, and will 
be still more so in this Council. The other agency is unhappily, 
to a large extent, abandoned altogether by the Church, so that 
I may say there has been, in the history of Presbyterianism and 
of the Church at large, a divorce between it and evangelical 
religion : I refer to the newspaper press. 

Presbyterianism can point to its triumphs in some departments 
of literature, and hold its own with any other system of ecclesi- 
asticism. But to the press, and especially to the daily press, I 
wish for a moment to direct attention in order that this Council 
may if possible, at its next meeting, consider whether this divorce 
exists, and how it is to be removed, and the press become the 
handmaid of evangelism, instead of being, as it is too often, its 
foe and its opponent. 

The Church of Christ, and the Presbyterian Church, have 
certainly their church organs. I do not refer to these. It is 
necessary, for business purposes and ecclesiastical purposes, that 
all missionary societies and churches should have organs to 
some extent — newspapers for the purpose of communicating to 
the members, and to the subscribers, the work that is being done. 
In passing I would merely say, first, that it is a proper subject 
for inquiry, whether the various official publications of the 
churches which form the Alliance are read; and, secondly, if 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


783 


they are not read, or not read as they ought to be, the suspicion 
that I think many of us entertain is, to put it very frankly, that 
they are not readable. And the question should be whether 
they might not be made much more readable. 

There is a class of literature, in which you in this country are 
very happy — what may be called, in vague language, church 
newspapers. My experience, as a literary man, of church news- 
papers for the last twenty years has been most painful. As a 
rule a church newspaper in our country is an abomination. It 
is an exponent of sectarianism ; it is deficient in charity ; it is 
too often marked by an absence of culture. What we call 
church newspapers, so far as you have them in this country, 
seem to me admirable. From the Atlantic to San Francisco and 
back again, I have read every possible American newspaper, 
church or secular, that I could lay my hands upon. I have been 
struck with the superiority of the newspaper with which you 
yourself, I believe, are connected, and the other newspapers of the 
same class that bring into your homes and families, not only 
religious instruction, but secular instruction in a religious spirit. 

How is the modern daily newspaper to be conducted in a 
Christian spirit so as to be the handmaid I do not say of the 
Church but of Christianity, or, at least, to be its ally and its 
friend? I believe that the problem is not insoluble. It has 
been solved in one or two remarkable instances. Hugh Miller 
solved it in Scotland in the “ Witness ” newspaper. They solved 
it in India in the newspaper known for thirty or forty years as 
the “ Friend of India.” And I know of one newspaper in 
Europe which, though not altogether evangelistic, stands alone 
in its support of Christianity ; in its support of intuitional phi- 
losophy ; in its support of spiritual truth against political cor- 
ruption, against conservative reaction, against the materialistic 
and agnostic tendencies of the present day. Our lawyers, our 
journalists, and our professional classes know the service that 
that newspaper has rendered to Christianity, though not always, 
I am sorry to say, to its evangelical side. It was the one 
cultured newspaper in the whole of Europe that understood 
the North, and that expressed the views of the North during 


784 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

that great civil war in which you established liberty for the 
slaves. 

Now, how is this problem to be solved, you ask ? That 
would lead one too far into details, and into questions that refer 
to professional matters connected with newspapers. They are 
not for discussion in a Council like this. But I will say plainly 
that it is not to be solved by rich men establishing committees 
and boards of directors, and by such men managing newspapers. 
Next to the church newspaper, in our sectarian sense, I knojv 
nothing worse than newspapers managed by committees, whether 
ecclesiastical or secular, whether managed in the interest of po- 
litical or ecclesiastical parties. Newspapers must grow. They 
must be individual property. They must be directed by indi- 
vidual minds, and not be interfered with, as I am sorry to say 
Hugh Miller was in his management of the great “ Witness ” 
newspaper. 

I think of two ways in which this divorce between evangel- 
ism and the press can be removed. First, where Christian men 
are conducting a daily newspaper — for I speak here of the daily 
newspapers — it would be well that something of the assistance, 
the wealth, if you choose to call it, of our churches, or of our 
wealthy men should go to the support and encouragement of 
such enterprises. As between five thousand dollars given to 
any one of the schemes of the churches, and five thousand dol- 
lars spent in the encouragement, in the extension, in the im- 
provement, of a good secular newspaper, commend me to the 
latter. I would draw the attention of men of wealth in this 
country, as well as at home, and in our great cities, to the power 
of the press. I would ask them to study it for themselves, ac- 
cording'to its local condition, and to ask themselves how they 
can, without for a moment breathing even upon its independ- 
ence, direct a daily newspaper to the one idea of conducting its 
enterprise in a Christian spirit, and to the subsidiary point of 
giving just as fair play to ecclesiastical events as it gives to po- 
litical parties and to secular occurrences. The second way in 
which I think this divorce between ecclesiasticism and the press 
can be removed, is by the leaders of our churches, by the men 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 785 

WiTO fill our pulpits with most power, becoming acquainted with, 
and making friends of, and moving in intimate connection with, 
the leaders of the press. After all, churches and newspapers 
are conducted by men ; and the wisest ecclesiastics I have knowji 
are men who have felt the power of the press, and formed inti- 
mate friendship with Christian men in the press; who have encour- 
aged journalists ; who have taken every opportunity to influence 
them; who have drawn them to the pulpits on Sunday, and 
who, in a perfectly legitimate and independent manner, have 
preached through them to a far larger mass of readers than we 
ever got into our churches. 

The Rev. W. E. Boggs, D, D., of Atlanta, Georgia. — I rise 
by the request of my friend and co-delegate from the Southern 
Church, Rev. Dr. Witherspoon, to speak in regard to his paper 
which was read the other day. Remarks were made of a very 
kind and pleasing nature, so far as their tone and temper were 
concerned, by brethren of the Council ; but after the meeting 
was over they seemed to express some disagreement with re- 
gard to the scope of the paper. I desire to call attention to the 
fact that brother Witherspoon, in the beginning of what he said, 
informed you that, of course, a subject so vast in its extent as 
the great doctrine of future retribution, could not be entirely' 
handled in thirty minutes; and, therefore, that, without for one 
moment throwing any shadow of doubt upon other lines of ar- 
gument, he would chiefly confine himself to one point — an expo- 
sition of the scriptural words upon which the Christian Church 
bases her views of that solemn and awful subject. Of course, 
in thirty minutes he had his choice either to have run very su- 
perficially and hastily over -a great number of lines, and said no 
more than we all could have said upon the spur of the moment, 
shedding no light upon the criticism of the doctrine ; or he had, 
in the limits assigned him, to choose one word and that the key- 
word in the New Testament, and expend all his force in the ex- 
position of that. 

A leading newspaper of this country, as I understand, re- 
marked that it felt itself perfectly safe to predict that the paper 
which was called for by the programme on that subject, would 

50 


7-86 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

be duly delivered to the Council, and then, with most commend- 
able prudence, that the members of this body would not dare to 
open their mouths on the subject. Now, we do not propose to ac- 
cept challenges. We do not wish to bandy words with anybody ; 
but the respected gentlemen who thus took the sentiments, as 
they thought, of this Council, I am sure are entirely misinformed. 
There is none of us that wish to rush hastily upon that solemn 
and awful theme. I am sure that all preachers of the gospel feel 
something of the spirit of Payson, when he said that when a 
man preaches upon this doctrine he should do it most tenderly, 
because it may be that he foretells his own future fate. Yet it is 
right that, in this brief way, we should say to the world that the 
Presbyterian Church has never, in regard to this, changed from 
the position in which she has stood for all the years of her history. 
We liold that the faithful exposition of the word of God brings 
out that truth. We hold that the gentle Jesus, who wept tears 
of deep and holy pity on the thought of the ruin that men were 
bringing upon themselves, was himself the greatest expositor of 
this solemn and awful doctrine. We hold that a careful exposi- 
tion of the relation between the redeeming work of Jesus Christ 
and the future world, results in an utter dissipation of that mist 
and dust which hold up the hope that the blood of Jesus Christ 
is offered to men in the future world, and that if a man dies 
in his sin, God has made an arrangement to purge that sin after- 
wards. Sorrow cannot do it; pain cannot do it; except the 
sorrow and the pain that were borne by the Lamb of God 
upon the cross of Calvary. Therefore, as honest men and 
faithful preachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, trembling our- 
selves before the awful judgment bar of God, we hold to that 
standard of ancient truth, and tell men to beware of that fire 
that burns forever and ever. 

The Rev. John Jameson, of Madrid, Spain. — I am sorry to 
interrupt what might perhaps have been an animated discussion. 
But with reference to the missionary co-operation which has 
been referred to several times, I would like to lay before the 
Council the fact in regard to our Church in Spain. I stand here 
eminently a representative, not only of co-operation, but of in- 


787 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

corporation. In Spain we have not only incorporated, so to 
speak, the churches, but the nationalities. In our little Spanish 
Church, which comprises only about sixteen pastors and four or 
five evangelists, we have representatives of Scotch, Irish, Swiss, 
hrench, German, and American Presbyterians, and of the United 
Presbyterian and Free Churches of Scotland, all working in most 
intimate and harmonious union. We have our confession of faith 
made by natives and foreigners. I ought to have added that the 
foreigners are only perhaps one-third, certainly not more than 
one-half, of the element in the Church. We have as many and 
perhaps more nativ'^e pastors than we have foreign missionaries. 

The question has never come up, in any great degree, of the 
difference between native pastors and foreign missionaries. We 
all have the same status, and those depending upon the Churches 
in Scotland, Ireland and Germany, have no difficulty in associat- 
ing ourselves in working with the native missionaries and pastors 
in Spain. 

So much is the spirit abroad in Spain that in the city of 
Barcelona we have an illustration of a still more intimate union. 
The pastors there, the Swiss Presbyterian pastors, the repre- 
sentatives of the Methodist Church, and the representatives of 
the Plymouth Brethren organization, hold what might be called 
a Presbytery in the city of Barcelona. In Madrid also we are 
able to point to a union, not only in our own Christian Church, 
but in the Baptist and Episcopalian Church. Our congregations 
there, whether they be Episcopalian, or Baptist, or Presbyterian, 
know no difference in the outward appearance of the Church of 
Christ. In May, of this year, there was brought up for the cbii- 
sideration of our ‘Assembly a motion to promote union, which J 
most respectfully submit to the Council as perhaps contributing 
something towards the solution of the question of co-opera- 
tion among missionaries. It is to be found in the August num- 
ber of the “ Catholic Presbyterian,” and is as follows : 

The General Assembly of the Church, while adhering to and ii{>- 
holding, as in their eyes pure and scriptural, their accepted standards, 
and desirous of maintaining them in practice as heretofore, do recog- 
nize the duty of providing for practical union with the brethren in 


788 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


the Lord, who are vigorously and effectively fighting the same battle 
as they in other parts of Spain, but who, while desirous of co-operat- 
ing and taking counsel with this church, cannot in conscience unite 
in her organization and discipline. 

^‘And they decree, that henceforward the Spanish Christian Church, 
continuing in all things unchanged in her relation to those who accept 
her standards, do receive as brethren and fellow-counsellors, on their 
regular application and admission, all those recognized laborers in the 
Lord’s vineyard in Spain, who are at one Avith her in fiiith and doc- 
trine; taking counsel with them in all matters pertaining to the ad- 
vancement of the cause of Christ in Spain, and in their own individual 
spheres of labor, inviting them as members, with all the privileges ex- 
cepting that of voting on matters on which they do not submit to be 
governed, to all ordinary and extraordinary meetings of the Presby- 
teries within their districts, and to the General Assemblies. 

“And the United Council reserves to itself the power of suspending 
or excluding from membership any one who may be proved .unworthy 
of fellowship with the body.” 

All other missionaries in Spain have signified their desire and 
willingness to co-operate with us in this way ; so that I believe 
ere long we shall be able to present not only to the Presbyterian 
world, but to the whole Christian world, the spectacle of a body 
of missionaries uniting under the same banner and on the same 
basis. 

The spirit of Presbyterianism has so entered into the evan- 
gel icaP work of Spain that the new Episcopal Church, which 
has been organized within the last year or two, is entirely Pres- 
byterian in its organization, with the exception of what we would 
call permanent moderator, the pastors and the elders represent- 
'ing their churches in the Synod, and the Synod electing their 
bo^rd of bishops : the only difference being that the moderator 
is a ‘permanent officer. ^ 

The Rev. James M. Rogers, of Londonderry, Ireland. — I am 
not the principal of a great educational establishment ; I am not 
a professor of theology ; I am not even a doctor of divinity ; I am 
only a wild Irishman caught the other day ; and, in connection 
with the question of Ireland, I have a few ideas to express. I 
have been filled everywhere I have gone with an unspeakable 
astonishment. Everybody seems to think that he understands 
the Irish question, and that the Irish people, of all others in the 
whole world, are the people that know nothing about it. The 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


789 

Council was at a very serious loss, because I could not pluck up 
my courage to address it when the question of the working 
classes and Christianity was under discussion ; for that touches 
the Irish question very closely. Equally at a loss was the Council 
because I did not say anything about Christianity and politics ; 
for that touches the Irish question closely. 

I would be glad if you would give me half an hour to expatiate 
upon this question in a way that would electrify the assem- 
bly, and communicate a fund of information to certain blind 
understandings who know nothing whatever on the subject, 
though they are perfectly complacent as if they understood all 
about it. 

The first thing that ought to be said in connection with this 
Irish question is, that with the Irish Presbyterians the Council 
is perfectly satisfied. Secondly, I am inclined to think that, with 
the various branches of the Protestant Church, the Council 
might be moderately well satisfied. It mu.st be acknowledged, 
although I am a pretty staid Presbyterian, that there is a won- 
derful amount of good in the Irish Episcopal Church, and a 
great amount of evangelism in it. But there are some who go 
about the country, wherever they can find a footing, and cover 
the walls with posters, offering a thousand pounds for a text of 
Scripture for instance that will prove the immaculate conception, 
or that there is a purgatory ; and most offensively hurling 
anathemas in the face of everybody that differs from them. 
Although Luther and John Knox spoke in terms of considerable 
strength, terms such as these are not the ones to u^e if you 

want to get close to a man’s heart. Irish Roman Catholics have 

. • 

never got into terms of familiarity with anybody who begins 
first by knocking them down and then kicking them. We have 
an organization called the Orange Institution, and the best word 
it has for the whole Roman Catholic Church is “ to hell with 
the pope ; ” and that is supposed in certain circles to be a display 
of great piety, and singularly illustrative of the spirit that was in 
Christ! 

The Irish Roman Catholic community is, in a certain sense, 
the most religious community in Ireland. There is not a soli- 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


790 

tary community in Ireland whose members attend upon the 
ordinances of its own Church as does the community we call 
Roman Catholic. Want of shoes, want of stockings, does not 
keep any Roman Catholic woman from her place of worship on 
the Sabbath. When the clouds stream all about with rain, and 
our Protestant sensibilities are so solemnly affected that we 
retire to the secrecy of our own fireside, and, with our feet com- 
fortably on the fender, spend all the morning talking about the 
ordinary gossip of the times, or perhaps reading the newspapers, 
the Roman Catholic community, in spite of wind and water, are 
found on their knees in the sacred precincts where they expect 
the mercy of God to be attained by them. It is utterly prepos- 
terous, and worse than preposterous, for it entails upon us a vast 
amount of contempt where it would be well that we should 
receive respectful consideration, for people to go on expatiating 
about the irreligiousness of Roman Catholics. As they under- 
stand religion, they are more religious than we are, man for 
man. 

Further, your newspapers, in a very sensational manner, com- 
municate to the general public the fact that some landlord has 
been killed, with six or eight fatal wounds in his body. Well, 
Ftlare not make merry over a transaction of that kind which 
does sometimes occur. But I maintain this, in the face of this 
Council, and in virtue of the most abundant evidence, that there 
is not a country, which sends representatives to this Coun- 
cil, as free from crime as Ireland. Let me bear this testimony. 
You talk of female virtue. The opposite is unknown in Roman 
Catholic Ireland; and it is unknown in spite of difficulties to the 
contrary, which I dare not here dwell upon, partly because I do 
not want to waste the time, and partly because it would involve 
statements too painful to be made ; but that virtue stands 
immaculate, unimpeached, and unimpeachable. 

Edmund Archibald Stuart-Gray, Esq., of Perthshire, Scot- 
land. — In the absence of Dr. Adams, of Glasgow, the active and 
indefatigable convener of our Home Mission, who at the very 
last moment, after having made every arrangement, was pre- 
vented from undertaking the voyage across the Atlantic, and in 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 791 

the silence of my co-representative, I as a member of the Home 
Mission Committee, and also engaged in the Colporteur’s Society 
in Scotland, would venture to say a word or two on the sub- 
jects touched upon in the papers read regarding evangelization 
and home mission work in the populous cities and the rural 
districts of our country. 

Mr. Howie, of Glasgow, has alluded to the work in the larger 
cities. I would venture to suggest two questions which touch 
the matter in a practical point of view. As this is a meeting for 
comparing notes one with another, in regard to the agencies 
carried on by representatives of the Church in different coun- 
tries, I think it will come within the limits of our discussion. 
As regards the Americans, I would ask them. How do they 
carry on mission work and evangelistic work among those who 
are engaged in the coal and oil regions? I would then ask our 
Canadian brethren, how they are able to reach the dwellers in 
the thinly peopled districts and counties, the farm servants, and 
others engaged in agricultural operations? These are very 
fitting subjects to hear one or two words upon before this meet- 
ing closes. 

They will, perhaps, ask us the question. What are you doing 
in Scotland ? In reply, I would refer to the work carried on by 
Home Missions : giving grants to territorial missions, carrying 
on the operations m the mining and rural districts, and that done 
by the Mining Committee intrusted with the work among the 
miners. Then we have in the large towns grants to congrega- 
tional work, territorial missions, to which a certain sum is 
allowed. I then refer to the Highlands, which I think have 
not been mentioned, where the people are as devoted to 
Pre.sbyterianism as anywhere on the face of the eaith. Cate- 
chists and students are employed to carry on the work, and 
mission services and addresses are made in the Gaelic language. 
The work among our fishermen is carried on by evangelists 
sent especially to them. I would refer also to the work in the 
form of colportage in the rural districts. These are the agencies 
we are employing. We are not satisfied with w'hat w'e have 
done, but at the same time we are receiving very encouraging 


792 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


reports ; and these are the means of bringing in many to the 
Church. 

Nearly all the inhabitants of the rural districts in Scotland are 
Presbyterians ; but we find many of the upper classes are leaving 
the Presbyterian Church, and going over to the Episcopal 
Church. Methodism does not thrive with us in our north- 
ern districts of Great Britain, although it has great weight and 
influence in the southern and mining districts of Wales and 
Cornwall. 

The Rev. D. J. Macdonnell, B. D., of Toronto. — Every man 
.seems to take up the subject nearest his own heart or thought 
this morning. I should like to say a few things about the 
excellent address given by Mr. Dodge on a very imi.ortant 
practical question — that of temperance, or rather, that of total 
abstinence. 

1st. He ought to distinguish between those two things — tem- 
perance and total abstinence. They are net synonymous. Some 
of us think that it is a better thing that a man should be trained 
to self-control — that is, temperance^ — than that he should be kept 
from drunkenness by compulsory abstinence, which is the 
meaning of prohibition. 

2d. We ought to distinguish between two kinds of self-denial : 
self-denial as a law of the daily life on the one hand, and .self- 
denial for the gaining of a specific object, in a particular case, on 
the other. I honor the men who think they are under obliga- 
tion to cut off the right hand and do without it all their life long, 
for fear that somebody should use that right hand wrongly ; but 
I think for myself that a man is not called on by the Lord to cut 
off his right hand, excepting under very exceptional circum- 
stances. In other words, I think that what the Lord means us 
to do is to be ready to deny ourselves utterly for the gaining or 
.saving of a brother, but not to be called on to deny ourselves 
and maim ourselves, either physically or intellectually or so- 
cially, as a law of our daily and continuous life. Paul said : “ If 
meat make my brother to offend, 1 will eat no meat.” Don’t 
you suppose Paul kept on eating meat? Of course he did. 
You don’t imagine he became a vegetarian from the time he 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


793 


wrote that sentence ? It was only when it was going to tempt 
some brother in some particular case that Paul felt it neces- 
sary to do without meat ; and some of us think that that is the 
right principle on which we ought to do without our wine. 

3d. It is wise to distinguish between good liquor and bad ; I 
think it is good to distinguish, for example, between fermented 
liquors on one hand, and spirituous liquors on the other. I think 
it is wise to distinguish, according to the testimony of medical 
men competent to testify, between fermented liquors which have 
one sort of effect, and spirituous liquors which have another sort 
of effect on the human system. And moreover I think it wise 
to distinguish between good wine on the one hand, and poison 
on the other ; and if your friend offers you poison at his table 
you are not under obligations to take it. 

4th. I think we ought to consider whether positive institutions 
for the promotion of temperance are not better than mere pro- 
hibition. By positive institutions, I mean such things as coffee- 
houses and things associated with coffee-houses, where you give 
men good things to eat and drink. I don’t object if you give 
them lager beer — I personally do not object to that ; but I main- 
tain, in the long run, more good will be done by these positive 
counteracting agents than merely by the cry of prohibition. In 
other words, I believe that with Paul we are to overcome evil 
with good; not simply by denouncing the evil. It is surely de- 
sirable to put temperance work on such a broad basis that 
temperance men can cheerfully work along with total abstainers. 
Dr. Howard Crosby can tell you all about that. 

The Rev. W. U. Murkland, D. D., of Baltimore. — It was the 
remark of Goethe, that the great benefit of history is to incite 
enthusiasm. I speak these few words in regard to the great 
subject which has been so ably treated — the Church in relation 
to the evangelizing of the masses at home. We have in this 
great assembly traced the Church back in an unbroken line to 
the Father of the faithful, and have proved our pedigree for 
4,000 years to be unsullied. But in this work of home evangeli- 
zation we do not need to go further than eighteen Christian 
centuries, and there stands he whom we worship, and who said, 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


794 

“As the Father has sent me, even So send I you.” When he 
was on earth he looked at the masses and he wept ; and then 
when he came near to a poor, pitiful one, he touched him. In 
these two great principles, of personal sympathy and personal 
contact we have the secret of the grandest success in our home 
mission work : touch the masses ; speak to them in the love and 
sympathy of Christ, and the spirit and the power of Christ shall 
accompany us. 

We all remember, in the story of “ Sister Dora,” published so 
recently, the English laborer who came into the hospital with 
his arm crushed. The surgeon said it must be amputated, but 
the poor, appealing look of the man said, “ save it, it is my life.” 
And the sister said, “ I will save it, if the surgeon gives me 
leave.” And for three weeks, day and night, she watched that 
man’s arm, until it grew strong again. Then, when after two or 
three years, that sister herself was stricken with a loathsome 
disease, this same man walked twenty-two miles ev^ery Sunday 
morning to knock at the door, and ask how Sister Dora was ; 
and to say, “ Tel) her her arm called to inquire.” “As my 
Father has loved me, even so have I loved you,” and, “As my 
Father sent me, even so send I you.” 

You will pardon me if I relate a personal story. I re- 
member one day coming home and hearing that a little child of 
my congregation had been burned to death. I went into a nar- 
row court where he had lived. A little boy said, “ You want to 
see mother, come this way.” I went up three or four flights of 
stairs into a rickety garret, and there I saw the mother, of for- 
eign birth, and she told me this story: she had to work very 
hard ; on Sunday morning she had lain in bed a little longer than 
usual ; the little boy got up to dress himself ; he was only five 
years old, and the Sunday before he had been out at our Sun- 
day-school anniversary where the services were opened with that 
song which you know, “ Open the doors for the children.” As he 
got up, dressing himself, stumbling about in his night clothes to 
find a match, he caught fire. As he lay for twenty-four hours 
dying, out of the flannel and cotton which were all about him, 
came forth the tremulous voice, “ Open the doors for the chil- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


795 


dren.” Ah, the doors, the everlasting doors that the pierced 
hand rolled back for you and for me have been opened wide 1 
And they were opened for those little waifs whose history we 
have not traced, but whom God’s Spirit has met in the simple 
stories and sweet songs of our childhood. We will not place 
them under the blackness and darkness of the song of Ten- 
nyson : 

“ Theirs not to make reply ; 

Theirs not to reason why; 

Theirs but to do and die.” 

The Rev. W. J. R. Taylor, D. D., of Newark.— -I listened 
yesterday morning with the most intense interest and profit to 
the statements that were made by the representatives of our 
great missionary institutions. I would be the last to take excep- 
tion to anything said by men of such large experience ; but 
there was a single statement made by the representative of the 
largest of these boards, which I cannot allow to pass unchal- 
lenged. I read from the report the remarks made by the Rev. 
Dr. Lowrie : “ I should like to see this work [of translating and 
publishing the Scriptures abroad] relegated to the missionary 
boards. It is work that has to be done by the missionaries ; 
and they had better remain on the same footing with their 
brethren in connection with their own boards. At any rate, 
whether this be so or not, I would not like to see any Bible 
Society claiming any proprietary rights in any translation of 
the sacred Scriptures abroad. I think they ought to be the 
common property of the Christian Church and of all its institu- 
tions.” 

The very best and strongest thing about any man or institu- 
tion is that which is providential, and if there is anything provi- 
dential in the history of the written and printed word within the 
last century, it is the rise, and usefulness, and world-wide power of 
these Bible Societies. So I should not like to see this Council, 
nor any other body of Christian men, standing up against that 
which bears upon its face so completely the stamp of a guiding 
and of an overruling Providence. 

These Bible Societies — and I speak not only of those in our 


796 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

own country, but of those abroad, and chiefly of the British and 
Foreign, and American Bible Societies — represent, as no other 
institution in this world represents, the principle of the unity of 
the Christian Church. They represent every denomination in this 
Alliance. They have done their work for every part of the 
world represented upon this floor, and they have done that work 
in the spirit of a common love for the common word. There 
is not a denomination upon the face of this globe that loves the 
word of God, which desiring to go, by its representatives, with a 
new translation into the language of the smallest tribe upon the 
face of the earth, can knock at the doors of either of these socie- 
ties, and not have admission and a welcome. 

Moreover these societies have done a work which no Christian 
denomination on the face of the globe could have done as they 
have done it. In 1804, when the British and Foreign Bible 
Society began its great career, the Bible was printed only in fifty 
versions ; and those particularly of the continent of Europe and 
the regions adjacent to the Mediterranean sea, with one or two 
in mid-Asia. Now, through the agency of these institutions, 
they print 278 versions. 

The Council adjourned, after devotional services, until the after- 
noon, 

Philadelphia, October isf, 2.30 o’clock p. m. 

In the absence of the Hon. Samuel Sloan, who was to have 
presided, the Rev. James Nish, of Sandhurst, Australia, occu- 
pied the chair. 

DESIDERATA OF PRESBYTERIAN HISTORY. 

The first thing in order, after the devotional exercises, was the 
presentation of the report of the Committee on the “ Desiderata 
of Presbyterian History,” by the chairman, the Rev. Alexander 
F. Mitchell, D. D., of St. Andrews, Scotland, who said : 

I regret that the duty of making the report has fallen on me, and 
not on the great and good man to whom the organization of this com- 
^ mittee and the starting of it on its career should, to a large extent, be 
attributed. A fitting tribute to the memory and great services of Dr. 
Lorimer was given on the opening day of the Council. It would noi 
become me to attempt to add to what was then said. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


797 


Tliere was another name, however, on our committee, which I can- 
hot pass over, and, as a Scotchman, 1 should be sorry to return to my 
own country without testifying here to the deep regret which we all 
feel on account of the removal by death of the ‘late Mr. David Laing, 
of Edinburgh. He has contributed largely to the literature of our 
Church history. Much as I knew of his labors in this direction, and 
often as I had had occasion to draw on his productions*, I confess that 
even I knew but little of the extent to which he had studied the his- 
tory of all the Reformed Churches in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries, and the mass of materials he had collected to illustrate his 
works. I believe it would have supplied the greatest desiderata of 
Presbyterian history had some patriotic, wealthy gentleman in Scot- 
land or America purchased his library, and kept it together v/here it 
could have been consulted by Presbyterian scholars. There were a 
number of rare books in it illustrating the history of the Reformed 
Churches. The number of volumes was perfectly amazing. It had 
books that cannot be found even in the British Museum, nor hi any 
of the libraries of Great Britain. Though some have been purchased 
and retained in Scotland, I fear a great many have been dispersed 
where Presbyterian scholars will have difficulty in getting at them. 

The committee beg leave to report that they have received returns 
to the inquiries issued to the following Churches : 

First. The United States: (i.) From the General Synod of the 
Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. (2.) From the 
Associate Reformed Synod of the South. (3.) From the Reformed 
Dutch Church. 

Second. In Great Britain, Ireland, and the Colonies: (i.) The 
Presbyterian Church of England. (2.) The Church of Scotland; 
the Free Church of Scotland; the United Presbyterian Church of 
Scotland ; the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland. (3.) The 
Irish Presbyterian Church. (4.) The Presbyterian Church of Can- 
ada ; the Presbyterian Church of Victoria ; and the Reformed Duten 
Church of South Africa. 

Thbrl. On the continent of Europe : (i.) The Reformed Church 
of Holland. (2.) The Christian Reformed Church of the Nether- 
lands. (3.) The Reformed Church of France. (4.) The Free 
Church of France. (5.) The Missionary Church of Belgium. (6.) 
The National Church of the Canton De Vaud. (7.) Ihe Free Ital- 
ian Church. (8.) The Reformed Church of Bohemia. (9.) The 
Reformed Church of Hungary. 

The returns are still incomplete, and some who have made returns 
desire further time to make them more accurate. The committee rec- 
ommend that the Council reappoint them, with instructions to com- 
plete the work intrusted to them, and that the report be laid on the 
table until the next meeting of the Council, and also that the returns 
oe accompanied by some digest or abstract. 

I am sorry that the returns have not been completed. It was a mis- 
take that they were put in my hands. Occupied as I was with the 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


798 

preparation of the report in regard to creeds, I had not much time at 
command. If sufficient time is given, I have no doubt that the work 
will be attended to, and that before the meeting of the next Council 
it will be completed. 

Tlie Presbyterian Church has been careful in the past not only to 
make a history, but to preserve a record of the great things that have 
been done by our leaders ; and now that the churches are more closely 
brought together, I am sure they will endeavor to do more in this way 
than they have done in the past. The interest that is being taken in 
the writings of our leaders, even by those who profess to have but 
partial sympathy with the views they held, is remarkable. There is 
no better evidence of that than the great edition of the works of 
Calvin which is being brought out by the theologians of Strasburg. 
It is one of the greatest tributes to his memory, that scholars who 
differ from him in opinion should have taken so great labor to bring 
out his works. There is another proof of this same thing — it is the 
splendid edition of the Huguenot Psalter that has been brought out at 
Paris at the expense of the French government. There is a great d«al 
in that book with which Presbyterians and Calvinists cannot sympa- 
thize, and a great deal that they must deeply regret ; but still, the in- 
teresting information that has been given in regard to the formation 
of tliat psalter, and the other psalters that were derived from it, is 
remarkable. The discovery of the first edition of the psalter of 
Calvin, which had been lost sight of for three hundred years, and a 
catechism differing in plan from that which, during these three hun- 
dred years, has been known as Calvin’s catechism, shows the interest 
taken in the subject. 

These specimens will convince you that this is work worthy of the 
attention of the Council. In countries such as Scotland, we may hope 
to do a great deal ourselves without assistance from those in other 
countries. There are various places on the continent where the Re- 
formed Church is awaking to an interest in this matter; and where 
there are historical memorials still in print, it would surely be worthy 
of this Council to consider whether it might not do the work of col- 
lecting these materials. 

There are preserved in the libraries of Vienna and many other 
places manuscripts of that great man, the forerunner of the reforma- 
tion of England, who was very Presbyterian in his views, and who, 
on that very account, England in these latter times has not sympa- 
pathized with so much as she should do, John Wickliffe. The indi- 
cations of his zeal remain in manuscript. Would it not be worthy of 
this Council to present them in some accessible form to the Christian 
public? 

I presume the Council will reply to the request of the committee, 
that you should reappoint them, with instructions to get the work 
completed and have the digest prepared. 

Rev. Dr. Blaikie. — All resolutions should be referred to the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


799 


Business Committee. This one should be so referred, especially 
as a new convener will have to be appointed. 

The Rev. Principal William Caven, D. D., of Toronto, 
Canada. — We are very much indebted to Professor Mitchell, for 
having taken up this subject on such short notice. I hope that 
the Council will not pass on this formally, but entertain the 
matter with zeal. The importance of it has not been overstated 
by Professor Mitchell. I am afraid that the Presbyterian Church 
in many sections has manifested a disposition to be indifferent 
on this subject. We should use every means to prevent igno- 
rance in regard to our records. I can conceive of nothing 
which will be of greater value to scholars and others, not only 
as material for enlarging our church knowledge, but also in the 
way of keeping up and nourishing an interest among our sons 
and daughters m the great and glorious history of the Presby- 
terian Church, than the prosecution of this enterprise. 

The Rev. John Cairns, D. D., of Edinburgh, Scotland.— I am 
a member of the committee, and perhaps I ought not to speak. 
But when you consider the circumstances which surround 
us, I hope you will permit me to say a word. Standing 
as we do, under the shadow of the death of Dr. Lorimer, we 
cannot but feel how much we have lost in his removal. We 
are also under very great obligations to Dr. Mitchell, for 
having so readily taken his place, and done what could be done 
under the circumstances, to carry on the work and to furnish his 
report. I earnestly agree with the motion which has been made. 
Let me say, as a proof of the interest which this subject awak- 
ens, that a dear friend of mine, Dr. James Mitchell, of Glasgow, 
who made special inquiries in connection with the matter, be- 
stowed upon it the greatest labor, and brought all the energy 
of his mind to bear on it. I also desire to mention my late 
lamented friend, the principal of the theological institution with 
which I have the honor of being connected— Dr. Harper. Among 
the very last labors of his life, when he was nearly eighty-foui 
years old, he engaged with Dr. Mitchell, of Glasgow, in making 
these inquiries. I mention these things to show how important 
these questions are. I do trust our churches will go into them, 


Soo THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

and that all who can will supply the materials to aid in making 
up the desiderata. 

The Rev. E. D. Morris, D. D.— Although I am only an as- 
sociate member of the Council, I deem it a great privilege to say 
that I not only feel profoundly thankful to Dr. Mitchell for the 
work he has done, but that the whole Presbyterian Church of 
America is conscious of its indebtedness to him. The service 
he has rendered, by adding to the records of the history of our 
Church throughout the world, cannot be overestimated. And I 
express my own desire, and the desire, I am sure, of many 
others, when I say that it would be grateful to us if Professor 
Mitchell would consent to serve us still as the convener of the 
committee. 

Dr. Blaikie. — I desire to say, for the information of the 
Council, that among the invitations we have received, was one 
from the Presbyterian Historical Society, of this city, to visit its 
building. I am sorry I have been so bound by my duties in 
the Council, that I have not been able to accept the invitation. 
I therefore simply rise to make the suggestion to the committee, 
that it might be. very desirable that they should put themselves 
in communication with that society, in the further prosecution 
of the work committed to them. 

The report was then referred to the Business Committee. 

Hon. I. D. Jones, of Baltimore. — I am sure that not only the 
people of this city, but also the representatives of the people of 
the old world, from whom our Protestantism was derived, will 
be interested in knowing that I hold in my hand a copy of 
records which incidentally show, beyond any possibility of 
doubt, that Francis Makemie established a church at Rehoboth, 
Somerset county, Md., anterior to 1691. All the circumstances 
point to the establishment of that church from 1684 to 1686. 
About that time Mr. Makemie made some voyages to England 
and brought out other ministers with him. The statement about 
a church having been established at Rehoboth, and of his being 
the minister of that church, appears incidentally in an affidavit 
witnessed by Dr. John Vigorous, who was a French Huguenot. 
It occurs in an affidavit made in the case of the prosecution of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


8oi 


a man named William Morris, for blasphemy, under the act of 
the General Assembly of the Colonial government of Maryland, 
passed in 1649, which made blasphemy, or the denial of the 
divinity of Christ, or of the Trinity, a capital offence, punish- 
able by death. Under that act the man was prosecuted for the 
most outrageous blasphemy, which is stated’ in the deposition, 
by the witnesses who heard the declarations, to have occurred 
upon the 2nd of April, 1691, on the day that the Rev. Francis 
Makemie preached a funeral sermon in his church in Rehoboth. 
The record of the trial, which took place before the Provincial 
County Court, contains the conviction of the man, and also the 
fact that, when the court discovered the penalty to be death, 
they decided that they had no jurisdiction to pass sentence, and 
he was remitted to the capital, on the western shore of Maryland. 

The other instance, which is also incidentally mentioned, oc- 
curred in the same year, and the evidence is perfectly conclusive. 
It is contained in the will of John Galbraith, whom I take to 
have been an Irishman, and a merchant of large means, without 
any family to whom he could leave his property. In this will, 
dated in August, 1691, and probated in September, he gave to 
Francis Makemie, “ the minister of the gospel at Rehoboth,” 
five thousand pounds of pork. Tobacco was the colonial cur- 
rency at that time, but pork was regarded as being more valu- 
able. He made a similar bequest to Samuel Davies, "‘the min- 
ister of the church at Snow Hill,” which is claimed to have been 
the original church; but it was one of those founded by Ma- 
kemie, after he had established the church at Rehoboth. The 
will also contains a gift of five thousand pounds of pork to 
Thomas Wilson, a minister in Princess Ann. These three lega- 
acies were given to the ministers of the gospel at those three 
points, some fifteen or eighteen miles from each other, evidently 
showing that churches were established at those points previous 
to the making of the will, in 1691. I will state that these are 
matters which have been recently discovered, and are of record, 
incidentally showing the establishment of the Church in Mary- 
land to have been the first planting of the Presbyterian Church 
upon this continent. 

51 


8o2 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


The Rev. W. P. Breed, D. D., of Philadelphia, read the fol- 
lowing paper on 

THE DIFFUSION OF A PRESBYTERIAN LITERATURE. 

Literature is thought made visible, tangible, portable. It is a chief 
medium of contact between mind and mind. As such it ranks among 
the most potent of moral forces. For mind is a sensitive plant that 
feels and often thrills under and is sometimes permanently modified 
by the touch of a single thought. Into the mind of one tottering on 
the brink of moral ruin, the thought of what he is losing, of what 
may yet be possible for him to achieve, has come like the touch of 
an angel’s finger to save him and revolutionize his life. And one 
thought is often as potent to slay as another is to save. 

And when a thought has done, or at least begun its work in the 
mind that gave it birth, it may go forth and repeat that work in other 
minds, and set up a new series of mind-moulding thinkings that shall 
never end. That thought may modify opinion, may change the creed, 
may introduce a new and powerful element into the dominant aim, 
motive and purpose, and thus determine the conduct, and thus the 
destiny. 

The power of written or printed thought marks almost the whole 
pathway of religious progress. The moulding influence on the world’s 
history of those ten mighty words — the decalogue — overpasses the 
reach of the imagination. Under the reading of a few sentences of 
the book recovered from the rubbish in the temple-cloisters at Jerusa- 
lem, the king rent his clothes in anguish of heart. And the reading 
of that Book in the ears of the people issued in a religious awakening 
that shook the land from Dan to Beersheba. To this power the Re- 
formation owed its rapid progress and sweeping success. Tracts from 
Wyclif’s pen stole from hand to hand into countless homes, and the 
theses of Luther swept Europe like an American prairie fire. 

And never before has the power of printed thought been so great, 
nor so extensive as it is in our day. The avidity for the printed page 
is almost universal, and it is insatiable. Book-hunger is one of the 
predominant traits of the time. Owing to the facilities for education, 
almost everybody can read, and the all-pervading excitements of the 
day secure the actual perusal of pages that no man can number. 

And of printing pages to feed this book-hunger there is no end> 
Like tree-leaves are book-leaves for multitude. They are thrust in at 
the door ; they are thrown in at the window ; they are piled into the 
lap in the railway car ; they reach us in every form — in the bound 
volume, in the review, in the magazine ; in the newspapers, the daily, 
the semi-weekly, the weekly ; hundreds of them, thousands of them, 
millions of them. 

The number of books in the libraries of the world reaches to even 
hundreds of millions, and the clang of the press, as it adds to the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 805 

number, ceases not day nor night. The annual issue of newspapers^ 
in the United States alone numbers some six hundred millions. 

The moulding effect of this book power on the public mind and 
heart, conscience, character and conduct is immeasurable if even it 
be not inconceivable. 

The general character of this omnipresent page forms, therefore, a 
very important element in the question as to the need of a Presbyte- 
rian literature. 

Unquestionably the newspaper press of our day is the medium of a. 
vast amount of excellent writing, of valuable information, and the in- 
strument of powerful, intellectual quickening. And the number of 
newspapers is not small which not only abstain from what might offend 
devout feeling, but which expend large effort to procure and publish 
religious intelligence. 

On the other hand, the number of them whose moral influence is 
as deadly as extensive, is by no means insignificant. In fact news- 
paper and magazine literature ranges in moral character through all 
gradations, from the sublime heights of a pure Christian morality and 
lofty integrity of principle, down through non-religion, irreligion^ 
scepticism, infidelity, atheism, coarse vulgarity and obscenity. Of 
many a newspaper the following, from the pen of another, will be 
recognized as anything but an untruthful portrait : 

“ It has vastly more power to occupy than to guide, to distract and 
agitate than to settle and inform the public mind. It is only made 
to sell, without the responsibility of books and treatises, which are 
exposed if they do not add something solid to our information or our 
edification. It collects, with preternatural industry, news — good, bad^ 
indifferent — from all the winds of heaven, and pours it as from a 
myriad-mouthed watering-pot upon the ever-thirsty attention of the 
American people. It has become the only reading of millions — their 
pulpit, library and gallery of art. It helps to make restless, smart,, 
curious, superficial people ; to keep up a perpetual buzz and fuss about 
politics ; to drag crime, suicide and robbery before the minds of the 
whole nation. It sometimes devotes itself for months to the detailed 
following of hateful cases of vice and filthiness, corrupting a whole 
generation of youth by their lascivious confessions.” 

Not less varied in character are the more permanent issues of the 
book-press. It sends forth volumes of priceless value ; and, as we are 
assured, within two years, it has put into circulation, in New England 
alone, some 20,000 copies of “ Paine’s Age of Reason.” 

In the presence of facts like these we are ready for the question, 
‘‘ What are the marked features of a Presbyterian literature?” To 
this we reply, a Presbyterian literature is the embodiment and expres- 
sion of the thoughts that make up the Presbyterian system. It is,, 
therefore, 

I. First of all, pre-eminently a theisHc literature. As the sun is the 
centre of the solar system, so God is the centre of the Presbyterian 
system. As the planets receive their hues from irradiated sunshine,. 


8o4 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


so all the parts of the Presbyterian system receive their hues from 
irradiated God-shine. God is the beginning, the continuance, the 
end of all; God infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wis- 
dom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.' Of him, through 
him, to him are all things, to whom be glory evermore. The glory 
of God is a reason infinitely sufficient for any decree, any act ot his. 
The highest service to which the creature is competent is to show 
forth the glory of God. The inscription on the banner of Presbyte- 
rianism reads: “It is enough for one universe if God be glorified.” 
Man made in the image of God, man made a little lower than the 
angels, man in all his greatness, and on earth — there is nothing 
great but man — man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him 
forevjer. 

It is also the will and active power of God that makes the ^vorld go 
round. It is God’s eternal decree that, we see embodying itself in 
the events of time. Historic phenomena are merely the dust of God’s 
chariot wheels, as he drives on to his predestinated goal. Napoleon 
the First fancied himself the child of destiny, and that thought in his 
heart quadrupled his power. The Presbyterian does not fancy, but 
knows that he is a child of destiny, and that when he is working upon a 
heaven-assigned task he is simply weaving his free thought and action 
in with the eternal decree of God ; and this knowledge puts the shout 
of victory on his lips when he fires his first gun. 

With this ennobling idea of God, his greatness, his goodness, his 
unlimited power, his unrestricted presence, and his universal provi- 
dences — a God “of purer eyes than to behold evil, and that cannot 
look upon iniquity ” — Presbyterian literature palpitates from title-page 
to finis. 

2. Presbyterian literature is also emphatically Christological. 

It is full of Christ — Christ, the eternal and co-equal Son of God, 
very God of very God ; in execution of the eternal decree for the 
salvation of countless millions, becoming man, rendering a perfect 
obedience to the law, setting before men an example of absolute per- 
fection, bearing the sin of his people in his own body on the tree, 
rising again from the dead and ascending to heaven, and there ever 
living to intercede for those whose sins he bore. 

3. Presbyterian literature asserts a clean-cut, distinctive anthro- 
pology. 

It holds before the face of man the mirror of God’s word, and shows 
man to himself as he is portrayed by the Spirit of God, as fallen in 
Adam, as crippled in the fall ; and not merely crippled, but smitten 
with disease — “ the whole head sick, the whole heart faint ; ” and not 
only diseased, but slain — dead in trespass and sins, and hopelessly and 
forever dead, but for the operation upon his nature of the new-creating, 
life-giving power of the Holy Ghost. 

4. Presbyterian literature presents a bold biblical eschatology. 

Man must die and be raised again from the dead ; appear before 

'God in a final judgment, there to give an account of all the deeds 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


805 

done in the body, and thence to pass either into life eternal or into 
punishment everlasting. 

5. And Presbyterian literature has its well-outlined, clearly defined 
system of polity. 

This polity involves those great principles of representation, of 
transfer of obligation, of vicarious action and endurance which per- 
vade the whole kingdom of God, as that kingdom touches the race of 
man. These principles bind the Father of the race and all his pos- 
terity into an organized unity. They pervade the individual family. 
They are resistlessly forcing themselves into recognition in the state. 
They are working with the power of destiny to mould political organ- 
izations the world over into representative and constitutional forms. 

These are among the vital, controlling ideas that interlace, pervade 
and throb in a truly Presbyterian literature. 

Further, these ideas have realized themselves in biography and 
history. They have shown, in the sphere of practical life, their 
competency to build up character, to inspire man with aims as lofty, 
to equip him for achievements as daring, to nerve him for endurance 
as protracted and crucial as the imagination can well conceive. 

To go no further back in time, they have left foot-prints of super- 
lative glory in the valleys of Piedmont, in the cities and on the plains 
of France, among the dunes and canals of the Netherlands, and all 
over Britain. These principles spake on the tongue of the aged 
Palissey the potter. When King Henry said to him as he lay chained 
to the floor of the Bastile, “ If you do not recant, I shall be compelled 
to give you over to the flames,” he replied, “ Sire, listen to me, and 
I will teach thee to talk like a king ; I cannot be compelled to do 
wrong.” They spake by the lips of Knox that day when issuing 
from the presence of that wicked beauty, the Queen of Scots, he over- 
heard the courtiers whisper, “ He is not afraid ; ” he replied, ‘‘ I have 
looked many an angry man in the face, and have not been overmuch 
afraid ; why should the tears of a pretty gentlewoman afray me ? ” 

And thousands of times they spake also in the words and acts of 
woman. France was trembling with the agitation produced by an 
oppression no longer tolerable. All eyes looked for a leader. Coligny 
hesitated, for never did he draw sword on a Frenchman, but with a 
shudder. In the meantime, the cause was in imminent peril. Char- 
lotte de Laval, his wife, upbraided him with his hesitation. “To be 
prudent in men’s esteem,” said she, “ is not to be wise in that of 
God, who has given you the science of a general that you might use 
it for the good of his children.” “ But,” he asked, “ could you hear 
of the defeat of the army under the lead of your husband, and not. 
murmur against him and against God? ” I could,” she answered. 
“But,” he continued, “think of the anxieties, the privations, the 
bereavements, the woes that may come, not only on others, but on 
you and yours. Meditate on these things for three weeks, and then 
I will abide by your decision.” Fixing her tear-moistened eye upon 
him, she answered, “ Husband, the three weeks are up ; do your duty. 


8o6 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


and leave the rest to God. I summon you in God’s name not to 
defraud us any more, or I will witness against you at his judgment. ’ ’ 

They spake also in the eyes, the heart, and by the lips of Jeanne d’ 
Albret. When word reached her that her husband had apostatized 
and given orders that her boy Henry should be committed to the 
tuition of Rome, and that she should follow his base example, she 
caught up her boy Henry in her arms and exclaimed, “ Had I my 
child in one hand, and my kingdom in the other, sooner than go to 
mass, I would throw them both to the bottom of the sea, so that 
they might be no hindrance to me in the way of duty.” 

These now are some of the elements of a Presbyterian literature — 
these ideas, these principles, and these embodiments of them in 
character and in historic acts. 

Can now the question be even raised, cui bono ? What good is to 
be expected from confronting the general mind with these ideas and 
these examples ? from pouring such a literature into the great deluge 
of printed thought that fills all the valleys, and rises more than fifteen 
cubits above the tops of the highest mountains ? 

The question as to the actual practical effect on men of these 
thoughts, ideas, principles, has found repeated and effective response 
in the verdict of keen-eyed observers of many whose affinities are 
other than Presbyterian. 

Of the system which forms the embodiment of these ideas. Prof. 
Dorner, of Berlin, has said : 

“In its manly, resolute temper; its energy of action, w'hich also 
•expresses itself in strength and energy of thinking; its zealous breath- 
ing of soul for the increase of God’s kingdom ; its willing self-sur- 
render, and its fortitude of pursuit in great and bold designs for the 
furtherance of Christ’s reign ; it is these qualities that I admire in 
Presbyterianism. ’ ’ 

Of this system Mr. Gladstone writes : 

“It has given Presbyterian communions the advantage, which in 
civil order belong to local self-government and representative institu- 
tions — orderly habits of mind, respect for adversaries, and some of 
the elements of judicial temper ; the development of a genuine in- 
dividuality, together with the discouragement of mere arbitrary will 
and of all eccentric tendency ; the sense of a common life and the dis- 
position energetically to defend it ; the love of law combined with 
the love of freedom ; last, not least, the habit of using the faculty of 
speech with the direct and immediate view to persuasion.” 

The Edinburgh Review not long since gave the following verdict 
upon this system : 

“ The high intelligence which has long distinguished and still dis- 
tinguishes the lower classes of Scotland,” it says, “may largely be 
attributed to the Presbyterian form of church government, especially 
taken in connection with the Calvinistic creed. The apprehension 
of that creed cannot fail to stimulate the mind ; the working of that 
form of government has accustomed Scotsmen of every rank to look 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 807 

upon it as a duty and a right to exercise their judgments on questions 
involving directly or indirectly the most important subjects of human 
thought. The Presbyterian polity has also tended to foster that liber- 
ality of opinion in secular politics which prevails among the middle 
and lower classes in Scotland. Such must of necessity be the influ- 
ence of a church strictly democratic in its constitution, recognizing 
within itself no distinctions of persons, no grades or rank of office.” 

The Rev. Dr. Curry, an able and fair-minded leader in the great 
Methodist Church in America, has written of the Westminster Con- 
fession that it is the clearest and most comprehensive system of doc- 
trine ever framed. It is not only a wonderful monument of the in- 
tellectual greatness of its framers, but also a comprehensive embodi- 
ment of nearly all the precious truths of the gospel. We concede,” 
he says, to the Calvinistic churches the honor of having all along 
directed the best thinking of the country. Some of the best fruits 
of Christian life,” he adds, '‘have been exhibited among those who 
have been at least in theory Calvinists.” 

Ralph Waldo Emerson heaves a piteous sigh over the lack of Cal- 
vinism in the brain and heart of our day : 

" Our later generation appears ungirt, frivolous, compared with the 
religions of the last or Calvinistic age. There was in the last century 
a serious habitual reference to the spiritual world running through 
letters, diaries and conversation, yes, and into wills and legal in- 
struments, compared with which our liberality looks a little foppish 
and dapper. The religion seventy years ago was an iron belt to the 
mind, giving it concentration and force. A rude people were kept 
respectable by the determination of thought on the eternal world. 
Now men fall abroad, want polarity, suffer in character and intellect.” 

And how familiar have become the ringing sentences of the his- 
torian Froude : 

''When all else has failed; when patriotism has covered its face, 
and human courage has broken down ; when intellect has yielded, as 
Gibbon says, with a smile or a sigh, content to philosophize in the 
closet, and abroad worship with the vulgar; when emotion and 
sentiment and tender imaginative piety have become the handmaids 
of superstition, and have dreamt themselves into forgetfulness that 
there is any difference between lies and truth, the slavish form of be- 
lief called Calvinism in one or other of its many forms has borne ever 
an inflexible front to illusion and mendacity, and has preferred rather 
to be ground to powder like flint, rather than bend before violence, 
or melt under enervating temptation.” 

Now the question before us is as to the desirableness, importance, 
duty and necessity of making a way into the general deluge of printed 
thought for the ideas that have made such assertion of themselves 
among men. 

We are by no means to forget that the general evangelical press is 
doing a vast and excellent work. If, however, in the Presbyterian 
system there are not distinguishing and powerful elements of thought 


8o8 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


and doctrine, then the existence of that system is an impertinence^ 
But if its constituent ideas, thoughts and doctrines impart to it-a spe- 
cial and distinctive character, and if this system bearing this character 
has stamped itself on the best life of the world, this very fact makes it 
imperative on the thirty or forty millions of those who hold this 
system to keep the mind of the world ever confronted with these 
thoughts and principles. 

Not that we are to lose sight of the fact that there is a constant,, 
large, and effective outlay of talent in the publication of Presbyterian 
newspapers and magazines. One of these magazines, which, if not a 
formal organ of this Council, is at least a child of this Council — 
I mean “The Catholic Presbyterian” — month by month brings- 
the reader face to face, as no other within the reach of our knowledge 
does, with the condition and prospects of the Presbyterian Churches 
of the world — the struggles of smaller Presbyterian bodies here and 
there, in the great awakening sympathies, evoking prayers, and in 
many ways excites and fosters a religious, healthful Presbyterian en- 
thusiasm. It embodies a kind of Presbyterian literature we should 
like to see diffused a hundred times more widely. 

But aside from all that is or can be done by Presbyterian news- 
papers and magazines, we assert the duty of organizing and operating 
agencies for the thrusting in earnestly, consttintly, profusely, among 
the thinkings of men the great ideas that pervade a true Presbyterian 
literature. 

The legitimate aim of such a literature, be it remembered, is,, 
omitting no doctrine of the word of God ; embracing all those ideas 
which Christians hold in common ; to present these common ideas in 
their logicab and necessary connection with those oth6r great truths 
which distinguish Presbyterian from other systems of polity and 
doctrine. One of the necessary results of this Council is a weighty 
contribution to such a literature. We do not hesitate to affirm that 
the volume of Proceedings of the Edinburgh Council contains a body 
of Presbyterian thought of which no Church need to be ashamed. It 
is superfluous to affirm that the Presbyterian element in the theological 
and ecclesiastical literature of the world holds no second place,, 
whether for biblical soundness or for intellectual power. 

And the aim of this paper is to make clear the duty of the thirty 
millions of Presbyterians in the world to organize agencies in their 
several local centres for the placing of her literature within reach of 
every reading person. This involves the idea of aggression, of pro- 
pagandism. There must be no waiting for men to apply for these 
books, any more than there must be a waiting for men to come in 
quest of the gospel. The command is, go — go into all the world ; 
and the duty of Presbyterians is to go, in the persons of commissioned 
agents from door to door, and from town to town, and from province 
to province, and present these volumes, induce their reception and 
perusal, pray with the recipient, and thus get the thoughts enclosed 
in them deep into the minds and hearts of men. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


809 


It would be both interesting and instructive to recite the story of 
such efforts in the Protestant Church since God gave the printing- 
press to the world. It would be both instructive and interesting 
to report the statistics of such work done by the various Churches 
represented in this body. But statistics of vast movements outreach 
the apprehension, and fail to produce definite practical impression. 
Let it suffice to call attention to the doings of one only of these 
various branches : 

The branch of which we speak possesses an organized agency for 
the publication and diffusion of a literature imbued with Presbyterian 
ideas. Before the organization of this board, the leading publishers 
of Philadelphia were importuned to republish two British volumes of 
a Presbyterian character, and not one of them could be found who 
was willing to take the pecuniary risk. These very volumes have now 
been published by this board, and tens of thousands of them have 
been sold. It puts into the hands of the public more than 500,000 
volumes every year. It has sent out more than 100,000 copies of the 
Westminster Confession of Faith ; some 2,000,000 copies of the 
Shorter Catechism ; nearly 2,000,000 copies of the Child’s Catechism ; 
nearly 20,000 copies of Boston’s “Four-fold State;” more than 
30,000 copies of Alexander’s “ Religious Experience;” nearly 10,000 
copies of Dickenson’s “Five Points of Calvinism;” nearly 20,000 
copies of Fisher’s “Catechism;” more than 50,000 copies of Fair- 
child’s “Great Supper;” nearly 10,000 copies of “ The Christian’s 
Great Interest;” between 15,000 and 20,000 copies of Matthews’ 
“Divine Purpose;” from 12,000 to 15,000 copies of Shaw’s “Expo- 
sition of the Confession of Faith.” And as these volumes are perma- 
nent and last for years, there must be now in the various families of 
this land some 5,000,000 copies of the publications of this one agency 
alone; and it adds to that number, as I have stated, more than 500,- 
000 volumes a year. It keeps from seventy to one hundred agents in 
the field, going from door to door to sell or give away these volumes. 
If, now, the whole thirty millions of Presbyterians in the world are 
doing a work like that of this one branch, which numbers a little over 
one-half million of communicants, then there go into the hands of the 
reading world from year to year considerably more than 35,000,000 
volumes of brain-stimulating, heart -stirring truths; then, in the course 
of ten years, there would be in the hands of the reading world a good 
deal more than 300,000,000 of these volumes. 

We hail the existence of this Alliance and the ineeting of this Coun- 
cil as another great agent for the creation and diffusion of a genuine 
Presbyterian literature. 

At this point, the Rev. Mr. Nish, who was in the chair, left 
it, calling Dr. Breed to it, in order that he might present the 


^lo THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 

CHURCH WORK IN AUSTRALIA. 

Rev. James Nish, of Victoria, Australia, addressed the Coun- 
cil, as follows : 

I am afraid that there prevails an incorrect impression among very 
many members of this Council in reference to Australia. That coun- 
try seems to be regarded by some as a comparatively small island, and 
as identical with New South Wales. New South Wales was, doubtless, 
the original settlement established there, and was at that time iden- 
tical with New Holland. It was also, unhappily, a penal settlement. 
Those times, however, have now changed. 

Since the year 1850, a portion of New South Wales — and, I may 
say, a comparatively small section — was cut off and formed into an 
independent colony — the colony of Victoria. Very shortly after 
Victoria acquired its independence, the great gold discoveries were 
made. These discoveries led to a large rush of population to our 
shores ; and hence this colony of Victoria, although small in extent 
and a very young colony, now includes a population greater than that 
of New South Wales, containing some 900,000 inhabitants. The cap- 
ital of Victoria, Melbourne, is a city that will compare — though not 
in population with Philadelphia — certainly with many of the large 
cities in other parts of the world. Its streets are wide and spacious ; 
its buildings are thoroughly substantial ; and it is a busy, thriving 
city, containing a population of 200,000 souls. This has all been ac- 
complished in a growth of only thirty years. 

In addition, however, to this colony of Victoria, a new section of 
New South Wales was cut off in the north, which is known as Queens- 
land, and which is more than twice as large. 

We have not only these three colonies — Queensland in the north. 
New South Wales in the centre, and Victoria in the south — but we 
have two-thirds of the vast continent apportioned in two other col- 
onies — a colony in South Australia and one in West Australia, which 
lies side by side with the colony of South Australia. 

Australia is not by any means an island ; and it may, perhaps, give 
you some idea of its vast extent, when I tell you that it is 2,500 miles 
in length and 1,950 miles in breadth. You can also form some idea 
of its extent, if you locate the capital of Queensland on the northeast, 
and wish to take a journey across the country to Perth, the capital of 
West Australia ; you would then find that you had a journey to under- 
take quite as long as the journey from New York to San Francisco, 
and that you would have to travel about three thousand miles. You 
will thus perceive that our continent is no insignificant portion of the 
world’s surface, and that even our American friends cannot afford to 
despise us in this respect. 

We have listened in this Council to addresses which seem to imply 
that Presbyterianism has its abode only in Europe and America, and that 
-Asia and Africa are our mission fields. I desire, however, to remind 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


8ii 

you that there is a young Presbyterian Church in Australia ; and, con- 
sidering its youth, I think that it may be regarded as having made 
very considerable progress. We have upwards of four hundred and 
thirty congregations planted in that continent. But for the distance 
Australia is from Philadelphia, you would have had not only three of 
our representatives in this Council, but some fourteen or fifteen. 1 
anticipate that we will continue to progress, though, perhaps, not 
quite so rapidly as we have during the last quarter of a century ; and 
that, if not before the end of the present century, at all events in the 
early beginning of the next century, the members of this Council 
may deem it advisable to hold their General Council in Melbourne. 

I am quite sure, if you should ever resolve to do this, that you would 
find in Melbourne a hospitable welcome. 

We have been prosecuting our work amid many difficulties, but, at 
the same time, amid much encouragement. We are a thoroughly 
united Presbyterian Church. In the year 1854, when negotiations 
for union were begun, we had churches representing the Established 
Church of Scotland, churches representing the Free Church, and no 
less than three churches claiming to be the true and proper representa- 
tives of the United Presbyterian Church. All these different sections 
of the Church were united as long ago as 1859. I, therefore, claim 
to stand upon the floor of this Assembly as the representative of 
the oldest union Church in these modern days. We have now 
attained our majority as a union Church. That union, so happily 
consummated, did something toward helping on the union in Can- 
ada, ^nd, I presume, the union in the United States. I also trust 
that it will do something toward helping on that union which we are 
all looking forward to so anxiously and so expectantly in Scotland. 

As a Church we aim at a high standard of attainment for our min- 
isters. We have a theological hall in Victoria. Four of our ministers 
are set apart for a certain period of the year to train our students in 
all the various branches of apologetics, systematic theology, Hebrew, 
.and exegetical theology. The training which they receive is very 
thorough. We are aiming now to place our theological hall on a still 
better basis ; we have nearly raised the sum of ;^3o,ooo, and I hope 
that we will not be satisfied until we increase it to ^^40,000, for the 
endowment of our theological professorships. We propose to start 
the hall equipped with two professors and a tutor. We have also 
•erected a college for our under-graduates. The principal cause which 
led to the building of this college arose from the fact that one of our 
elders, whom I am happy to see on the floor of this Council, realized 
the importance of that work, and came forward and subscribed 
^10,000 towards its erection, provided that the other laymen of the 
Church raised an additional ;^io,ooo. The sum has been raised, and 
the building is nearly completed. In addition to this amount, the 
elder of whom I have spoken has given £2,^00 towards the erection 
of a suitable spire for the college, and ;^2,5oo towards the endow- 
ment of the principalship. 


8i2 the PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

We are not only training our students for the ministry, but we are 
also actively engaged in mission work. We are carrying forward the 
mission work in the New Hebrides, and we have missionaries among 
the Chinese and among the aborigines. 

I trust this brief statement of the work in Australia will serve to 
impress upon the members of this Council that you have not only 
sister churches in other lands, but that you have a little sister in Aus- 
tralia of whom, I hope, you will have an affectionate remembrance, 
and that she will have an abiding place alike in your sympathies and 
in your prayers. We are ready to extend the hand of fellowship to 
you, and I trust you in turn will extend it very cordially to us. 

The Rev. Edwin F. Hatfield, D. D., of New York, read the 
following paper on 

REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 

Christianity is of God. Its history stamps it divine. Beginning 
at Jerusalem, in the majesty of its conscious might, it ‘^went forth 
conquering and to conquer,” and rested not till it had subdued the 
world. It has survived the conflicts of the ages, and the wrecks of 
empires. Its vitality is the world’s wonder. ‘‘Cast down,” it can- 
not be “destroyed.” It is to-day the mightiest power on the earth. 
Its principles and .spirit are the controlling forces in modern civiliza- 
tion. It dominates the world. 

It has a future infinitely more glorious than its past. It wa^made 
f#r man — designed for the race — for the whole world. It is adapted, 
as no other religion is, for the universal brotherhood of humanity. It 
meets the need of every class, every condition, every age. It is suited 
alike to the bond and the free; the savage and the civilized; the 
learned and the unlearned; the rich and the poor. It reclaims, 
renews, refines, expands, exalts and purifies the soul, ‘it ‘sustainsi 
consoles and heals the stricken ; pacifies the troubled and distressed ; 
and, with hopes enrapturing and immortal, inspires the dying. It is 
sure to triumph over all rivalry, all enmity. “ The gates of hell 
shall not prevail against it.” It must become the religion of the 
world. 

With all this accords the voice of inspiration. The stone, “ cut 
out without hands,” becomes “ a great mountain, and ‘fills’ the 
whole earth.” To Him, who hung on the tree and burst the bars of 
death, is given “ dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people 
nations and languages should serve him ; his dominion is an everlast- 
ing dominion which shall not pass away; and his kingdom that which 
shall not be destroyed.” “ The God of the whole earth shall he be 
called. “And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the 
kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the 
saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom 
and all dominions shall serve and obey him.” For “ the earth shall 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


813 

be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” 
So we believe and teach. 

How, now, shall this grand consummation be brought to pass? By 
what agencies, by .what instrumentalities? Is the past to be the 
model and the measure of the future? Are we to be content with 
past attainments, with present achievements? Is there not to be, and 
that in the near future, a vivid quickening of the Spirit; an intense 
vitalizing of the forces of the Church of Christ, in its assaults on the 
kingdom of darkness, and in its conquering march through the world ? 
Is not the day at hand, when she is to look for vastly mightier mani- 
festations of converting and sanctifying grace, than at any former 
period ; for special, and copious, and widespread effusions of the Holy 
Spirit, stimulating, beyond all precedent, the hopes, the faith and 
the purposes of the people of God, and sweeping away all opposition 
to the onward and triumphant march of the great Captain of salvation ? 
‘‘I will pour water,” saith the Lord God Almighty, “on him that is 
thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour my Spirit upon 
thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring ; and they shall spring 
up as among the grass, as willows by the water-courses. ” “And it 
shall come to pass afterward, that I will pouf out my Spirit upon all 
flesh.” 

The promises and the prophecies of God’s word give abundant 
warrant for the expectation of far greater, more frequent, and more 
extensive effusions of the Spirit of God, henceforth, increasingly, to 
the end of time. In other words it is to be expected, that, as in times 
past, so in the time to come, and much more abundantly and mightily, 
the kingdom of Christ on earth is to be built up, mainly, by* revivals 
of religion ; by copious showers of divine grace ; by the quickening 
of the spirit of life, simultaneously, in particular localities, districts 
and regions, among large bodies of people, in connection with, and 
in attestation of, the preaching of the truth as it is in Jesus ; rousing 
the dormant energies of the Church to new and unwonted activity ; 
greatly elevating the tone and the standard of piety ; and bringing 
sinners, in large and increasing numbers, to bow at the feet of Jesus. 
Revivals of religion, therefore, it is maintained, are to be regarded as 
appointed means of grace ; as the most precious and desirable of all 
God’s gifts to his Church on the earth ; and are to be sought most 
fervently, to be expected most confidently, to be promoted by all the 
wisdom, energy and piety of God’s people, and to be guarded against 
everything that can mar their purity, or diminish their power for 
good. 

The phrase — Revival of Religion — is ordinarily applied to the case 
of a community, in which a special interest, more or less general, is 
felt in spiritual and eternal matters ; accompanied with a marked 
manifestation of divine powejr and grace, in the quickening of be- 
lievers, in the reclaiming of backsliders, and in the awakening, con- 
viction and conversion of unbelievers — of sinners. It matters not 
by what agencies or measures these results may have. been reached; 


8i4 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


with what degree of excitement the work may have been carried for* 
ward ; nor whether exception may not properly be taken to some of 
the methods and teachings of preacher or people, in their zealous 
efforts for its advancement. The adventitious is not to be confounded 
with the essential. The adjuncts may, in some respects, be of ques- 
tionable propriety ; may be proper subjects of condemnation. Never- 
theless, it may be a blessed work of grace, giving abundant evidence 
of its genuineness, and constraining even the bold blasphemer to Say, 
‘^Surely, this is the finger of God.” 

Are revivals of religion, thus understood, to be regarded as falling 
in with the divine plan for the best and most rapid diffusion of the 
gospel over all the earth ; and so to be made the object of intense 
desire, of fervent prayer, and strenuous effort on the part of all who 
look and long for the speedy coming of the kingdom of Christ in 
power and divine glory ? Or are we to depend exclusively on what 
are known as the ordinary means of grace for the spread of the gospel 
among men ? 

Not a few have serious doubts as to the desirableness of these move* 
ments ; have had little or no experience of these special seasons ; or 
have seen or heard of disorders and irregularities growing out of or 
accompanying these visitations, so baleful or dangerous as to make it 
questionable whether they are not, on the whole, productive of more 
evil than good. They maintain, therefore, that it is best to rely on 
the regular course of things, and move on in a quiet way, with gradual 
and regular accessions, believing that in the end quite as much will 
have been accomplished, and more satisfactorily. 

Greatly, however, as steadiness and regularity and freedom from de- 
clensions and excitements may be desirable, and beautiful as is the 
theory of constancy in the progress of the gospel among men and in 
its gracious operations in the human heart, no such state of things is 
to be looked for. It consists not with human experience in any of the 
relations of life. The very nature of the human soul, and its relations 
to the outer world, forbid it. As ’well may we expect unclouded 
serenity in the heavens above and around us, unvarying heat in summer 
or cold in winter, or an equable temperature for the whole year and 
all the years, or the steady growth of plants, irrespective of the acci- 
dents of frost, or flood, or drought. Man cannot come into conflict 
with the laws of nature, and expect to have his own way. Universal 
law controls him ; not he it. Theory must give place to stubborn- 
fact. 

The principle of the divine life in the soul is, at the outset, but the 
merest germ. Its first pulsations can rarely, if ever, be detected and 
determined. The subject himself becomes conscious of it only after 
some interval. It is like leaven ; it is like seed cast into the ground, 
that springeth up and groweth, no one knows how, “first the blade, 
then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.” It attains its full 
development only after a long process of careful and diligent cultiva- 
tion, by the use^of appliances, smaller or greater, in conformity with 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


8iS 


the natural laws of mental, moral, and spiritual action. In the young 
believer, it is a sapling, easily swayed hither and thither by aerial cur- 
rents ; in the mature disciple, it is a giant of the forest, towering aloft, 
deep and wide-rooted in the earth, the victor in a thousand conflicts 
with storm and tempest, 

“ Unhurt amidst the war of elements.” 

It is found in every possible stage of development short of absolute 
perfection, to which it attains only when all occasion for conflict has 
passed. 

Sure as is the growth of grace in the soul of the believer, the 
measure of this growth is exceedingly variable. It is subject, like all 
things human, to fluctuations more or less frequent and considerable. 
The voyager on the sea of time, with favoring currents and propitious 
gales, makes rapid progress; the winds die, and he floats with the 
tide ; or storms arise, and beat him back on his course. Now he is 
all life, and buoyant with hope ; anon he is cast down and disquieted. 
Now every Christian grace is in lively exercise, and he makes steady 
growth in the knowledge and love of God ; again, he is borne along 
by the billows of political excitement, or of some all-absorbing com- 
mercial speculation. He has his moods of peace and trouble, joy and 
sorrow, light and darkness, heat and cold. The night follows the 
day ; the winter’s cold the summer’s heat ; and all this at intervals 
quite uncertain and irregular. 

Spiritual development, moreover, is subject to invariable law. It 
may be hastened or retarded by the use or neglect of appropriate 
means. Thought and feeling, mind and heart, are continually acting 
and reacting upon each other for good or ill. Thought is indispen- 
sable to feeling. • Before an object can act upon the heart, it must be 
more or less distinctly perceived by the mind. Deeply to feel and be 
moved to action in spiritual concerns, you must think on these 
things,” life and death, sin and guilt, heaven and hell, time and eter- 
nity, Christ and his cross, the Spirit and his work, obligation and re- 
sponsibility. If such concerns never occupy your thoughts, your 
heart will be as hard as a stone, as cold as an iceberg. On the other 
hand, so constantly, closely, and intensely may you think on these 
and similar themes, as to stir up your whole spiritual and moral 
nature ; to fill your heart with glowing emotion ; and to be deemed 
an enthusiast, a fanatic, a madcap. 

Thought, also, in like manner, is subject to law. Means of thought 
there are, as well as means of grace. Thought is just as susceptible 
of cultivation as bone and muscle. The object determines the thought. 
The child is taught to think, by setting before him proper objects of 
thought and fixing his attention upon them. Thought may be com- 
pelled, or suppressed, by a fixed purpose, and corresponding effort to 
exclude from the mind all but a particular class of objects. The 
mourner arrays himself in sable ; gathers about him the relics of the 
loved and lost ; shuns all cheerful and joyous associations and occupa- 


8i6 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


tions ; muses on death and the grave ; shuts out the warm light and 
glow of heaven ; lives ‘‘in the region and shadow of death.” His 
home is a sepulchre. 

“ The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek 
after God.” “ God is not in all his thoughts.” To think of God is 
painful to the sinner. He shuts God out of his mind — gives him no 
place there whatever ; shuns everything fitted to bring him to mind ; 
brings in the world and fills every nook and cranny of his mind with 
things of time and sense. “God is not in all his thoughts.” His 
heart becomes a stone. 

The believer m‘ay, at times, be drawn away from the steady pursuit 
of holiness. So closely may he suffer himself to be occupied with the 
cares and pursuits and pleasures of the world, as to lose much of the 
genial warmth of God’s presence and love. His heart is benumbed ; 
he wanders from the right ways of his God ; he becomes more or less 
a backslider in heart, if not in practice. Spiritual declension is infec- 
tious. Backsliders sin not alone. A whole community of believers, 
by the same or a similar process, may for a time be turned aside, to 
some extent, from the steady pursuit of holiness. Worldly matters of 
deep and absorbing interest excite and engross attention, thought, 
emotion, effort. Spiritual and eternal concerns are, in a degree, 
subordinated to the carnal and the temporal. The declension becomes 
general, and possibly long protracted. 

The renewed heart is sanctified but in part. The natural is ever in 
conflict with the spiritual ; “ for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, 
•and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the 
other.” It requires constant vigilance, untiring diligence, and cease- 
less strife with the flesh, on the part of the believer, to hold on his 
way, and make daily advances in the life divine. An earnest, faithful 
and godly ministry, with gospel ordinances in their purity, is indis- 
pensable to the preservation of a church from error, worldliness, luke- 
warmness, and spiritual torpor. Even with these helps and incite- 
ments, how frequently, in the absence of the special outpouring of the 
Spirit of God, are our very best churches brought under the dreadful 
blight of spiritual declension ! 

“My people,” says the God of Israel, “are bent to backsliding 
from me. Why,” he asks, “ is this people of Jerusalem slidden back 
by a perpetual backsliding? ” The same statement and the same in- 
quiry might have been made in every period of the wonderful history 
of the people of Israel in the days of Moses, of the judges, of the 
kings, and of all the prophets. The fire was kept burning on the 
altar only by a succession of divine interpositions. Judges and 
rulers, priests and prophets, Deborah and Barak, Samuel and David, 
Elijah and Elisha, Ezra and Nehemiah. were raised up from time to 
time to beat back the waves of corruption, to arrest the tide of de- 
generacy, and to restore the people of Israel and Judah from their 
perpetual backslidings. 

Similar has been the history of the church in all subsequent periods. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


817 


In the absence of the special effusions of the Spirit of God, how 
uniformly have ministers and churches lost the fervor of their “first 
love,” as at Ephesus; become “lukewarm” in the service of the 
Master, as at Laodicea; “defiled their garments,” as at Sardis; or 
given ear to the voice of error, as at Pergamos and Thyatira. What 
a mournful picture of declension is presented in the case of the seven 
churches of Asia not only, but of Jerusalem and Antioch, Philippi 
and Corinth, and, most of all, of the Church of Rome ! How de- 
plorable has been the defection of not a few of the churches of the 
Reformation ! Even among the . most orthodox and circumspect 
communions, the ear is pained and the heart is grieved with the story 
of leanness and coldness, of worldliness and deadness ! How often, in 
their annual narratives of the state of religion, do Presbyteries and 
Synods and General Assemblies lament the prevalence of sinful con- 
formity to the world, the decay of piety, and the lukewarmness of 
many among their people ! Truly, the Christian Church, as well as 
the Jewish, are bent to backsliding. The natural tendencies of hu- 
man hearts are all backward and downward, so grievous is the cor- 
ruption of our poor, sinful nature. 

Now, what is the true and only appropriate remedy for spiritual 
declensions ? Most assuredly, spiritual revivals. By all the authorized 
means at their disposal, the people, who are constrained to acknowl- 
edge and lament their backslidings, should seek with their whole heart 
and soul a speedy revival of the work of the Lord among them. 

But how is this greatest of blessings to be secured ? What has been 
the history of revivals? How have they begun, and how has their 
continuance been promoted ? Happily, we are not left in doubt on 
these points. Whatever may be the case in other parts of the world, 
the American churches and (may we not say, though possibly not to 
the same extent ?) the churches of Great Britain and Ireland have had 
large experience of these gracious visitations, and not a few of them 
have made grateful record of their rise and progress. 

What is the promise? “Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon 
Zion ; for the time to favor her, yea, the set time is come. For thy 
servants take pleasure in her stones, .and favor the dust thereof.. 
Various are the ways in which the desired result is brought about. 
Naturally, and without violence to the laws of niind, the blessed 
Spirit, by whom the principle of divine grace is implanted in the 
heart, and the dormant energies of the soul are aroused to_ newness of 
life, arrests the steps of the wanderer, stirs up the conscience of the 
backslider, and disturbs the dreams of the worldly professor. A sud- 
den and severe illness ; a sad and sore bereavement ; a prevalent and 
infectious disorder ; a disastrous reverse of fortune ; the treachery of 
a friend; the faithlessness of a lover; deliverance from the very jaws 
of death ; or the tidings of some great catastrophe involving great loss 
of property and life; nay, “ a still small voice,” heard only in the 
deep recesses of the soul, may rouse the slumberer, and reveal to him 
his perilous condition and prospects. 

52 


8i8 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


The mind thus turned towards itself, becomes conscious of its un- 
rest, its want of entire conformity to the divine will, its want of heart 
in God’s service, its disregard of the wants of its own moral nature 
and its wretchedness. A sense of guiltiness, more or less acute, suc- 
ceeds ; a sense deep enough at times to produce remorse, penitence, 
renewal of covenant obligations, abhorren.ee of past neglect and wan- 
derings from God ; ardent desires after holiness of heart and life, 
earnest efforts to be reinstated in the divine favor; and, in a word, a 
whole-hearted consecration to God. The believer is now brought 
into free and full fellowship with the divine nature. He walks in the 
light, and rejoices in the love of God “ with joy unspeakable and full 
o/ glory.” He reflects the radiance divine — the home, the shop, the 
storehouse, the w-alks of trade, the circle of domestic love, the round 
of social intercourse, the community of fellow-believers, and even the 
outlying world, all feel, to some extent, the heavenly influence of the 
renewed life. The blessed infection spreads ; other sleepers are 
aroused ; the community are stirred; the pulpit glows with new light 
and life ; “ the house of God ” becomes “ the gate of heaven ; ” the 
gatherings for social prayer are enlarged ; the formal listless utterance 
gives place to fervency and importunity ; the attention of the ungodly 
and the careless is arrested ; sinners are brought under conviction ; 
and converts of such as should be saved ” are multiplied. A great, 
a peculiar, a wonderful change comes over the community, and the 
world are constrained to say that “God is in the midst of” them 
in deed and in truth. This is a revival of religion. 

In bringing about these blessed results, the Holy Spirit uses every 
variety of agency and instrumentality, within the domain of the right 
and the true. The work may begin in the heart of a single believer, 
and that one illiterate, it may be, and obscure; or several hearts may 
be moved separately and simultaneously. It invariably begins “ at 
the house of God.” Very often the pastor of the flock . becomes so 
deeply sensible of the need of more grace, for himself and his people, 
as to be roused to greater fervor in prayer, to deep heart-searchings, 
and to unwonted importunity in preaching the word. He can no 
longer be content with barren ordinances. He longs to reap as well 
as to sow. “Give me the souls of my people, or I die,” is the pur- 
port of his every prayer. He now deals with themes of infinite mo- 
ment — the worth of the soul; its undone condition, its exceeding 
guiltiness, and its perishing need of the salvation offered in the gospel ; 
the danger of delay ; the exclusive efficacy of the Saviour’s blood ; the 
shortness and uncertainty of life ; the tremendous realities of the future 
state ; the necessity of regeneration ; and the utter dependence of the 
sinner on the sovereign influences of the Holy Spirit ; these are the 
themes that the awakened preacher presents. Yhey arrest the atten- 
tion of the careless; arouse the slumbering ; wake up the stupid ; take 
hold of the heart ; and become the all-absorbing subjects of thought, 
of anxious inquiry, and personal concern. They are accompanied 
with an unction from the Holy One ; are preached “ in demonstration 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


819 


of the Spirit and of power.” House after house becomes a Bochira. 
Songs of gratitude follow hard on tears of penitence. Converts are 
multiplied; saints are quickened; wanderers are brought back; 
Christ is honored ; God is glorified. Blessed people, that are thus 
refreshed with the divine presence ! _ 

In all this, wonderful and glorious as are the results, there is 
nothing miraculous or abnormal, more than in the case of every con- 
vert to Christ. The work is of God, but conformed, in all its parts 
and stages, to the well-known laws of our mental and moral nature. 
Xrue — “the wind bloweth where it listeth,” has away of its own, 
“ past finding out.” Every aerial current, however, in its inception, 
course, velocity and continuance, is subject to laws as fixed and defi- 
nite as those which govern the solar system. “ So is it” with “ every 
one that is born of the Spirit.” He who created the universe, and 
controls, by laws of infinite wisdom and might, the starry systems, is 
the author of the new creation, and of every gracious operation in the 
human soul, working by law, as fixed and definite in the one case as 

in the other. j i i j 

Revivals of religion, then, are to be regarded, sought and looked 
for, as the legitimate result of principles that shape and govern the 
spiritual nature of man ; as in entire^ conformity to the plans, pur- 
poses and procedure of the Almighty, in the building up of the king- 
dom of grace on the earth, as set forth in promise and prophecy, and 
confirmed by the history of the Church in all ages. From the begin- 
ning, God has carried forward his great work of redemption among 
men, by successive outpourings of his Spirit, age after age, until now. 
The “History of Redemption” is a continuous record of spiritual 
declensions, succeeded and overcome by great and wonderful spiritual 





of Jerome of Prague, of Wickliff the Briton, of Luther and Calvin^ 


820 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


of Knox and Farel, of the great host of British and continental re- 
formers and martyrs? And, when the reformation itself had degen- 
erated, how were the power and prevalence of godliness restored, but 
by the remarkable revivals of religion, that resulted from the earnest 
and godly preaching of Bunyan and Baxter, and the noble band of 
Puritans that adorned the seventeenth century in the British Isles, and 
from that of Wesley, Whitefield and their compeers in the eighteenth 
century ? 

The Presbyterian Church, in both the old and the new world, owes 
everything to the gracious and powerful revivals of religion that from 
the beginning have characterized its history. It was by an extra- 
ordinary outpouring of the Spirit, that Scotland was redeemed, in the 
days of Knox, from the blight of the Papacy. The whole nation,” 
says Kirkton, ‘‘ was converted by lump. Lo ! here a nation born in 
one day; yea, moulded into one congregation, and sealed as a foun- 
tain with a solemn oath and covenant.” “What swift course,” says 
Fleming, “ the preaching of the kingdom of Christ had, and how 
professors of the truth thronged in, amidst the greatest threaten- 
ings of those on whose side authority and power then were ! Oh ! 
how astonishing and extraordinary was this appearance of the Lord 
there on all ranks, so that they offered themselves willingly for 
the truth ! The Church of Scotland was born anew in this great 
revival.” 

Wonders of divine grace were witnessed in those days among her 
congregations, under the preaching of George Wishart, William 
Cooper, John Welsh, and other such servants of Christ. It was a 
mighty effusion of the Spirit that wrought upon the General Assem- 
bly of 1596; more than four hundred men of God to humble them- 
selves with sighs and groans, and shedding of penitential tears, and 
with one mind and heart, to renew the league and covenant of their 
fathers. With what power in those memorable days did Bruce, at 
Edinburgh, bear witness to the truth, making, as one says, “always 
an earthquake upon his hearers, and rarely preaching but to a weep- 
ing auditory ! ” Memorable, in the annals of the old Kirk, was that 
sacramental day, June, 1630, in the parish of Shotts, when, under the 
preaching of the aged Bruce, and the youthful Livingston, the Spirit 
of God was poured out with such power that “ near five hundred had, 
at that time, a most discernible change wrought on them, of whom 
most proved lively Christians afterwards — so much so that many 
of the most eminent Christians of that country (Clydesdale) could 
date either their conversion, or some remarkable confirmation of 
their case, from that day.” 

Miracles of grace were also wrought in 1625, at Stewarton, in an 
outpouring of the Spirit, under the preaching of Dickson of Irvine, 
exciting the wonder of the whole land. Multitudes, too, were con- 
verted in his own parish, and few Sabbaths passed, for a considerable 
time, without such tokens of the presence and power of the Spirit. 
At the signing of the covenant, in 1638, the whole country was stirred 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


821 


as by the mighty hand of God, so that Livingston said, In all my 
lifetime, excepting at the Kirk of Shotts, I never saw such motions 
from the Spirit of God.” have seen,” he adds, more than a 
thousand persons all at once lifting up their hands, and the tears fall- 
ing down their eyes.” 

Similar manifestations of divine grace occurred in 1650, under the 
preaching of William Guthrie, of Fenwick, multitudes from all the 
region round thronging to the kirk, Christians developing extraor- 
dinary zeal in their Master’s cause, and a great number of souls being 
truly converted to Christ. 

These baptisms of the Holy Ghost, so abundantly dispensed during 
the first hundred years after the Reformation from popery, gave to the 
Kirk of Scotland a signal position among the Churches of Protestant- 
ism ; so that, ever since, she has been regarded as a mighty bulwark 
of the faith, and her people as among the most orthodox and godly 
on the face of the earth. She owes everything to revivals. 

In later days, also, her people have been favored with similar attes- 
tations of the Spirit’s power. At Camburslang and Kilsyth, at Camp- 
sie and Calder, at Gargannock, and in all the region round about, m 
1742, as signal revivals prevailed as were experienced, at the same 
date,’ in New England, under the preaching of Edwards and Buell, 
and ’their coevals. Time would fail to enumerate the blessed effusions 
of the Spirit, with which the Church of Scotland, in her various 
branches. Established, Free, Covenanting, Relief and United, has 
been favored in the present century. • 

What God has done, in this regard, for the churches of the same 
faith and order in America, is known to all the world. From the 
beginning, the Presbyterian ministry and people of this land have 
believed in revivals as the richest of blessings ; have sought in earnest 
prayer the bestowment of these divine gifts, and labored strenuously 
to obtain and secure them. In the darkest times, their cry has been 
Lord revive thy work!” — and not in vain. The American 
Presbyteri’an Church, in all its several pans, is a standing monument 
to the necessity and blessedness of revivals of religion. But for 
these visitations of mercy she would never have filled the land, as she 
has with the savor of her orthodoxy, and the fruits of her piety. 
The Presbyterian Church, in 1740-1742, shared largely, under the 
preaching of the Tennents, Dickinson, and their associates, in the 
wonderful work of grace with which New England was then visited, 
and was everywhere built up in the faith. During the period of bat- 
tle in the Revolution and immediately afterwards, infidelity, irrelig- 
ion, and immorality came “in like a flood,” but the Lord God lifted 

up a standard against them,” and, for a considerable period, from 
and after 1784, poured out his Spirit upon numerous congregations, 
and gave a wonderful impulse to the cause of his Son. “ So mightily 

grew the word of God and prevailed. 

In the year 1799, Dr. Griffin said, “ I could stand at my door in 
New Hartford, Litchfield county, Conn., and number fifty or sixty 


822 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


congregations laid down in one field of divine wonders, and as many 
more in different parts of New England. By 1802 revivals had spread 
themselves through most of the Western and Southern States, and 
since that time they have been familiar to the whole American people.” 
This was said in 1831, at a time when, for several years, a mighty 
wave of the Spirit had been pouring over the land. Repeatedly since, 
in 1858, and in 1876, particularly, similar pentecostal showers have 
been poured upon the churches of America, to the praise of divine 
grace, and the great enlargement and edification of the kingdom of 
the Redeemer. Scarcely a year has passed, for more than half a cen- 
tury, when some considerable portions of the country, or numerous 
particular congregations, have not been thus visited and blessed. 
Differ as we may about the means and methods of conducting and 
promoting revivals, we believe in revivals themselves almost to a man. 

It is a matter of record, that by far the larger number, not less 
probably than seven-eighths of the hundreds of thousands of Presby- 
terian communicants in America, are the fruits of these blessed means 
of grace. The periods of largest growth and greatest efficiency have 
been revival periods. The Annual Narratives of the several General 
Assemblies, for ninety years past, bear uniform testimony to the de- 
sirableness of these visitations, with lamentations over their absence, 
or grateful attestation to the goodness of God in bestowing them, 
while the churches are continually urged to pray and labor for their 
widespread diffusion. 

Nearly all the great institutions of Christian benevolence — the home 
and foreign missionary and education boards and societies, the Bible, 
tract, and temperance societies, and kindred organizations — have 
mainly sprung up within the period of the Modern Revival Era, and 
have been best sustained, and proved most efficient, in those sections 
of the Church where these divine influences have been most abun- 
dantly enjoyed. A very large proportion of the energetic and effective 
ministry of the land have themselves been converted in revivals. 
Very many others, by reason of the occurrence of such works of grace 
among their people, have put new life and efficiency into the whole 
of their subsequent ministry. The remark has been made very truth- 
fully, that “it is amidst the effusions of the Spirit of God, that. men 
are trained to engage actively and efficiently in the great enterprise 
of Christian benevolence ; have their hearts and their hands opened 
in behalf of those who are sitting” in the region and shadow of 
death ; “catch that spirit of zeal and self-denial, and holy resolution, 
which will lead them to attempt great things, and, by God's blessing, 
to accomplish great things, towards the moral renovation of the 
world.” 

More, therefore, than for aught or all else in the wide world, should 
the Christian Church plead the promise of the Father, and seek the 
gift, in large and copious effusions, of the Spirit of God. More 
abundantly, than in aught else, does the Father delight in these blessed 
dispensations of grace. Called to serve God under the dispensation 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


823 


of the Spirit, most implicitly should we believe, and act upon, the m- 

sliZ tStimony, that if we, “ being evil,” know how to give good 

Jifts to our “ children,” “ much more shall ” our “ Heavenly Father 

give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.” The one 

the Church is the outpouring of the Spirit upon all p^p e. 

great n^d of this Pres'bytenL Council, and the 

{nation possible of its deliberations, is such a baptism of ^oly G 

as came upon the first Christian Council, at Jerusalem, on the first 

Pentecost after the blood of Jesus, our divine 

remission of sins. Most memorable in the annals of the Cl W 

this Council be, if, thus baptized anew with the >1, 
members should return to their respective homes, so 
the heavenly gift, as to kindle, everywhere, among the paiticular 
churches of their several communions, a burning 

zeal for the revival of God’s work among them. Even now v\e may 
hear a voice from the inner temple, crying m the " f 

love, to all these servants of Christ and 'hat they rep e 

sent- “Awake! awake! put on thy strong h, O Zion ! put on iny 
beauiiful garments,” “Arise ! shine ! for thy light is come, and the 

glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. dqv of the 

The great and glorious day of the Lord is at haod T ^rrl 

Redeemer’s triumph, and coronation as “ King of kings, and L 
nf lords ” Prophecies and wonderful providences have us ere 
^he age of rSu is upon us. God is giving us the might.^t me^n 

^rtieramt‘"bTL?d^&^^ The ^orlf cmi b^slved only 

fhul ‘^Moreand more these divine '’ThTnlini™ 

mayer-to be the burden of every prayer for the Church 
try are to be taught, in their theologic^ Uaming 

the windows of heaven, and pour you ^ mention of the 

rord,Te“Tife’nc:, mtd give him no rest, till he establish, and 
till he make Jerusalem a praise in the eartli. ^ 

The Rev. Prof. David Steeui, D. D, ot Philadelphia, read 

,hetollo»l„gon 

enterprising minds anything that has yet been 

nobler and more w X philosophy, in literature, and in dis- 

reached In art in scie , P and form to plans 

“sTe'Ji; aiM operauons, distinguk'ed by principles conservative of 


824 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


individual and social comfort and amelioration. Surprising and 
startling as may be the motions of our earth in its orbit and ujjon its 
axis, the world moves in a higher and grander sense. In its aggres- 
sive power and influences, the civilization of to-day is extraordinary. 
The sleep of ages has been thrown off, and thought, winged with 
lightning and daring as the elements, which have given it scope, 
traverses sea and land, linking together oceans, continents, races and 
nationalities. The incrustations of habit, prejudice, tradition, pre- 
dominant character and of false systems of religion are being broken 
up ; and the signs of a reconstruction, adequate to the wants of 
humanity, are daily multiplying. “Behold,” says God, “ I make all 
things new.” A new era is expected. The halcyon days of a world’s 
sublimation steadily draw near. i\nd if there is one thing more than 
another, that shall mark the period of the world’s highest civilization, 
it shall be the prevalence of personal religion, individual consecration 
to God, and voluntary subjection to the Lord and his Christ. “ One 
shall say, I am the Lord’s ; and another shall call himself by the name 
of Jacob ; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord 
and surname himself by the name of Israel.” 

With these introductory remarks, we are brought to consider the 
subject before us — Personal Religion. 

I. What is it? — In its derivation from re and ligo, religion means 
the reattachment or rebinding to God of the being who had departed 
from him. By the radical import of this term, we are reminded of 
our apostasy from God, and of that amazing provision in the divine 
economy, by which guilt is pardoned, reconciliation to an offended 
majesty is effected, prodigals brought back to their father’s house — 
and the entire nature of men — understanding, will, affections and 
conscience — renovated and readjusted. 

In its most comprehensive sense, religion is both objective and 
subjective. Contemplated objectively^ it includes a belief in the being 
and perfections of God, in the revelation of his will to man, in man’s 
obligation to obey the divine commands, and in his accountability to 
his Maker. Viewed subjectively^ religion comprehends the recognition 
and practice of that experimental and scriptural godliness, which is the 
life of the soul. The religion of Jesus Christ has both its credetida^ 
or things to be believed, and its agenda, or things to be done. 

In its more restricted sense religion differs from theology, inasmuch 
as religion is practical, while theology is scientific. A religious per- 
son is a theologian just in so far as his knowledge is scriptural and 
comprehensive; a theologian is religious in so far as his knowledge is 
experimental and practical. Personal religion is the personal posses- 
sion of those qualities and acquisitions of mind and heart, which 
demonstrate that the individual has been reinstated in the divine 
favor, and that he has been brought into a saving relation to that sov- 
ereign from whom he had deeply revolted. From all this it is obvious 
that personal religion is not a myth. In its origin, relations, influ- 
ences, and destiny it is real. It is not an imaginary something after 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


825 


which individuals may long, but of which they can never lay hold. 

It has its seat in the soul. . 4. v. ^ 

And if it is then as water, there that water is not stagnant, but 
.springing up into everlasting life. If it is in the soul as fire, then 1 
is as coals which have a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot 
quench this flame, neither can the floods drown it. 

Nor does personal religion consist in an ardent attachment to cere- 
mony and forms. True, the form is not without its appropriate place 
in religion. “ Hold fast the form of sound words, is an apostolic 
iniunction. And significant symbols occupy an important, though a 
subordinate place in the Christian system. If we might illustrate 
what the shell is to the contents within, in the case of an egg, or what 
the external covering is to the kernel,in the case of the nut, in many 
respects the form in religion is to the inward power In /^^ler case, 
let die outside be broken, and the contents will suffer. And so, fling 
to the winds creeds, confessions, signs, and significant ceremonies-- 
discard all forms in religion, and the new creature, the spiritual life in 
the soul, will be more or less unfavorably affected. 

In the present day, the pendulum of human thought seems to 
vibrate between two extremes-the extrerne of radicalism, ni subvert- 
ing all forms ; and the extreme of ritualism, in larply substituting^ 
imposing shows and ceremonies for that personal religion and prac- 
tkal godliness, which are the normal outcome of the - new heart. 

In regard to this latter tendency, the past should be admonitory, 
was the formalism of the Pharisees, and their punctilious adherence to 
rites Ld ceremonies, which called forth from our Lord those wither- 
ing rebukes administered by him to these hypocrites 
hif flesh The decoration of churches, and the introductmn of a 
showy and sensuous worship, together with all the adventitious and 
fascinating performances of the priesthood in the fourth and fifth cen- 
turies paved the way for the full development of “the Antichrist. 
This was succeeded by the “dark ages.” Israel forgot his Maker, 
even when building temples. Men may admire the aesthetic in reli- 
gion and may revel in the pleasure of contemplating the splendid 
fZl and^e^ be destitute of the power of godliness. A man may 
posset the most illustrious and brilliant talents that ever excited the 
Lmiration or dazzled the eye of mortals ; he may, were it possible, 

dlcant with the intelligence and ' “Pfo^Nazare^ 

character, eventfnl life, and triumphant death of S in 

nnH vet be a stranger to personal religion. He niignt climo 
thought and in discovery the temple of the created universe, and 
1 hi«; feet upon the loftiest point, and in one comprehen- 

siv^sfrvey having taken in the myriads of systems which 

vastness of spacef claim all as the product “f shalllt 

were created and yet be destitute of personal religion. How shall it 
h^e Ascribed? It^is to experience the invincible and omnipotent 
miehrof the Divine Spirit, quickening the individual sou into spiritual 
Sb 1 ° s to apprehend the transcendent disclosures of that love which 


826 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


passeth knowledge in the pardoning of sin, and in the raising up of 
the individual to sit with Christ in heavenly places ; it is to discover 
by their effects the marks of the blood of sprinkling upon the con- 
science ; it is to feel the soul held in the everlasting embrace of those 
arms which bear up the pillars of the moral and the material universe, 
and nestling in the cleft of that rock, which shall stand unshaken 
amid the desolations of time and the ravages of blighting and destruc- 
tive change ; it is to swim in that ocean of love, the waters of which 
at once lave the shores of eternity and pour their cascades on earth, 
the dwelling-place of mortals. It is more. It is for the individual 
to be a living epistle of Christ, known and read of all men ; it is to 
have the soul transformed into a temple of the Holy Ghost, yea, a 
holy of holies, where shall dwell the incomprehensible Shechinah ; it 
is to have the immortal nature converted into a perennial fountain of 
joy, from which shall well up to eternal life those gracious affections, 
holy desires, and God-ward aspirations which make to the person him- 
self a little heaven on earth, and change the world into the vestibule 
of the upper sanctuary. 

II. Sources. — The origin of personal religion is divine. It is the 
outcome or resultant of a principle of spiritual life implanted in the 
soul, as mysterious as it is real, and as instantaneous in its beginning 
as it is spiritual in its nature and revolutionary in its tendencies. Re- 
generated “ men are not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, 
nor of the will of man, but of God.” The beginning of personal 
religion is variously designated in Scripture. By the prophet Jere- 
miah, it is called a new heart;” by the evangelist John, it is spoken 
of as a new birth ; by the apostle Paul, it is characterized as a new 
creation, and as a resurrection from the dead. 

^ The truth is alarming, but it is not the less certain, that the condi- 
tion of all men by nature is a condition of spiritual death. As the 
offspring of fallen Adam, the representative of the human race in the 
covenant of works, men in their natural state are under a sentence of 
condemnation; justly exposed to the wrath of God, disabled and made 
opposite to all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to evil. 
The change that takes place in the soul of man when the Spirit of 
God takes possession of it, is a change from darkness to light, from 
death to life, from sin to holiness, from nature to grace. Understand- 
ing, will, conscience, and sensibilities are affected. The mind is 
illuminated, the heart is renewed, the will is conquered; or, in the 
language of Scripture, the individual is made willing in the day of 
Jehovah’s power. The brand of sin is wiped from the brow ; the 
poison of sin is extracted from the heart ; the title-deeds to a heavenly 
inheritance are placed in the person’s hands, and the soul begins its 
march to glory. The tree being made good, the fruit is also good. 
Henceforth the affections are set on things that are above; the life is 
hid with Christ in God ; the conversation is in heaven ; the world is 
under the feet ; and to the individual thus changed, and in process 
of a spiritual renewal, heaven and earth stand in new relations. This 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


827 


thought has been beautifully expressed as follows: ^‘As the sun 
gleams over the palace and into the cottage, flushing alike with its 
splendor the council chamber of the monarch and the kitchen of the 
peasant ; as the all-pervasive light fills the vast dome of the sky and 
the tiny cup of the flower, so religion at once illumines the heaven of 
our hopes and the earth of our cares. Secularities become hallowed ; 
toil brightens with the smile of God ; business becomes crystalline — 
light from God comes through it to us, glances from us go through it 
to God.” 

An important fontal element in personal religion is unioti to Chi'ist. 
‘‘I am come,” says Christ, “that ye might have life, and that ye 
might have it more abundantly.” “In him was life.” In his own 
emphatic as well as paradoxical style, the apostle Paul presents this 
thought: “lam crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, .... and 
the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of 
God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Here the apostle 
traces his whole life of pardon, peace, holiness, and hope of glory to 
union w’ith Christ. From eternity a federal or representative relationship 
of Christ to his people yet unborn was established. More than this, how- 
ever, was required, in order that sinners might come into the possession 
of that inheritance of spiritual life here and glory hereafter, procured by 
the death of the Mediator. In this federal relationship, a foundation 
was laid for that subsequent vital union or reciprocal inbeing of Christ 
and his people, whi< h is the result of a regenerated soul’s taking hold 
of the Saviour by faith, and resting upon him alone for salvation, as 
he is offered in the gospel. This faith which unites to Christ, strength- 
ens by exercise, works by love, purifies the heart, overcomes the world, 
and in its stupendous outgoings and embraces, takes into the soul the 
fulness of God. All its supplies for life and for godliness it finds in 
Christ; and in its actings and manifestations in connection with prac- 
tical piety, its possessor lives and labors, obeys and sacrifices for the 
Redeemer. Personal religion has had some of its finest exemplifica- 
tions in the discovery and actings of faith. Under the influence of 
this principle, Enoch walked with God. The efficacy of this same 
grace appears in Noah’s being prompted to build an ark for the saving 
of himself and his household. The faith of this patriarch was sublime. 
He was a preacher of righteousness. But he was more. He was a 
personal and active embodiment of that piety which is the outgrowth 
of spiritual life nourished by union to Christ, and having its most 
impressive development in prompt, sincere, and universal obedi- 
ence. 

Perhaps the most remarkable example of active faith and consequent 
practical religion, is Abraham. The command of God to this patri- 
arch is, “Take now thy son, thine only son .... and offer him 
. ... for a burnt-offering.” The very thought seems revolting. 
What ! shall I take my only son, the child in whom centre all the 
promises, the son of my old age, and offer him as a sacrifice? Shall 
I quench the light of coming ages, and strike down the Church with 


828 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


one blow? These and many other questions might have risen in the 
mind of this man of God. But his faith was equal to the occasion, 
and as he raised his hand to inflict the fatal stroke, “ the angel of the 
Lord called unto him out of heaven. . . . Lay not thine hand upon 
the lad .... for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou 
hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me.” Elsewhere, of 
this same person, God declares, “I know him that he will command 
his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way 
of the Lord.” These and other like examples of personal religion, 
recorded in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, show that the faith 
which unites to Christ is a practical as well as a saving principle, 
which surmounts obstacles, ranges on its side the God of battles — and 
in its exercise and growth brings into play a stalwart piety, a heroic 
devotion to God, and a personal up-taking and appropriation of 
Christ and the promises, which triumph over all opposition and 
bind to duty and to God. 

III. Accessories. — Personal religion has its beginning in spiritual 
life, its growth in progressive holiness, and its perfection in a com- 
pleted sanctification. A special, if not the chief characteristic of 
personal holiness, is growth. Had it pleased God, the order of grace 
might have been, that so soon as an individual should be quickened 
into spiritual life, he would be immediately introduced into glory. 
The divine arrangement is ordinarily otherwise. As in nature there 
is growth, so also there is progress in the religious life. In the natural 
world there is ‘‘ first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in 
the ear.” Or, as it is in the lighting up of our earth ; there is in the 
beginning, the aurora or dawn, then the sun rising in glory above the 
horizon, and ultimately the king of day standing in the zenith, and 
pouring down his life-giving rays upon the world. Thus it is with 
the Christian. The path of the just is as th6 shining light, that 
shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” 

T/ie wo7'd of God, read and expoutided, is an effectwe means of pro- 
moting personal 7'eligion. History, experience, and the Bible itself, 
unite in exhibiting the truth of God, as the grand agency in advanc- 
ing practical godliness. You might as well expect light and heat, 
verdure and fruit, when the sun is absent, as expect individual piety 
^vhere the Scriptures are unknown. Christianity flourishes in propor- 
tion to the degree in which the ‘‘book of books” is understood, and 
its blessed truths are diffused among the people. During the first 
ages of Christianity, when the apostles went everywhere preaching the 
word, religion triumphed in the hearts and lives, sacrifices and deaths 
of noble men and women. Subsequently, when truth became corrupted 
by false interpretations, and the Bible was consigned to the cloister, 
darkness covered the earth, and practical piety proportionately waned. 
When, again, the Bible was exhumed from the cell of the monk, and 
was given to the people, personal religion took root anew, and under 
the sun, and smile, and influence of truth, it bloomed and bore the 
fruit; which is seen to-day in the civilizations of the old and new 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 829 

worlds, and in those widespread and Christ-like missionary labors, 
peculiar to the period of the world’s history in which we live. 

Nor should we thoughtlessly ascribe that power to the word, which 
belongs to the Spirit. If the word is a sword, quick and powerful, 
capable of inflicting fearful wounds in the conscience and in the heart, 
it is the Spirit of God that wields this weapon. If the word is a ham- 
mer that breaks in pieces the flinty heart, it is the same Spirit that 
employs it. If the word is a fire, it is the Spirit that gives life to its 
coals and vehemence to its flame. 

Anothe?' aid to per social religion is prayer, public, private and social. 

What the key is to the watch,” says Swinnock, “ that prayer is to 
religion ; it winds it up, and sets it going.” In prayer the soul takes 
its flight to the bosom of God, and claiming nativity beyond the stars, 
it seeks to escape to a broader and purer sphere. 

The strength which has nerved individuals for great spiritual con- 
flicts has been received in answer to prayer. The communion with 
God which is enjoyed at a throne of grace imparts consistency to 
character, fits for holy living, and throws a halo of glory around the 
suppliant himself. The face of Moses shone, when he came down 
from the mount, where he had been with God. And the individual 
who practises holy wrestling with the hearer of prayer, will shine in 
all the beauties of personal holiness, in the closet, in the family, in 
the church, and in the world. How was it with Daniel ? Providence 
ordered it so., that for a time, his place was at a heathen court. In a 
brief period the atmosphere of prayer in which he had lived and 
moved gave him a force of character, which even heathen courtiers 
were compelled to acknowledge. Neither could the wrath of a king, 
nor the prospect of being thrown into the lion’s den compel him to 
renounce his intercourse with God. “Three times a day he kneeled 
upon his knees, and prayed and gave thanks before his God.” Never, 
perhaps, did the apostle Paul’s piety rise to a more sublime pitch, than 
when he bowed his knees before God, and prayed that of the riches of 
his grace, he would grant that the Ephesian brethren might be able 
to comprehend with all saints, “ what is the breadth, and length, and 
depth, and height ; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth 
knowledge.” Upon the background of a fortitude and faith as in- 
vincible as the rock, Luther’s personal piety projected itself in mar- 
vellous outline, when he declares in substance, the Protestant interest 
is so low, and my work is so vast, that I cannot get along, without 
three hours a day in prayer. 

If ever there was an hour in the world’s history when a mere man 
appeared like the God-man himself, when celestial glory seemed to 
beam upon the brow of a mortal, and personal piety was wrought up 
into a self-abnegation, a devotion to the cause of Christ, and conscious 
dependence on God, which have challenged the admiration of genera- 
tions, it was when John Knox, with the faith of a prince having power 
with God, and a fervor rivalling the seraph, prayed : “ Give me Scot- 
land, or I die.” And if ever the personal piety of united and com- 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


830 

prehensive Presbyterianism throughout the world shall rise to the 
climax of development and perfection, outlined and commended in 
the word of God and in the lives of men of whom the world was not 
worthy ; it will be when, under a Pentecostal outi)Ouring of the Spirit 
of God, all the churches organized on Presbyterian principles, in- 
cluding ministers, ruling elders, deacons and people, shall be brought 
to their knees; and, taking hold of the everlasting covenant and of the 
angel of that covenant, they shall refuse to let the God of Bethel go, 
except he bless them. 

A valuable help to personal religion is the Christiafi Sabbath^ or the 
Lord s day. The Sabbath is a primitive institution, and the rest 
which it affords was designed for the entire race of men. “ The 
Sabbath was made for man.” If it was needed when our first parents 
were innocent, much more is its rest required now. Every Christian 
knows how difficult it is to shake from his feet the dust of earth, as 
well as to free himself from that secularization which in these days of 
sharp competition is everywhere incident to business. The Sabbath, 
with its solemn pause, its hallowed rest, its sacred memories and its 
foretastes of heaven, comes periodically to the Christian’s aid, and 
supplies him with a leverage by which he can poise his soul above 
the world, and give scope and energy to his spiritual nature in holding 
converse with God. 

“ Hail to the day ! 

The Lord’s own day — to man’s Creator owed, 

And man’s Redeemer ; for the soul’s increase 
In sanctity, and sweet repose bestowed : 

Type of the rest, when sin and care shall cease, 

The rest remaining for the loved of God ! ” 

The United States owe much to the continent of Europe. But it 
is to Scotland particularly that they are indebted for their ideas of 
Sabbath observance. And if the Puritans of England and the Cove- 
nanters of Scotland had left no other legacy to their descendants in 
America than those ideas which they cherished respecting the Sabbath, 
they would have furnished a grand emporium for the replenishment 
of personal piety, and they would have deserved a high place in that 
roll of honor, to which the names of prophets and apostles have been 
transferred. 

Wherever to-day throughout the world you find an individual dis- 
tinguished for personal piety, there you will find a person scrupulously 
careful in observing the Sabbath. And if, as the dying Guthrie de- 
clared, “The covenants, the covenants shall be the reviving of Scot- 
land,” surely the universal love and observance of the Christian 
Sabbath will be the revival of true religion throughout the earth. 

An intense and hitelligent longing after conformity to Christ is promo- 
tive of personal religion. The model’ of the Christian believer is his 
Saviour. The aspiration of a religious life and the acme of a believer’s 
hope are to know Christ, and “ the power of his resurrection and the fel- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


831 

lowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death.” 
The Saviour is to be contemplated in a two-fold light, both as an 
atonement and as an example. In the one character he has effected 
peace between us and our sovereign. In the other, he has disclosed 
to us what our Maker is in respect of his moral attributes, and what 
he requires men to be. That Christ is the model after which men are 
to be patterned, is evident from his own command, Follow me; ” 
from the purpose of God that all the members of his family are to be 
conformed to the image of his Son; and from the effect of the gospel 
upon believers who, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are 
changed into the same image from glory to glory. What a sublime 
idea of personal religion — likeness to the Son of God in our nature, 
to him who is the sum of all excellence, the living, personal and 
divine embodiment of all that is estimable in man and glorious in 
God ! “ When he shall appear, we shall be like him ; for we shall see 

him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth 
himself, even as he is pure.” 

Other aids to personal religion might be adduced, as those noted 
above are by no means exhaustive — such as the sacraments, meditation, 
and active benevolence, etc. 

IV. Results. — These are glorious. They respect the individual 
himself. Godliness is profitable unto all things. The whole plan of 
God respecting duty and salvation is to individualize men. Religion 
is the one thing needful, and it is a personal matter. Among the 
fliithless, men must learn to stand faithful. Every one of .us must 
give account of himself to God. Men are not saved in troops. One 
is taken and another is left. The author of the good work which is 
begun in the believer’s heart is God, and he will perform it until the 
(lay of Jesus Christ. What is it alone that can inspire a man with a 
hope blooming with immortality? What is it alone that can give a 
man peace in a dying hour? What is it alone that can prepare an 
individual for companionship with the inhabitants of .the world of 
life, and for the exercises of the land of glory? We answer, per- 
sonal religion — a personal interest in Christ, with all its subordinate, 
collateral and Go(I-glorifying attendants. 

In its effects personal religion is diffusive. It does not terminate 
r.pon the individual who is its possessor. The theatre of its influence 
i i the world. It is a centre, the circumference of which is ever widen- 
ing, until the outmost circle of its grand achievements shall reach the 
closing epochs of time, and shall even touch the shores of eternity. 
Revelation has pictured its destiny. In its light, power, fulness, and 
growth, and wrought up into those marvellous associations of men and 
means that shall mark the millennial day, ijt shall control the world for 
Christ. 

The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord 
and of his Christ. “A little one shall become a thousand.” ‘‘Thy 
people also shall be all righteous.” Holiness unto the Lord shall 
be upon the bells of the horses, and the pots in the Lord’s house shall 
be like the bowls before the altar. 


832 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Associated with a morality which has its basis in revealed truth, and 
its obligations and accountability growing out of the recognition of a 
personal and covenant God, round and round our globe personal reli- 
gion shall take its circuit, until the masses and majorities of our race 
shall find the highest point of their elevation, their centre, and their 
fount of personal and spiritual supply in God. And Jehovah — Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost — shall have all the glory. 

And now, when creation is groaning, when the powers of darkness 
are active, when the hosts of Armageddon are marshalling for the 
conflict, when we are surrounded with a crowd of witnesses, and 
almost sixty centuries look down upon us, let us raise aloft the standard 
of Protestant Presbyterianism, and emblazoning upon it the time- 
honored motto, “For Christ’s Crown and Covenant,” wuth every 
letter undimmed ; and in the name of the struggles and victories, the 
testimonies, contendings, and covenants of our fathers, let us signal to 
the ends of the earth that the lineal and ecclesiastical descendants of 
the children of the Alps, of the reformers of the continent of Europe, 
and of John Knox, in council assembled, expect every man bearing 
the Presbyterian name to do his duty. 

And in these days, when the question of nativity is frequently 
mooted, and the cry is often heard, England for the Angle, Germany 
for the Teuton, Russia for the Slav, Asia for the Asiatic, Africa for the 
negro, and America for the American ; for all such utterances, with 
the voice of the ages sounding in our ears, and the anticipations of 
the future beckoning on to an enlarged philanthropy, let us substitute 
the watchword, Europe, Asia, Africa, America, Australia, and the 
islands of the sea for the Church of God, and the world and the fuF 
ness thereof for Jesus Christ. 

The Council was adjourned, after the singing of the Doxology^ 
and the pronouncing of the benediction by the chairman. 

October u/, 7.30 p. m. 

The Council was called to order in the Academy of Music by 
Jacob Rader, Esq., of Easton, Pa., President. 

After devotional services, the Rev. Justus E. Szalatnay, of 
Velim, Bohemia, read the following paper on 

THE CHURCH IN BOHEMIA. 

“ When the tempest of the wrath of God shall have passed away, 
the management of thine own affairs will return to thee again, people 
of Bohemia.” With these words the last senior of the dying “ Uni- 
tas Fratrum Bohemorum,” John Amos Comenius, had prophesied in 
sad times of cruel destruction, not only of the glorious Church of the 
“ Book and Cup,” but also of the kingdom and nation of Bohemia. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


833 


The tempest of the wrath of God lasted for a long time, during 
which the desolate ruins of Zion in Bohemia presented a melancholy 
aspect to the eye of every friend of God’s truth; it seemed to indi- 
cate that in Bohemia, the city of God will never be raised again, nor 
the light of the gospel once more be put on the candlestick. 

It is not my task at present to picture the sufferings of the hidden 
remnant of the lovers of God’s truth in Bohemia, or to describe the 
diabolic zeal of the Jesuits for the extirpation even of the last inclina- 
tion of the Bohemians to the faith of their forefathers, by confiscating 
and destroying the Bibles and all books of devotion which they were 
able to snatch from them, and by perverting the history in such a 
shameful manner, so that the generations to come might abhor the time 
of Reformation in Bohemia as a time of damnable delusion and of the 
heaviest calamity which fell upon Bohemia ; yea, that the posterity of 
the Protestants might be ashamed to be called Bohemians. The his- 
tory of that time, once fully revealed and brought to light, will aston- 
ish the world. 

But at last the whirlwind of God’s wrath began to cease, and the 
morning of a better time commenced to dawn. The name of the 
Emperor Joseph II., of Austria, will ever be prominent on the brazen 
tables of history, for publishing the edict of toleration, the centenary 
of which will be celebrated next year. 

Although the Jesuits have done their utmost during a hundred and 
sixty years lest any trace of the old church of the “ Book and Cup ” 
should be left, yet the evangelical Church of Bohemia rose again 
within a few months after the promulgation of the edict of toleration. 

She consisted, indeed, only of a small number of congregations ; 
but “who will despise the day of small things?” (Zech. iv. 10.) 
She was gathered of “an afflicted and poor people,” but “ that peo- 
ple trusted in the name of the Lord.” (Zeph. iii. 12.) 

The choice between the Helvetic and the Augustana Confessions 
the government left to the people themselves, and by far the largest 
part of them chose the Helvetica posterior and the Heidelberg 
catechism. 

Being without preachers of the word of God, the field was supplied 
with ministers from the happier Hungary. And, although these 
humble servants of the Lord had first to learn Bohemian, a foreign, 
language to them, yet there was, as one of them — my grandfather — 
in his memoirs says, a great joy among the people, when — assembled 
in a barn— they for the first time again could hear the preaching of 
the gospel of peace and glad tidings of good things. (Rom. x. 15.) 

However, the time of toleration was still a hard time. The popish 
clergy never ceased to harass the Protestants, and to picture them to. 
their own people as perilous heretics — worse than the heathen. The 
civil courts, too, could not— or most of them rather would not — com- 
prehend the magnanimous intentions of their enlightened monarch. 

Subsequently, therefore, the many restrictions of the edict of 
toleration were multiplied by numerous additional orders, decrees, 

53 


334 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


instructions, prohibitions, etc., etc., so that our church had just room 
enough to breathe, but all possibility of growth and of enlargemen-t 
was taken from her. 

-The congregations had their ruling elders and kirk sessions, but 
their power was very limited. The supreme court of the Church, the 
imperial and royal consistory in Vienna, whose president was a Roman 
Catholic civil officer, had rather to watch over the Church, than to 
provide for her. Presbyteries, Synods, General Assemblies, and other 
Presbyterian institutions were forbidden. Without any intercourse 
with other churches holding the reformed faith, and organized on 
Presbyterian principles, always in struggles for existence ; in peril by 
her own countrymen ; scarcely able to procure the means of sus- 
tenance for her congregations — our church lived a poor and retired 
life, till the year 1848. 

That stormy year and the following period were eventful also for 
Protestantism in Bohemia. 

Claiming political rights for themselves, the nations of Austria 
could not withhold the same any longer from Protestants. They 
durst not make them to bear onward the old slavery, which they 
themselves wished to abolish. Old absolutistic Austria, coerced to 
consider the time and to yield to the urgent voices for a constitutional 
government, could no longer follow blindly the hostile wishes of the 
Romish hierarchy. In this way fell by and by many a fetter which 
had been thrown round Protestantism during the time of toleration. 
Out of the “tolerated” church grew up the evangelical, recognized 
state-church of Austria. Liberty of conscience was proclaimed and 
recognized, at least in principle. Henceforward, on account of faith, 
neither civil rights could be withheld from citizens of the state, nor 
access to state offices made impossible for them. To turn Protestant, 
which formerly was connected with many difficulties and hardships, 
was nOw made easier and simpler, and the formation of congregations 
was essentially facilitated. 

The change of political affairs in Austria had also a favorable influ- 
ence upon the situation of the evangelical churches. Soon, however, 
the necessity was felt of securing for the evangelical church a new and 
■lasting foundation, in place of that secured by the edict of toleration. 
The commencement — to speak frankly — was made by the government 
itself. 

By the proposal made in the council of churchmen, who were 
appointed to it by the state, an imperial edict was published on the 
8th of January, 1861, which to-day forms the foundation of those 
rights and privileges enjoyed by the Reformed Church in Bohemia as 
well as in Austria. 

For the realization of this edict, the Austrian government published, 
in the year 1861, a provisory church constitution, according to which 
a kind of General Synod was called together in the year 1869. This 
hot only acknowledged the larger part of that church constitution, 
but also changed some of its claims for the worse — a thing very 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


S3S 

natural since the Synod consisted chiefly of church dignitaries, a batch 
from the Episcopal and Consistorial systems. In this way a roof was 
put over the Reformed Church in Austria, and the right of privileges 
was granted to her. This roof, leaky in one place and weak in an- 
other, was, indeed, widened in some parts, after the unhappy war in 
the year 1866, by the state legislature, but in other parts again, espe- 
cially as regards the schools, it was narrowed down ; and that right 
of privileges, too, is still connected with many difficulties, still it is a 
roof which affords protection. And we can imagine that those 
people, who formerly — if I may say so — sat on another’s bench and 
were exposed to various discomforts, were now thankful to possess 
their own shelter, although it was limited enough and insignificant ; 
and although it neither protected them entirely from their quarrelsome 
and envious neighbors nor from violence. Although this church 
organization, which was given to our evangelical congregations, could 
not, or rather would not, as yet compensate and repair the deficiencies 
and faults ; yet the organization, which is now in force, and the new 
fundamental and interconfessional Austrian laws, afford not only a 
safer existence to the Reformed Church, but also a possibility of their 
being mended and perfected. 

If, therefore, the Protestants of Austria have cause gratefully to re- 
member the Emperor Joseph II., who had. broken the fetters of the 
liberty of conscience, they have surely no less cause to respect very 
highly their present emperor, Francis Joseph I., who, in many various 
ways, has endeavored to heal the wounds of the same. This dutiful 
thankfulness does not, however, exclude the right of examination of 
the wants of our Church constitution ; neither can it hinder us in the 
perception of its inainy and fundamental wants; nor can it render need- 
less its efforts. 

The organization of the Protestant Church in Bohemia, and in 
Austria in general, is a peculiar mixture of Presbyterial and Consis- 
torial principles, with a slight tinge of Episcopalism. 

Although the imperial edict mentioned above, as well as our church 
organization — both of which are included in the collection of the 
Austrian state-laws — warrant to our Church the right of regulating, 
ruling, and directing independently her own affairs, yet both these 
laws place over her as the highest organ of the church administration 
the imperial and royal evangelical church court, a state authority, 
appointed by the state, and to which it is subordinate and responsible. 

The Church has her congregations, Kirk-sessions, and Presby- 
teries — the moderator of which is called Senior — one Synod and 
General Assembly. In these church courts all church matters can be 
discussed. Their resolutions, however, have no decisive legality, as 
long as they have not been approved of by the state ministry ; even 
resolutions touching church matters only, which are in no way con- 
nected with the functions of the state, are subject to the sanction of 
the imperial and royal evangelical upper court ; that is, they are sub- 
ject to a stat6 office, neither appointed by the Church, nor responsi- 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


836 

ble to her. Preachers and office-bearers of the Church, indeed, can- 
not accept and conduct their offices, laid upon them by election, 
without the sanction of the state. For the education of ministers 
there is the imperial and royal evangelical theological faculty in 
Vienna, established and supported by the state, whose professors also 
are appointed by the state alone. To preach and to teach in the 
church is allowed only to one who is appointed by the state. 

The church organization confers upon the minister full power of 
preventing any one, who, outside of the church organization, would 
wish to carry on evangelistic work within his parish. On the other 
hand again, according to the same church law, the civil authorities 
have power to prevent such work even there, where the minister per- 
mits it. Similar cases occurred lately several times. From this it is 
evident that the Evangelical churches in Austria are indeed state 
churches, or at least quite dependent on the power of the state, with- 
out enjoying those privileges which are granted to state churches else- 
where. 

This relation of dependence is the stronger, because since the 
ascendency of that most ultramontane minister. Count Leo Thun, the 
state gives to the Evangelical congregations a considerable yearly help 
out of the state funds. Out of this the state administration pays the 
special allowances made to the superintendent and the seniors, and 
the yearly donation to every individual minister who asks for it, and 
is found worthy of it ; the rest is distributed among poor congrega- 
tions under the same conditions. Although this help from the state 
is very welcome, on the one hand, to our very poor congregations, 
yet on the other hand, the Church gets no advantage from it. She 
rather became by means of it only the more restricted in her activity 
and independence. 

It is, therefore, evident that the present Church organization, its 
bureaucratic arrangements, and the relation of the Church to the state 
founded upon it, affords indeed to the Church, at least in some mea- 
sure, a surer existence; yet, at the same time, that 'it is in many 
respects a fence, hindering her extension and development, as if there 
had been the intention of keeping our Church within her own bound- 
aries, so that she might remain there where she is, and not be in any- 
body’s way. It is not necessary to add that in such circumstances 
our Church could not grow as it was desirable. 

Being restricted in many ways during the time of toleration ; form- 
ing only a very inconsiderable fraction in the Bohemian nation, which 
was ruled by the Romish priests ; standing in no connection with 
foreign sister churches, and having no representative and legislative 
bodies, but being administered in quite a bureaucratic way; being 
widely dispersed over the country; continually contending with 
material wants, and having but a remnant of the educational literature 
of her ancestors, which was left to her after cruel confiscations and 
destructions by the Jesuits — the Bohemian Church could hardly pene- 
trate to a clear consciousness of those holy and faithful privileges 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 837 

given to her by her holy Head— Christ ; far less, therefore, could she 
seek for them or demand them. 

Nevertheless, in spite of all these very unfavorable circumstances, 
the Church grew. The number of congregations has increased twenty- 
five per cent, since 1848. To this have been added lately several 
preaching stations, which, however, are supported by friends from 
Great Britain. A large number of congregations have undertaken the 
building of new churches, and this the more willingly because, before 
the year 1848, they were not allowed to build them, so as to appear 
externally like churches, while in addition they had to be built only 
in out-of-the-way and hidden places. 

Likewise a number of schools have been established in which all 
education is founded upon the word of God. . The latest Austrian 
school legislature, resting upon the principle of a confessionless public 
school (which principle, however, was not, and will never be, carried 
out), has again ruined some of them ; yet our people feel and recog- 
nize very deeply the necessity of their own school, in which religion 
takes the first place. In these undertakings a considerable number of 
our congregations have received support, more especially from the 
Gustavus Adolphus Society, and from friends in Geneva; but the 
larger part of the expenses they have defrayed themselves. 

lo-day the Bohemian Church collects for the support of her minis- 
ters, ^14,000; for the support of schoolmasters, 7,000 florins; besides, 
there are various other collections for building and other purposes. 
According to this statement, the salary of ministers amounts on the 
average to $275 ; the salary of schoolmasters to ^150. In order to 
secure for our schools teachers educated in the spirit of the gospel, 
a teachers’ seminary was established, twelve years ago, at Caslav — a 
town where there is the grave of the far-famed Hussite General, John 
Zizka, of Trocnov, which, to be sure, was desecrated during the time 
of anti-reformation. This seminary, established and supported by the 
aid of friends abroad as well as by the public exchequer, involves a 
yearly expense of about 7,000 florins. But, alas ! this sum exceeds 
the contributions of the Church as well as of the support which, until 
now, we have been receiving from abroad, so that (just now) we are 
threatened with the great danger of being obliged to close this insti- 
tution ; and this just at the time of our centenary celebration of (the) 

Toleratiori,” which would cause a great sorrow and disaster to our 
Church. 

If we consider, that by far the largest part of the Reformed con- 
gregations are country congregations, consisting of small farmers and 
trades-people — and not at all of wealthy people — we must admit that 
what the Church does for her own support is not inconsiderable. 

Beside thisijust mentioned teachers’ seminary, there exists in our 
Church only one other educational institution, and that is for the 
education of girls. It is a private undertaking of pastor Subat, of 
Krubsic, whose name is perhaps known to some of the members of 
this Council. This institution, which is continually increasing, and 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


838 

whose operations have been richly blessed, is also supported by chari- 
table friends abroad. Since the year 1868, the Bohemian Church pos- 
sesses also her own Tract Society, under the name “ Coinenius 
Society,’* in Prague, whose sole and active convener, pastor Kaspar, 
fourteen years ago visited some of the sister congregations in the 
United States of North America. The sphere of labor of this society, 
which also enjoys foreign support, is increasing year by year in spite 
of the various difficulties which the colportage has to overcome, and 
in spite of the insufficiency of material means. (It would be very 
desirable if this society could take steps for publishing and spreading 
some of the old treasures of Evangelical literature left to us by our 
pious fathers, and which even to-day are of great value.) To extend the 
activity of this society as much as possible, is of great impxjrtance, be- 
cause various Popish societies, with feverish efforts, flood the Bohemian 
nation with pamphlets saturated throughout with ultramontanism. 
But, alas, the great poverty of our Church hinders the operations of 
this society also. 

Still another of our societies, from which much good is to be 
expected in the future, as regards the revival of the Bohemian Church, 
is the “ Evangelical Society for Christian Charity.” 

This new society can, of course, not do much as yet;; but, having 
for its aim the spreading of the kingdom of God ; receiving as its 
members only such as decidedly stand and wish to remain upon the 
only foundation, for other faundation can no man lay than that is laidy 
which is Jesus Christ occupying in the church a position dependent 
only upon the law of association, it will, by God’s help, be one day an 
efficient help and refuge to every true and free Christian work, which 
cannot now prosper under the shadow of the ossified, bureaucratic 
ch u rc h -organ i za t ion . 

If I add further, that there exists with us, although in connection 
with the Lutheran Church, a branch of the Gustavus- Adolphus Society, 
and that in our Church the Sunday-school begins to make its way, is 
understood and liked, I have told almost all that can be said abroad 
as a witness of the life and activity of our Church. 

It is, of course, not much ; yet, in view of all these difficulties 
through which our Church has had to pass, we have cause to give 
thanks to the Lord even for these feeble beginnings of progress. 

With regard to her church constitution — which indeed affords 
her a kind of security from without, yet inwardly obstructs her un- 
folding and work — the Reformed Church advances continually to a 
clearer idea of that freedom which is necessary for her. 

If we take into account, that, in the present circumstances, minis- 
ters and schoolmasters cannot sustain themselves upon the small salary 
which the congregations afford to them, and that, therefore, the sup- 
port from the public exchequer^depending upon the recommendation 
of the imperial and royal upper church court, and upon a good con- 
duct as regards politics — must be very welcome to them, and that to 
such the discussion of the question about the relation of Church and 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


839 

state is very distasteful ; and if we consider further, that we have 
almost no literature on this question, and that what our fathers thought 
and wrote concerning it, is very little known ; further, also, that on 
the continent of Europe in general, until these modern days, no great 
importance was attached to this question (I myself have found, to my 
great astonishment, eminent theologians to be quite indifferent as 
regards it), so that our theologians had hardly any opportunity of 
getting to know and to understand, how deeply this organization of 
the Church and her position towards the state power, encroaches upon 
the life and activity of the former, and even undermines them : this 
is evidently the most prominent feature of the Bohemian and Moravian 
Church now — that it begins to strive after pure Presbyterian principles. 

The last General Assembly, held in the year 1877, firmly 
declared its wish, to construct our church constitution, in strict 
accordance with the principles of Presbyterianism ; to endeavor that 
the relation of the Ohurch to the state may be constituted according 
to the authority of the word of God ; and to strive after all such holy 
and undeniable privileges as are given to the Ohurch by her Divine 
King and Lord, Jesus Ohrist. 

There is no doubt that this resolution will call forth a series of 
struggles on many sides. The first will be within the Church herself, 
against the various elements who are opposed to every strict and 
exceptionless subjection to the word of God ; then, also, with those 
satisfied and tiresome people, who rather shun a fight altogether for 
fear of losing their state support ; next, also, with our imperial and 
royal evangelical upper church court, whose existence will be endan- 
gered, and for which it will certainly fight unto the last ; while at last, 
a contest is to be expected with the state administration itself. By- 
zantinism, which is so deeply rooted with us, will be the more difficult 
to eradicate, because in our next neighborhood — in Protestant Ger- 
many — the evangelical Church is so entirely dependent upon the 
state. 

However, I do not give up the hope that this battle, although it may 
last longer than it did anywhere else where it has been gained already, 
will at last be won. This, my firm hope, I build first of all upon the 
firm assurance that all that our almighty Lord has spoken and com- 
manded must be accomplished. “ Heaven and earth shall pass away, 
but my words shall not pass away.” Further, also, I trust to the feel- 
ing which Austria, and more especially her magnanimous emperor, 
have for justice. Although even of late some ca.ses occurred on the 
part of subordinate state organs which do, not agree with the protec- 
tion of the liberty of conscience, neither with the proclaimed equal- 
ity of religious rights — which, after all, is conceivable in a state the 
larger majority of which is Roman Catholic, and in which the Roman 
hierarchy has still a very great influence — yet a protest to the imperial 
government, and especially to the person of the emperor himself, does 
not, as a rule, remain without effect. I call to remembrance only the 
encouraging result of the deputation which was sent to Vienna by the 


840 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Evangelical Alliance. Besides, we are persuaded that the Austrian 
government, being acquainted with the ideas of the papacy as regards 
the privileges and liberties of the Church, will at last look more 
favorably upon those claims of ours which are founded upon the 
word of God. This expectation is confirmed by the recent recogni- 
tion by our government of the Moravian Brethren Church, which, 
indeed, has her supreme court, not in Austria, but in Saxony. It 
is, therefore, to be expected that Austria will shortly recognize as a 
state church those of our brethren in faith for whom the deputation 
of the Evangelical Alliance has been interceding. Then, surely, self- 
government and liberty cannot be denied any longer to our already 
recognized Reformed Church, which indeed is guaranteed to her by 
the above-named imperial edict, and is already conferred upon other 
denominations. 

I am well aware that the road to this desired end is still long and 
rough, and that in the meantime our Church will have the more need 
of the prayers, the sympathy, and support of sister churches, to ask 
for which fervently and humbly I have come into this very reverend 
Assembly. 

In Bohemia and in the whole of Austria not only is the Reformed 
Church recognized by the state, but also the Lutheran. Although in 
the whole of Austria there are Reformed and Lutheran congrega- 
tions, yet in Bohemia, and Moravia the number of the former prepon- 
derates. 

The experience of both these churches has been very much alike. 
The present church constitution is common to both, and the imperial 
and royal upper church court, though divided for the administration 
of both these churches, forms one body ; the church constitution de- 
crees that the two General Synods can join into one. Thus we have 
with us quite a peculiar and commanded union ; but the Reformed 
Church has never got any advantage from it. As in Germany, the 
Reformed element is fast disappearing in the union, so is it also with 
those Reformed— especially the German — members of our Church, 
who are obliged to attend Lutheran churches; they also become 
estranged from our Reformed Church. The people, in fact, do not 
know of this union, the bond of wliich forms chiefly “the Imperial 
and Royal evangelical upper church court and because they wish 
for the abolition of this court, they are quite indifferent to this only 
superficial union. 

The Bohemian Lutheran congregations arose in this way : After the 
publication of the edict of toleration, some Lutheran preachers, of 
Slavonic origin, came from Hungary to Bohemia. Originally they 
did not differ much externally from the Reformed Church, but re- 
cently some of their ministers, although very much disliked by the 
people, introduced gradually altars, crucifixes, and pictures into the 
church, wafers in the Lord’s Supper, and various ceremonies which 
formerly did not exist. 

In this they differed more and more from the Reformed Church. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


841 


The ronsistorial idea so deeply rooted in the Lutheran Church, 
as well as the German spirit of “ Frotestantenvereinlers ” which 
predominated at the last Lutheran General Synod, led the Reformed 
General Synod of 1877 to the conclusion that those external signs 
of a union, which was only in appearance, should be removed. 
Knowing that, as she has a church constitution in common with the 
Lutherans, she could never accomplish a reorganization of it accord- 
ing to the principles of Presbyterianism, the Reformed Church re- 
solved, therefore, to insist upon becoming an independent body. To 
this resolution she remains faithful, even in view of a proposed com- 
mon fund for pensions, now being collected for the evangelical 
churches in Austria by the Gustavus Adolphus Society, as a centenary 
celebration of toleration to be held next year, by which the not very 
happy union of both these Churches is intended to be made firm under 
the aegis of the imperial and royal evangelical upper church court. 

The Bohemian Church has no pension funds for her ministers and 
schoolmasters, and her servants are very poorly rewarded for their not 
very easy work ; but in her efforts for self-government, and in her 
striving to arrange her church constitution strictly according to Pres- 
byterian principles founded upon the word of God, she will remain 
firm, even if her petition, that a proportionable amount of this thanks- 
giving fund which is about to be raised, and to which she herself also 
contributes, should not be adjudged to her. 

Although the Reformed Church wishes to have as well as to rule her 
own household, yet, thereby, she does not deny her brotherhood and 
fellowship to the Lutheran Church, with whom she suffered mutually. 
The Evangelical Alliance combines many denominations in united 
and hearty work for God’s cause, without any of the denominations 
being obliged to change or lay aside their peculiarities. The same is 
valid here, too. It is a golden proverb : Schiedlich friedlich {parted 
and amiable). 

In order to give as far as possible a complete picture of the position 
of Protestantism in Bohemia, I must mention also the relation of our 
Church towards the political parties in our nation. 

After a long and hard sleep of servitude, into which they were lulled 
by the anti-reform ition of the seventeenth century, the Bohemian people 
awoke again to their national consciousness. It is almost a wonder 
that they did not perish altogether, in spite of all the efforts of the dis- 
ciples of Loyola, who taught the nation to be ashamed of their lan- 
guage, and to look with awe upon its past history. But noticing that 
the ancient enemies, however, took great care, notwithstanding this 
the nation regained its national self-consciousness, that it may be 
proud of its renowned fathers only as of great Bohemians, not remem- 
bering their firmness in faith and their martyrdom for the truth of 
God, which they loved more than their dear country. The popish 
clergy also pretended to be patriotic. 

The Ultramontanes continually develop a feverish activity, their 
principal leaders being, of course, the Jesuits, who are increasing 


842 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


daily ; for wherever they have been turned out, a considerable contin- 
gent of them always seeks and finds refuge in Bohemia. The French 
Jesuits have already bought a splendid house in Prague. 

Although the Bohemian nation as a whole does not wish to be iden- 
tified with the Ultramontanes, and although the good friend of the 
Jesuits, Cardinal Schwarzenberg, was right in saying in the Vatican 
Council that in Bohemia the spirit of Hussites is smouldering still 
under its ashes, yet the influence of the Ultramontanes is great. The 
missions of the Jesuits are always on the programme of the day, and 
the attendance on their meetings is very considerable. 

Now there are in the Bohemian nation three great political parties ; 
the first is the national conservative, the second the national liberal, 
and the third is the Ultramontane party, to which, in the first place, 
belongs the nobility. The Ultramontanes are, of course, open and 
natural enemies of our Church. 

But even among the Bohemian patriots all are not friends of our 
Church. 

There are plenty short-sighted politicians with us who think that, 
with the help of the Ultramontane nobility and clergy, they will be 
able to secure their national rights and privileges; as if by the help of 
those who aided to ruin the Bohemian nation they could raise it again, 
and as if the clergy who had our nation for more than two centuries 
in their hands, until it almost ceased to live, and which accuses of 
heresy its most famed period of history, could now sincerely wish that 
the true patriotic feeling of our fathers who lived during the times of 
Huss, or immediately after Huss, might revive again. 

The liberal party, which occupies a friendly position towards our 
Church, is again too fond of religious liberalism to extremes, and its 
leaders are full of modern ideas about the superiority of state above 
the Church. 

Thus the Reformed Church is obliged to occupy a position of her 
own, and she hopes that the more the patriotism of the Bohemian 
people will get ripened, purified and ennobled, the more she will return 
to the government of her own affairs ; and the more the Bohemian 
nation will get to know its own history of the time of the Reforma- 
tion, the nearer it will approach to our Church. 

It would be very desirable at the present time of purification, when 
the contrasts are sharpened and evidently a great crisis is preparing, 
that we should possess our own newspapers, which would make their 
way into the circles of our Roman Catholic countrymen ; but as the 
number of Protestants in Bohemia is so small, ^nd their wants are so 
many, it is impossible at present to reach this desired end. 

The tempest of God’s wrath has passed away ; the Reformed Church 
of Bohemia looks forward to a new and more pleasant future ; the 
government of her own affairs has indeed not quite returned to her 
again, as Comenius foretells. She has not recovered as yet from her 
great tribulation and deep swoon, and is about to meet sorrowfully 
her centenary jubilee, as if it were after a very hard battle. In her 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


843 

nation she does not yet occupy that honored and important place 
which properly belongs to her, as to the full-aged heir of our martyrs ; 
but no one can set aside our hope that the walls of the city of God 
will once more be built in our country, and that the Lord God will 
raise up again his Bohemian Zion as in those old times; and that the 
gospel of Christ, for which our fathers suffered death, and for which 
we still have to bear contempt and scorn, will resound again in its 
purity over all the ends of beautiful Cechia. 

'"‘‘Veritas omnia vincet^' is the motto of our fathers, and ours after 
them. Now, this motto predicts to us that our hope will not be put 
to shame. Being conscious of her own weakness and of the greatness 
of her task, our Church looks the more fervently to you, the represent- 
atives of better-favored sister churches, asking for your affectionate 
prayers and interest. Help us to preserve and to extend that which we 
have, and to carry out what the Lord has imposed upon us. Help us 
to multiply our widespread congregations, so that the gospel may be 
preached more abundantly in our country.^ Help us to bring up our 
young people that they may not, in Roman Catholic schools, be 
estranged from our Church, but that they may one day earnestly work 
for her. Help us, further, to provide for the Bohemian people such 
works of literature as are full of the spirit of the gospel, more espe- 
cially that precious treasure of our fathers which is now almost for- 
gotten. Come over and help us in the work of God, to carry for the 
gospel the old battle-field which was once the cradle of the Reforma- 
tion, and from which, first of all, resounded again the powerful voice 
into the world, darkened by the cloud of the papacy: “ To the law 
and to the testimony ! ” 

The Rev. Fritz Fliedner, of Madrid, Spain, read the follow- 
ing on 

THE GOSPEL IN SPAIN. 

It is no easy task to give, in the short space of half an hour, a sur- 
vey of a field of labor so extensive and, at the same time, so new as 
that of the evangelical mission in Spain ; moreover, to do it in a for- 
eign tongue, which seems, for a German ear, expressly made in order 
to confound all sound rules of pronunciation. So I must count upon 
indulgence when I endeavor to speak about the gospel in Spain — its 
progress, its enemies, its wants, and its future. 

The gospel in Spain ! Does not this single word say enough? In 
this year it is 400 years since, in 1480, was established in Spain that 
terrible instrument of destruction in defence of the Church of Rome — 
the Spanish Inquisition. From the same country sprang up, sixty 
years later, in 1540 the monstrous order of the Jesuits, who alone 
have done more to kill the Christian conscience in the Roman 
Catholic Church than all her ceremonies and superstitions. Owing 
to these two institutions, the power of Ultramontanism is still quite 
enormous ; it has created a habit which, in an incredible measure, 


844 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


governs the whole life of the people, and even the circle of ideas of its 
very enemies. It has destroyed all worship in spirit and in truth ; 
even where Christ’s name is still used they have turned our Saviour 
into an idol, and do not adore the Redeemer of the world, but the 
‘‘ born Jesus” in Braga, near Operto ; the “ Cristo de la Victoria ” in 
Vigo ; the famous crucifix of Cangas in Asturias, which is said to have 
swam over the sea from Ireland in the time of Cromwell, to find 
shelter in Spain ; or the “ blood-sweating” Christ in Burgos — all dif- 
ferent Christs, who are sometimes in fierce competition against each 
other about their relative efficacy. But the Mariolatry is a thousand 
times worse. The virgin of the sacred pillar in Zaragoza, the black 
virgin of Jerez, of Guadalupe, and half of all the Spanish names, prove 
that this modern Diana of the Ephesians has become the centre of 
religion here. Yes, she has even usurped the place of our Lord in 
the Trinity, in the prayer which all the Spanish children in religious 
families repeat: “ Con Dios me acuesto, con Dios me levanto, con la 
Virgen Marfa, y el Espfritu. Santo — With God I lie down, with God I 
arise, with the Virgin Mary and with the Holy Spirit.” Such super- 
stition destroys all religion. Nowhere in Christendom are to be heard 
such fearfully blasphemous curses, nowhere are the most holy things 
so degraded and dragged down into the very filth of the street, as in 
that country of the “old Christians,” as they proudly call themselves. 
Besides, there are still glowing embers of hatred against the Roman 
Church amongst the lower classes of the people, which, fanned by the 
tyranny of the priests, will break out in fearful flames at the next 
revolution. Moreover, the struggle against the infidelity of the edu- 
cated demands the very best forces, the highest intellectual culture of 
the combatants. In no country would the most bitter enemy, of 
Christ dare to mock so shamelessly the general Christian doctrines of 
the Trinity, the birth of our Saviour, etc., as is done publicly and 
with applause in the Athenaeum of Madrid, the first scientific society 
of Spain. And the struggle against error mixed with truth is often 
far more difficult than with error alone. 

Now, into this country the gospel has entered. That the task of 
evangelization there is difficult, perhaps at the present time more so 
than in any other Roman Catholic country, is clear. But we do not 
the work; the power of the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 
does it. One day enters a Bible colporteur the little village Mon- 
talborejo, in the province of Toledo. He sells a big Bible in the 
market-place ; but the priest, just coming up to them from the church, 
tares the Bible out of the hand of the buyer, throws it to the ground 
with the words: “These heretical books shall never enter our vil- 
lage,” and then arouses the multitude against the bookseller, so that 
he, while stones are following him, must make a hasty escape. Four 
weeks later his way leads him through the same village, which he 
cannot avoid, if he would not take a round of ten miles ; and, as it is 
evening; he hopes nobody will recogr.ize him. But the first man he 
meets under the gateway asks him: “Are you not the man who sold 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


845 


the Bible ? ” He would fain have said no, but he could not lie ; and 
so he said, rather hesitatingly, “ Yes, I am the man ! ” “ Then come 

into our village, we all want your Bibles ! ” ‘‘ What ! is this not the 

same place where you nearly stoned me?’’ “True; but everything 
has changed now: we want now your Bibles.” And then he told 
him how a speculative grocer had taken up the big book, and used his 
leaves to fold his groceries in them. So the Bible leaves went with a 
bit of sugar, or of soap, or of salt, all over the village. Spaniards 
like to read ; and there they read the beautiful stories of Hannah and 
Samuel ; the song of the angels at the first Christmas, which was ever 
celebrated, though the world did not celebrate it ; the story of the 
prodigal son, to whom a father’s heart is opened ; and more than all, 
the record of the sufferings and death of our Lord which they never 
have heard, though their churches are fall of crucifixes. Then they 
came rushing back to the grocer, asking him for more leaves. These 
were soon at an end ; so they prayed to God to send them back the 
man, and, when he came, he sold all his Bibles ; and he had to stay 
with them some days, to teach them the way of God more perfectly. 

The hunger and thirst for the word of God is not abated. The 
eagerness with which they love to hear it, puts many a time us old 
evangelical Christians to shame. Sometimes one has to preach under 
difficulties indeed, as on one occasion in one of our mission stations 
at Escornaz, where I feared my auditors might fall on my head. 
There the little hall was soon filled, and more came crowding in ; 
when it occurred to one young fellow to climb up into the beams 
which braced the roof. One after another followed his example ; and 
soon they sat in rows like sparrows on a house-top. It is true that I 
sometimes looked up, when a movement was made, thinking: “Are 
they coming down, or not?” But there was no Eutychus amongst 
them. Truly it is a great joy to preach the Saviour to such congre- 

^^Last summer I visited Morgadanes in Galicia, where a few days 
before two evangelists had been wounded by the fanatical people, and 
onlv made their escape from being stoned to death by a precipitate 
flight With some trepidation 1 pushed my way into the mountains 
UD the same rocky path ; but I only wish all my hearers could have 
seen the delight with which, like their forefathers, the ancient 
Galatians, these simple villagers received me 

angel of God ; and then gave me of the best they had, like the fisher- 
men of the Sea of Galilee, coarse maize bread and a few little fishes. 
At another place an old man of seventy came twenty-four miles on 
foot to buy a Bible. I could mention many such cases if time did not 

^^^The^doords opened before us for access to the higher educated 
classes where there is more desire for new spiritual life and light than 
is generally supposed. A new intellectual life is springing up. 
This soring the greatest living poet of Spain, Jaspar Nunez de Arce, 
in the Athenteum of Madrid, in the presence of the best known repre- 


S46 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


sentatives of the arts and sciences, of the men of education and of the 
rostrum, presented his last poem: '‘ The Vision of Brother Martin.” 
This brother Martin is none less than Dr. Martin Luther, who, in his 
monastery-cell, is struggling with doubts as to the authority of the 
. Church of Rome. In a trance he sees the great sea of nations strug- 
gling onward to heaven ; the way is led by priestly Rome under the 
banner of the cross; but, lo, he sees it transformed into the great 
monster of the Apocalypse, the cross everywhere broken and trampled 
under the feet, the pardon of sin sold in the market-place; he sees 
the spectre of horrible Alexandre Borgia, of cruel Julius II., who is 
blessing with one hand and killing with the sword in the other, and 
he exclaims: "O Rome, Rome, what have you made of my God.” 
Above all he sees the eternal word, strong enough to break the fetters 
of Rome and to overthrow the old Babylon. When he awakes the 
monks surround him, and congratulate him about his return to life. 
"Yes,” he exclaims, "a new life begins for me. I am ashamed of 
my monk’s dress ! ” "What are you about?” asked the old Prior. 
" Conquer Rome, that I shall ! ” he answers. And though then the 
poet adroitly closed with the curse of the Prior over him, thus shielding 
himself against the Romish hatred, the impression was immense and 
lasting. For the first time a Spaniard had dared to present the hero 
of the Reformation in his true light, fighting the battle of Christianity 
against depraved, immoral Rome, and had found an echo all over that 
country, where up to this very day the public normal school of the 
capital in one of their standard books puts the following question: 

' How can you speak of many religions, as there is only one true one 
that of the holy Roman Church?” and answers it thus: "There is 
only that one true religion, but in a wider sense the word is improperly 
used for all the different religious errors, and so we speak of a religion 
of the Chinese, Mahometan, English, etc.,” and where the arch- 
bishop of Santiago says in his catechism, that Protestantism is the 
same evil in morals as the pest in nature. 

^ Now in this country three Bible societies are actively at work, sell- 
ing with the help of thirty colporteurs and a Bible carriage thousands 
of Testaments and Gospels. The tract society does not only distribute 
hundreds of thousands of tracts, but, what is far more important sei/s 
thousands of pamphlets and books, and sells every year more. There 
are now about sixty larger or smaller mission stations in the peninsula • 
perhaps the same number of schools with from 5,000 to 6,000 chil- 
dren ; about 10,000 adherents and perhaps 20,000 who hear constantly 
the preaching of the gospel ; fifty Sunday-schools with more than % 000 
children; fourteen properties bought for churches and schools; an 
orphanage with thirty children ; a small hospital which has been of 
service to all congregations in Madrid ; and four Protestant weekly 
and fortnightly newspapers issued from our own Protestant bookshop 
where are printed, besides, a great many tracts and books, also a yearly 
Christian almanac. Fifteen of these churches are united in the so- 
called Christian Church of Spain, represented here, haying three 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


847 


missionary outposts besides ; and we hope that more will join. We 
thank God that we can say, that on the whole all the laborers in Spain, 
with perhaps tiie exception of one or two black sheep, whom the Lord 
will remove in his time, work in the spirit of peace and union for the 
one Lord. Only to the congregation of Philadelphia, of brotherly love, 
is given the promise : “ Behold, I have set before thee an open door 
mid no man can close it.” On my way here, when I passed so many 
tunnels and so many gigantic bridges, I thought : Who has done 
all this? No emperor would have been powerful enough, and no 
Rothschild rich enough to do it. But union has completed it. People 
of widely different stations in life have united with the one powerful 
object to make money ; and so they have subdued the earth. Shall 
we not learn from the children of this world ? What is more neces- 
sary in the struggle with Rome’s superstition and unbelief than union 
amongst the combatants? Let us go forward then, children of the 
light, united for the one great object, not to make money but to win 
souls for the Saviour ; and the kingdom is ours. 

Truly we have a large field before us. We do not look merely at 
the peninsula, but we unite also with our American brethren in the work 
in the countries of South and Central America ; and I think no Monroe 
doctrine shall hinder us. These countries, though independent of 
the mother country for years, have still numberless relations with 
her ; and in many branches of literature are entirely dependent on 
her language and science. And now, as formerly, thousands of the 
flower of our youth go out to Mexico and South America to seek their 
fortune, who, if converted to the gospel, would bring the true fortune 
to their former colonies. Through the help of the American Foreign 
Sunday-School Union many hundreds of our- Sunday-school papers are 
going already there. 

Outward oppression, it is true, has reduced our numbers, and made 
the work more difficult and its growth slower; but has proved only a 
blessing for the inward development of our work. Our teachers are 
gradually becoming better trained, the evangelists better educated. 
Christian literature is on the increase, Christian children are growing 
up, and our quiet influence increases unseen but surely. It will be 
long ere we can think of our congregations becoming self-supporting ; 
yet we can show a slow increase of the contributions of the members 
of the Spanish Churches. Self-support is at least the desired aim 
towards which we are consciously advancing, however far it may yet 
appear. 

Divine service has become more quiet and decorous. With what 
delight do our young Christians sing : “Safe in the arms of Jesus.” 
“ Salvo in los tiernos brazos de mi Jesus sere,” or, “ How sweet the 
name of Jesus sounds ! ” “ Cuan dulcc el nombre de Jesus.” And 

how does a Protestant heart rejoice when we can sing in the sonorous 
language of the Hidalgos, and challenge the old enemy of our Re- 
formation in his own bloody fortress, with Luther’s song of triumph : 
“ Ein feste Burg ist imrer Gott.” A safe stronghold is God our Lord : 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


848 

Castillo fuerte es nuestro Dios ! ” It is like a prophetic shout in the 
land of scaffolds and torture chambers, the grave of thousands of noble 
martyrs: “Awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust, for thy^dew is 
like the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.” The 
Protestant hymn has become a power in Spain; we have heard it 
amongst the rocks of Montserrat, even within the cloistered walls, 
where Ignatius of Loyola devoted himself as knight to the virgin 
Mary, in order to begin his dark struggle against the bright gospel 
of God. Jesus remains stronger than the Jesuits. 

But has the present commercial depressure throughout the world, 
and the great claims made on all Protestant countries, not injured the 
work of the mission in Spain in a financial point of view? It is true 
that wherever we begin to speak of the work our friends hasten to 
assure us, that the times are very bad. But though we have never 
been rolling in wealth, yet we never have wanted. Our cruse of oil 
has not been full to the brim ; we had sometimes little food in the 
house. Notwithstanding we confess with praise that the meal in 
the barrel did not waste, neither did the cruse of oil fail in our work. 
Where perhaps formerly too much was extravagantly expended, the 
work has only been improved and furthered by the fact that the out- 
ward means were limited. Neither are we afraid for the future. Is 
the work not of our Lord? And are not silver and gold also his? 
He that clothes the lilies of the field with more glory than that of 
Solomon, has all that we want, and abundantly, not only silver and 
gold, but jewels, too, for the building of his temple. Do not sparkle 
more than the most precious stones the farthings of that poor shoe- 
maker’s wife in Alsatia, who laid apart five centimes of each pair of 
boots sold, for the Lord’s work in Spain; or the i)lain watch of yon 
man on the Rhine, which he, enthusiastic for his Saviour’s cause, tore 
from its iron chain and laid upon the plate ; the cents of children 
in America, who gather and sell old iron for the benefit of the Spanish 
orphans ; the two little crosses and a silver cup, remenibrances of 
three dear children, who died in one year, sent by their father for 
God’s work; the rings of the octogenarian pastor in Wurtemberg, 
who, in the certainty of soon meeting his wife, who had preceded him 
before the throne of the Lamb, requires not outward remembrance of 
her, and therefore brings his own and her marriage ring to the Lord ; 
or the little garnet cross, which was sent with the words: “ There is 
no restraint to the Lord, to help by many or by few.” Here we can 
glance into the secret treasure chambers of our glorious God ; here we 
receive refreshment and joyfulness for our work, because we see what 
fellow-laborers God has placed on our side. Our work increases ; we 
require each year more money ; but it does not make us anxious. We 
thank God for daily growth, and do not fear for our daily wants. 
When my wife comes to me and says : “ Fritz, it is terrible : we need 
again a new pair of trousers for our Theodore ; the boy grows most 
awfully.” I laugh with the whole face, and answer: “Thank God 
for his growth, he will give the trousers, too.” For our God has not 
exhausted his treasures, and the experience and joyful confidence of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


849 

his children remains: ^‘All that the Lord created hath, his faithful- 
ness sustaineth.” 

Now we turn to our enemies. We may truly say, that amongst all 
the Roman Catholic countries, which God’s power has opened so 
wonderfully in the last ten years to the gospel, Italy, Austria, Belgium, 
France, there is not one where the work suffers so much from outward 
oj)pression as that in Spain. With the return of the Bourbons a 
^ reaction began which increases daily; our former religious liberty has 
been reduced to the minimum of religious toleration, all public mani- 
testations being forbidden us. Old monasteries which w’ere closed for 
years are reopened ; imposing new Jesuit schools seem to spring out 
of the earth ; ])ersecutions, set on foot by the priests, occur over and 
over again, because they are left unreproved by the law. Have we 
then not reason to fear the return of absolute intolerance within a 
short time ? We praise and thank God, that we can answer : No. Ab- 
solute intolerance even in the birth-place of the inquisition, is im- 
}) 03 sible. Oiir situation is best characterized by the apostolic words: 
“ We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed ; we are perplexed, 
but not in ^despair; persecuted, but not forsaken ; cast down, but not 
destroyed.” I'he church of the crucified has always flourished under 
the, cross. True, many a branch of our work has been cut off, but 
only that the tree may become more deeply rooted. The true hus- 
bandman prunes and cleanses the branches, that they may bring forth, 
more fruit. The Lord our God shows us daily, that he is at the helm, 
and governs with might. Ministers and governors are in his hand., 
Often when it seemed as if we had no means to defend ourselves against 
persecution and unjust oppression, our enemies themselves put at the 
right time the weapons into our hand. Our books, even those of ai 
polemic character, passed the censure; our banished i>;astors andi 
teachers returned to their posts, royal dec;rees disapproved tlie exercise 
of religious constraint, and when the danger was greatest,, at midnight 
ministers telegraphed that the police should be sent for the protection 
of the threatened Protestants. “ He everywhere has way,, and all 
things serve his might ! ” 

It may be, that a revolution is plotted ; evangelical Christians do 
not long for it. We do not meddle with politics, but we are not 
afraid of any change. We do not trust in man, not even in princes, 
although the young king is liberally inclined. But the King of kings 
is with us, and therefore we shall remain steadfast. “ Behold, he 
fighteth on our si<le with his all-powerful Spirit.” 

But our wants are great ; and I wished to have in my possession 
the horn of the famous knight Roland, to shout into the heart of every 
Presbyterian church : “ Come over and help us.” Do not lose the 
glorious opportunity which God has given now to conquer the old 
enemy of the gospel. As a good Prussian soldier I say to you : Do not 
wait till Roman Catholicism is attacking you in your own countries. 
Learn from your enemies. The war is always easiest in the very 
country of the enemy himself. 

54 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


850 

. It is true we want more means; but that is not the principal want. 
I am never afraid for the means, if we have only the men. But men 
are wanting. We could double our stations if we had only the men. 
And Christ never told us to ask for more money, but he said : “ Pray 
ye the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his 
harvest ! ” How yearns our heart for more truly devoted missionaries ! 
The last time I was over in America, I had the privilege of interpret- 
ing for our noble co-worker, Carrasco. He sleeps in the bottom of 
the sea; since then has died Pablo Sanchet ; in this year Astray, and 
the place of the latter is not yet filled. We must train our own evan- 
gelists and preachers in Spain ; but this is very slow work. Our ideal 
is to train young people of our congregations in a seminary, but at the 
same time to allow them to visit the best Spanish educational institu- 
tions, and to let them pass their examinations there, in order that they 
may grow up as Spaniards in the midst of the intellectual culture of 
Spain, and be enabled to work with success amongst their country- 
men. The most talented of them might go later for some years to 
Protestant countries for study; it would widen their views and sym- 
pathies without tearing them away from the intellectual life of their 
country. We do not know whether the seminary which is to be 
founded in Cordoba will fulfil this ideal. We wish it success with 
all our heart. The preparatory school which we have begun in 
Madrid, is still far too small to be reported upon. But one thing is 
certain; seminaries for teachers and evangelists in Spain itself are a 
crying necessity, and we long with all our heart that flourishing pre- 
paratory schools for laborers may come from these small beginnings. 

Now, dear brethren, for the sake of the work, pardon me, when I 
speak with all humility, but very plainly. We Presbyterian churches 
have a great danger within ourselves, if we are lacking in missionary 
efforts. Eight years ago the American Presbyterian Church offered 
its help ; up to this day it has never come across the ocean. Another 
Church has blessed native missionary stations in Spain ; but in vain I 
entreated them for more than five years to send out a missionary agent 
of their own ; they have none. Leading members of another church, 
with one missionary, in Spain, tell me they may look all over their 
church, they can find not another one. Whence arises this want? 
If our churches have not within themselves enough truly devoted men 
for missionary work, if those men are coming forth every year more 
slowly and scarce, is this not a bad sign for our entire self-consecration 
to the Lord? God has blessed our Presbyterian churches wuth great 
means. But the danger is that of which Christ says : “ How hardly is 
it for them, that trust in riches, to enter into the kingdom of God ! 
This danger threatens also the rich Presbyterians, and aye, the rich 
ministers, too ! When we ourselves are truly Christ’s, consecrated to 
him in body and soul, then all things are ours ; and all gold and silver, 
too ; but if this is not the case, we may have great congregations, 
great eloquence, great salaries, and still Christ’s work is not prospered 
by us. With what joy did I preach last Sunday in one Presbyterian 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

congregation of this ci^y, when, on entering it, I read : *‘A11 seats 
are free ! ” And there was no need to say to the poor : “ Stand thou 
there, or sit here under my foot-stool.” If a missionary does not go 
by the rule given by the greatest missionary whom the world ever 
saw : “ Having food and raiment, let us therewith be content,” he is 
not fit to be a missionary. And when our churches at home do not 
give this living example, how can we expect from them true mission- 
aries to come forth? May God also bless this Council, that in all 
our congregations and ministers a new life of entire self-consecration 
may spring forth, and the missionaries will not be longer wantino-. 

One word more as to the future of our work and I have done. ^Our 
field IS great, the workers few. The question arises : “ Do you really 
believe that your small congregations, consisting of a few thousands 
of poor, and for the most part, uneducated Christians, which are like 
a drop in a bucket, compared to the many millions of Spanish-speak; 
ing people in the old and new world, will make a lasting impression? 
Are they not too weak even to act as leaven for these great supersti- 
tious and incredulous masses?” We find the answer in Spain itself: 
There stands amongst the splendid rows of columns in the ancient 
mosque of Cordoba, hidden away behind many hundred pillars, one 
of particular importance. A cross with the image of our Saviour is 
engraved upon it with rough, but recognizable lines. Whilst the 
false prophet, Mahomed, made the West tremble with the fanatic 
hordes of his warriors, whilst the dominion of the Arabs extended 
throughout Spain, and the splendor of their mosques surrounded the 
religion of Islam with Hiry-like glory, there stood a poor Christian slave 
chained to that column, destined by his presence to add to the noisy 
glory of the festivities of Islam, but who could not forget the despised 
and crucified One whose love filled his heart. With persevering, toil- 
some labor, he scratched with a nail Christ’s cross and image on the 
marble pillar. And now? Mahomed’s glory has passed away; the 
sce-ptre of Islam is broken — but the simple image of our Saviour has 
lasted longer than the power and the glory of a civilization which 
once filled the world. Let then superstition keep its noisy, popular 
feasts ; let the falsely-praised wisdom and philosophy boast in her 
vain self-conceit of the proud pillars of her splendid temple as eter- 
nal ; we will engrave with quiet, unseen and despised labor the image 
of our crucified Saviour in the Latin races, with the joyful confidence 
that this image carries with it the seal of eternity. Christians can 
never be too enthusiastic. For Christ’s is the kingdom. 

The Rev. Professor Emilio Comba, of Florence, Italy, read 
the following paper on 

THE CHURCH IN ITALY. 

The Waldensian Church was represented at the First General Pres- 
byterian Council by our beloved moderator. He charged me to pre-- 


852 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


sent to you the salutations of the old church of the Waldensian valleys 
— which claims also to be young — and in a special manner to return 
thanks to the generous promoters of the subsidy for the improvement 
of the economic condition of its pastors. 

Some of you may remember that in that Council, something was 
said concerning the origin of our Waldensian Church. The lamented 
r3r. Lorimer, Professor of Ecclesiastic History in the Presbyterian 
Theological College of London, insisted that some conclusion should 
be reached touching this question, interesting not only to the Presby- 
terian Church, but to the whole Protestant Christendom. Moreover, 
he continued, before arriving at a conclusion, we will do well to wait 
for the result of the researches begun by one of the professors in the 
Waldensian Theological College of Florence. Now — and I am pleased 
to be able to say it here — these researches have already been made 
public, not only in my native language, but also in English. I have 
them compendiously arranged in a little volume which I will do my- 
self the honor of presenting to our President. It is entitled : “ Waldo 
and the Waldensians before the Reformation.” I hope that the ques- 
tion of the origin of the Waldensians will be found here summed up 
with some precision, perhaps definitely solved, thanks to the light 
from many sources, herein indicated in the most exact and complete 
method possible to me. Now, if my conclusions are in nowise in 
accordance with the writers of the Leger school, therefore less than 
ever with our English, Scotch and American apologists, there must 
be a reason. This he who will give himself the trouble to read will 
find. It is time, in my opinion, that we should declare in the most 
solemn manner, that our history is, in some proportion, to be made 
over; and when made over and purified of all legends, it will be more 
true, hence more beautiful. Let the admirers of our antiquity be 
consoled. If we have not lived through all the past centuries, from 
the time of the apostles, please God we shall live many ages to come. 
He did not give us life by means of fables and legends, but only 
through his word of truth and of light, destined to shine forever and 
ever. 

It is true that the Waldensians were and are in Italy the heirs and 
continuators of the protest, which from the earliest ])eriod arose 
against the dark Papal dominion, and which thus tar has not obtained 
the attention it deserves, especially from Ih'otestants. Indeed, how 
many are there who think of this fact, that God hardly ever left Italy 
without prophets? Yet it is very evident; our Lord Jesus Christ 
could repeat against the one that pretends to be the Jerusalem of the 
West, the words addressed to the other where he died : “ O Jerusalem, 
Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are 
sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together 
even as a hen gathereih her chickens under her wings, and ye would 
pot! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto 
you. Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall sav, Blessed is he 
that cometh in the name of the Lord.” In fact, the Cuurch at Jeru- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


S53 

Salem had hardly sprang up, when it sent a ray of its splendor to 
Rome ; as the sun, which, as it comes up on the horizon, irradiates 
the highest mountain tops. It is well known that the faith of the 
Romans had already manifested itself before they heard the preaching 
of any of the apostles; it was revived by the means of the golden 
epistle of that civis romanus who became the great apostle of the Gen- 
tiles, then sealed by his preaching and martyrdom. St. Paul is our 
first Protestant, and at his side I see Aquila and Priscilla. Their pro- 
test was silenced for a while, and it still lies under*the renewed tradi- 
tions of these scribes and Pharisees who “ make the commandment of 
God of none effect,” and “shut up the kingdom of heaven against 
men ; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that 
are entering to go in.” Thus there are two Romes: one more vis- 
ible, “ has a name that she liveth, but is dead ” (Apoc. iii. i. cf. ; i 
Tim. V. 6) ; the other lies in the Catacombs, but it is the Rome of the 
future. 

If your great Dr. Adams were here, whom I hoped to see again, he 
would confirm the truth of my assertions, for he visited the two Romes; 
and as there is a subterranean Rome full of the splendor of Christ, 
there is also a subterranean Italy, where are found whole generations 
of martyrs — from Gioviniano of Rome to Claudius of Turin, Arnaldo 
da Brescia, the great patriarch of heretics— that in the middle ages 
multiplied and filled with their clamor the churches, the schools, the 
squares, the prisons, and though distinct, are united as “serpents by 
the tail.” Said the Popes, “species qiiidem habentes diversas, sed 
caudas ad invicem colligatas.” They were united in proclaiming the 
decadence of the Church from the times of Constantine and the need 
of many reforms. This is the common principle of the most discor- 
dant reactions, whether of the Cathari, or the Patareni, the Ghibellini, 
or the Fraticelli, not excluding the Waldensians, be it well under- 
stood. Finally, from the midst of the renascency which elsewhere 
was to lead to the Reformation, but in our country led us back under 
the yoke of human tradition, there arises a pile more majestic in its 
lugubrious appearance than the throne of the persecuting Popes. 
Upon that pile ascends the prophet of Italian Reformation, Savona- 
rola. You know that he called Christ the King of Florence, and feft 
to Italy a great saying I wish to recall: “O my Italy, I warn thee 
that nothing can save thee but Christ. The time for the Holy Spirit 
to be sent has not yet arrived, but it will comeR Upon his ashes fell 
at once tears and inqirecations. Michael Angelo, almost dumb with 
grief, comforted himself with the love of a woman who symbolized 
the renewed illusions of Reformation which he received no more; 
Guicciardini said openly that if it were not for fear of injuring his 
own individual interests, he would have hesitated no longer to break 
away from the “ infamous horde of priests” to follow Martin Luther; 
finally Machiavelli (‘ame out with a grave confession : “ We Italians,” 
he said, “ owe to the Church and to the priests this first obligation, to 
have become without religion and wicked.” The second was, to have 


.^54 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


remained with the divided country and servile to the oppressors. 
Alas ! every hope of a new birth disappeared entirely. The Catholic 
Reformation, that counted among its numbers magnanimous promo- 
ters, failed. Such was also the fate of the Evangelical Reformation, 
but it was crowned with the halo of martyrdom, and mourned by its 
exiles. Were I a painter, I would represent upon a canvas Bernardino 
Ochino, General of the Franciscans, when, already meditating to pass 
into Switzerland to flee from persecution, he visited at Bologna the 
dying Cardinal Contarini. These two were among the first promoters 
— the former of Catholic Reformation, that died in its own bed of 
.natural as well as inevitable death ; the latter of Evangelical Reforma- 
.tion, that breathed its last in the agony of exile. Tims Italy fell into 
the power of the Jesuits, who were the cause of its being called “ the 
land of the dead.” 

But behold in our own day the arising of the Prince liberator ever 
invoked by the greatest intellects from Dante to Guiseppe Giusti ! 
Everybody is acquainted with the deeds of Victor Emanuel, assisted in 
the great work of our national restoration by Cavour, Garibaldi, and 
many others whose names I will not stop to mention, not excluding 
Pius IX., however involuntary his co-operation may have been. It is 
true that while these men stirred about, God was he who guided them, 
to use a popular adage. And the king “ Galantuomo ” was conscious 
of this until the day when, from the city of the seven hills, chosen for 
the capital of the country now united and independent, he said : 

; “ We are at Rome, and we shall remain here.” 

But that ended the first phase only of our independence. Now a 
second one, grave and full of perils, opens before a new king, a new 
Pope and a new generation. As said one of our most illustrious 
statesmen, both a lover of literature and an artist: “Italy is made; 
we must make the Italians.” In other words, we need a princiifle, a 
base of moral, political, social education, or a religion of life, of lib- 
erty, with the aid of which our country may not only be kept on its 
feet, but protected against the power that was ever its enemy — papacy. 
This is the opinion of not a few of our politicians and thinkers, who 
declare it now in open parliamentary discussions, now in the schools, 
now in their writings. Had I the time I would show you the pro- 
gressive development of the religious question during the last few 
.years. Where it becomes more inevitable, and even full of appre- 
hension for us, it is in education. One day Cardinal Antonelli, 
speaking with one of our statesmen, said: “The Church is sure of 
those it educates.” And, to tell the truth, without his saying it, our 
free-thinkers were well aware of that. And so they were animated by 
a desire which can be understood, that of providing laws which might 
give rise to a beginning of religion while j^reventing clerical action. 
Imagine the many combinations, the many ridges one may be reduced 
to cling to, who has not a definite faith, yet hopes nothing from his 
own scepticism, neither would trust in the care of the clergy “the 
hope of the country; ” and then will you hear how, at the end of a 


855 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 

long and varied but inconclusive discussion that took place in the 
National Parliament, a deputy arose to say, “ One ounce of the good 
sense ot Lutlier is worth here more than all the volumes that have 
neen published to conciliate Catholicism with civil sovereignty; and 
of this I am most firmly convinced, notwithstanding the opinion of 
the orator, De Masino, and I accept willingly the opprobrium that 1 
may have to bear, since I shall divide it with millions of learned and 
virtuous non-Catholics I am constrained to envy, whatever mav be 
his opinion. And, therefore, I who have so much admired the logic 
and philosophic discourse of the honorable friend Bosio, in this alone 
I cannot agree with him : that incredulity may, in the efficacy of a 
moral recomposition of the nation, supply the want of the method of 
Luther. Every one of us knows that whatever man, even the great- 
est saint in doctrine and conduct, has had the desire in the^nost 
benevolent manner to offer some idea of reformation to the papacy, 
has met the fate of Arnaldo da Brescia, Savonarola, Aonio Paleario. 
A moderate Catholicism, after the ideal of Manzoni, of Cavour, 
and even that sought after by the great moderate journals, is repu- 
diated and detested as mucli as a heretic doctrine, and it is destined, 
alas ! to perpetuate the ambiguity and the moral inferiority of the 
people who maintain it. Of this inferiority of Catholic nations you 
have heard the proofs day before yesterday in the very learned dis- 
course of the Hon. Petruccelli. 

In fact, the day before only, Hon. P. della Gattina had made the 
apology of the Protestant nations as compared with the Catholic in a 
speech remarkable for the clearness and force of his arguments, and 
concluded with the sentence which reassumed all he had previously 
said: “In the Catholic countries, then, everything is inferior to the 
Protestant; moral, science, conscience, individual activity.” But 
does that mean that the Hon. Majocchi, Hon. P. della Gattina, and 
others like them, who are anxious to rid themselves of the Papal sur- 
roundings, and would put the nations upon the way of independence 
and civilization, will become Protestants? We may be at least per- 
mitted to doubt this. Hence, this ironic comment published in a 
political newspaper of Rome; “Look at these new Luthers and 
Zwingles in miniature ! They preach the reformation of a faith they 
do not feel they need for themselves. The religious renovation of 
Italy cannot be the work of espriis fortsN It may be worth while to 
add here as a characteristic, that the critic is one of those Jews who 
in Italy, as elsewhere, do harm to public opinion. Moreover, this 
})henomenon seen in Italy is not a mere caprice, but it has a deej) 
reason for its existence: the phenomenon of free-thinking, which 
opens the way to a faith to come, perhaps to Christian ism of Protes- 
tant form, so long as it can throw off the scent the ferocious wolf 
whicn, after the long repast, “ Ha pici fame di pria ” (is more hungry 
than before). — Dante, I will choose to make this more forcible by 
two examples in Naples, the birth-place of philosophers are not 
lazzaroni. 


856 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Firstly. I will speak of Bonghi, one of our most learned and intel- 
ligent professors, and of late years better known as a publisher, and 
among the leaders of our moderate politicians. If you ask me con- 
cerning his faith, I must answer that he is a sceptic. And yet under 
the incubus of political and social life, this scepticism does not exclude 
a surprising intuition of our necessities. Listen to a few words spoken 
by Bonghi, in the Deputy Chamber, some few years ago: “Our 
speeches are in vain ; the Catholic Church is a moral power, I believe, 
following a bad road ; but this Church thus under way will not be 
defeated by our addresses and our laws. You need to inculcate in 
your hearts a faith of some kind, a faith in nothing, if no more, but 
you want even this. You must have a positive establishment and a 
firm belief, otherwise you will be powerless before this ancient estab- 
lishment, this ancient belief. Such a great moral power so rooted, is 
not put to flight, is not eradicated until it is surrounded by a flame 
burning about it, until a word shall be heard that will take its place ; 
but there must be a flame, there must be a word, and here the flame is 
wanting, the word is not heard.” 

Now this intuition is transformed in high and ardent aspiration, as 
sliown by the following words written not long ago, by Bonghi : “'Bo- 
day the breath of life reaches us from no direction, though there cer- 
tainly is a certain inquietude of mind, and a sometimes anxious ex- 
jiectation. With what love, what obstinate faith, what piety, what 
tears would not again be received a man whose every word, as once 
that of Christ — evangelist. Saviour, grace, peace, refreshing water, 
bread of life — is full of promise and joy. I come, said he, that ye 
might have life, and ye have it in a greater measure; come unto me 
and ye shall find rest unto your souls; I speak that my joy may be 
accomplished in my disciples. For the second time, a ‘Son of 
Peace ' should come and say with efficacious accents, that his mission 
consists in leading back his faithful in ‘ the paths of peace,’ and to 
indicate the way. And in that, in this life-giving word would be the 
true consummation and crowning of the liberal doctrines, and the 
])urifying of all they have of vague, of varied, of contradictory and of 
flat. But an innovation of that kind is not in our hands, but in the 
hands of God, or what amounts to the same thing, it behooves us to 
mark the time for it at the opportune moment of the progressive de- 
velopment of the divine nature in the human conscience.” 

One more example. Here is R. Mariano, one of the most worthy of 
our young thinkers. According to him it is important that the relig- 
ious problem be solved if we desire to progress. But how does he 
wish to solve it? Lately he published a very profound, critical and 
positive work, entitled : “ Christianity, Catholicism and Civilization.” 
It is already translated into German, and we consider it as a sign of 
the times. I will select fi-om that work only these few words, which 
are worth many : “ That a religious regeneration should burst forth 
from the very bosom of the Catholic clergy, as some think, or from 
the reawakening and the needs of the laity and the civil society, this, 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


857 

to a certain extent, is of secondary importance. The essential is that 
it burst ; and sooner or later it must burst. This Italy cannot live 
and maintain itself any length of time without religion. But its 
Catholicism is not a religion — Catholicism creates ignorance, extin- 
guishes morality, destroys the conscience. Hence, the dilemma is ter- 
rible, fatal ; to die, or to abandon Catholicism. If I condemn Papacy 
and Catholicism, it is because reason and history compel me. They 
represent a degraded and deteriorated ideal. But condemning them, 
I do not condemn religion. I speak instead in the name of religion, 
of a piety strictly Christian. And, if I ihrust back the papal clergy, 
it is because I wish for a national clergy, and I long for the Church of 
the gospel. ’ ’ 

Ihese voices still preach in the desert, but they are already heard 
by many, and, as in the days of the first appearance of Christ, many 
souls are “ waiting for the consolation,” and many of our aged people 
would willingly leave this life, if they could exclaim with Simeon : 
“ Mine eyes have seen thy salvation, a light to lighten the Gentiles.” 
One of those who entered Rome by the breach of Porta Pia, and was 
first Minister-President of the United Kingdom of Italy, was writing 
but a little while since: “ I hold firmly that the gospel contains the 
germs of an almost infinite civil and humanitarian progress. This 
divine book, that proclaimed the abolition of slavery, universal brother- 
hood, [)eace on earth, the obligation of giving to the poor of the 
superabundance, etc., must have the virtue to satisfy all the claims of 
the most perfect civilization, and to be the credo of all humanity. 
We only want the apostle who knows how to bring back to life those 
holy doctrines of Christian faith, and predispose the religious feeling 
of our people to receive them. I am confident that when the time 
shall have come, he will appear. Meanwhile, we are crossing the 
period of pre])aration, and they do a meritorious work, who,, gifted 
with talent and wholesome doctrine, strive to instruct and educate the 
people, to revive religious sentiment, without which nothing great 
will be accomplished.” 

You see that slowly but progressively the minds are working, and 
it may be asked : Shall we have a Catholic or an Evangelical reforma- 
tion ? Catholic reformation thus far, has no well-founded hope. You 
know how the neo-Catholic movement ended at Naples ; it spent itself 
apparently in the laborious election of its Bishop who did not succeed 
in getting togetlier his electors. Here and there curates have been 
nominated by the people; even a parish withdrew from the papal 
jurisdiction to place itself upon a free footing, under the direct pro- 
tection of civil law. But these efforts remain isolated, without conse- 
quence. Why? Because the sap is wanting in the old tree of the 
hierarchy, and the soil of the Church is exhausted. I prove this with 
the very words of our most independent minds. “ Ours is a wearied 
.soil,” .says Bonghi, and the philosopher Namiani adds: ‘‘ J have not 
the slightest hope to see any new branch shoot out of the old Catholic 
trunk.” Here is, moreover, a very significant fact, that will prove 


858 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

to you these assertions are not exaggerated. You know the evolution 
of P. Ciirci, who formerly defended to the utmost the temporal power 
of the Pope, and to-day the voluntary herald of Spiritual Papacy. 
Since the fall of his idol, /. e., since 1870, he has given himself up to 
the meditation of the sacred books of the New Testament, which he 
translates and comments upon. What happened ? Expelled from 
the order of the Jesuits, he owes it to the personal clemency of Leo 
XIII. not to be excommunicated from the Church. He retired to 
Naples, his native city, and I believe he says in his heart; “to see 
Naples and then die ” — veder Napoli poi morire. Let us gather the 
words which resume the first phase of his life. “ I'he holy gospel i.s 
not read, perhaps not even known by many Christians ; now it is 
sufficient that many should make use of this means (perliaps the most 
capable to reawaken the souls and to infuse into them Christian feel- 
ing), and many should consent to it, to induce others to use it. 
Nearly ten years ago, seeing that the religious interests were growing 
worse and worse among us, not because of the revolution only, and 
hoping nothing better for the future, I was strongly impressed, I un- 
derstood, and said that in the condition in which we were, either 
there was no salvation for the present generation, or it could be found 
only by returning to Christ and his gospel, the leaving of which has 
led us to this pass.” 

Now, what of this Curci, and how was his zeal for the dissemination 
of the Sacred Scriptures received in the bosom of the Romish Church i‘ 
Curci lives more secluded than he ever did in convent. He is 
abandoned of all. Hear these sad words of the solitaire of Naples; 
“ It was for me the worst possible sign not to have found a soul that 
showed approbation of the thought in itself, and let us say it at the 
beginning ; not even in a dream ! It was surprising that I was not 
molested ; but open spites were not wanting, nor dark grumblings 
against the innovation that is to have the gospel read and explained 
from the pulpit ! even to see in that a tendency to Protestantism ! 
Put I rejoice to think that the reading of the gospel, done in secret 
by simple people, who, knowing little and suspecting nothing of dis- 
tinctions between Catholics, heretics and schismatics, seek fiiithfullv 
for the truth, may, by the help of grace, implant in their souls a true 
faith in Jesus Christ ; which faith, binding them in spirit, if not bodily, 
to the Church, will enable them to obtain eternal life, rather than 
many Catholics of baptism only, who never thought of informing 
themselves, were it only for simple historical curiosity, as to who was, 
after all, this Jesus Christ in whom they profess, and perhaps even 
think to believe.” 

Bi tter words, clearly showing the disenchantment of one who thought 
possible a Catholic reformation. No; such a reformation, born to- 
day, would soon be denied by its very promoters because irreconcil- 
able with Papacy. Remember that Cardinal Caraffa wanted it in the 
sixteenth century ; hardly had he ascended the pontifical throne than 
he betrayed it; as did Pius IX. with Italy, first blessed by him, then 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 859 

excommunicated to all eternity. Therefore, welcome to the evangeli- 
cal mission ; it is opportune, neither will you refuse to put faith in 
my words if 1 tell you that in the midst of the indifference that is but 
too truly the atmosphere in which it moves, yet it takes root and 
spreads gradually. 

You may have heard about Italian mission the grossest and strangest 
news; now to exalt it in the person of certain individuals who pass 
themselves for its representatives, more or less exclusively, while it is 
clear ^hat they emulate la mouche du cache of La Fontaine; now to 
lower ;it and make themselves noticeable with a criticism not only un- 
generous but ridiculous. If I mistake not. to the too easy illusions 
has succeeded a certain diffidence, and we see from the optimism of 
certain reports arise pessimism in the mind of him who has not abso- 
lutely stopped reading them. Avoiding as much as I can extremes 
whiclr succeed each other and perpetuate themselves to the harm of 
the mission in question, I dare to state that the truth is comfortinsr. 
I will take cne or twq examples, and then I will give place to more 
authentic statistics. 

Do you know how many Italian Evangelical churches there were 
the first year of our liberty, that is, in 1848? There were fifteen ; all 
enclosed in the three little valleys of Piedmont. Now the Waldensian 
Church alone numbers more than fifty, without counting the little 
stations and other places visited ; if you add to these the other con- 
gregations belonging to six other denominations, we will have con- 
siderably more than a hundred. If you count the French, Swiss, 
German, English and American Protestant communities, you will 
have, I believe, about one hundred and fifty. 

Another significant feature is that of the schools, especially of the 
Sabbath-schools. The Rev. Dr. Cushing, who saw Italy through the 
windows of our railroad cars, dared to write last year, in date of Jan- 
uary 2 2d, to the Westerfi Christian Advocate of Cincinnati, these 
very words : “ There are not more than half a dozen regular mission- 
aries in all Italy,” and he speaks of us as of a people who “ know very 
little about Sunday-school work.” Now then, the first time it will 
please Dr. Cushing to return to Florence, I will show him in that city 
alone, at least 1,000 children divided off into half a dozen Sabbath- 
schools, in which the pastors have little or nothing to look after. It 
is well known that nine-tenths of them a:e Catholics and sons of 
Catholics. As for the other cities and provinces, I will only say that 
there is no church without one or more Sabbath-schools, directed in 
such a manner that an American would feel perfectly at home, as I 
thought to be at home some weeks ago in a Sunday-school in Massa- 
chusetts. These churches and schools grow notwithstancling the 
malediction of the Pope, whom our people do not fear or care for, to 
tell the truth. 

But, as I said, I will now let the last published official statistics 
speak for themselves ; 


86o 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 



6 




Besides, 33 foreign Protestant Churches, some Independent Schools and Asylums, 2 foreign Societies of' 
portage, 10 Newspapers. 



SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 861 

Such are the results as per official reports. But who can determine 
the secret influence of the gospel in the hearts and in public opinion? 
Lvery evangelist preaches to hundreds of souls ; some to thousands 
Mho surround and sometimes almost hide the little nucleus of com- 
municants. I believe for instance that I may say that, for ten persons 
who unite vvith our churches, there are a thoroand who content them- 
selves with listening at intervals more or less distant. And why is 

ms thus? 1 he greatest reason is found in the parable of the sower 

u there remains, I think, a confession to be made, and it is this! 
l aly deserved, that before beginning to evangelize, the various 
Shurches should have concerted together to do, if not a work in com- 
mon, at least not a sectarian one, so varied and even inharmonious as 
not to respond exactly to the conception of unity, or of beauty, a 
thing that partakes of the nature of Italians. Whoever goes out 
ot the Catholic Church, rather than to enter in a little church, will 
stay in the open air, as the most cultured and intelligent are inclined 
to do, in whose mind the national di.si)osition is more clearly reflected 
Let 113 admit fully the principle of liberty, from which orimnae the 
various ecclesiastical forms; but, if certain forms are natural, historical 
elsewhere, is that a reason why they should be adapted to (he nature 
of Italians? For instance, what do you think of the Sabbatarians 
that have come to Naples to teach us that we should rest on Saturday ? 
Ii all ambitions, individual and denominational, were joined in this 
one, “ to wish to know nothing but Christ,” and, further, “ to preach 
the gospel, not where Christ was named, and not to build on another 
man s foundation’' (Rom. xv. 20), it is beyond the question of a 
doubt that we would respond in that manner to the more or less un- 
conscious aspirations of the Italian nation— that is neither one of 
pagans nor of barbarians, and we would soon have the spectacle of 
a nation, “Rinovellata di novella fronda ” (Renewed with new 
branches). Dante. Meanwhile, since experience is necessary to us 
let us hope that it will teach us, and that the first fruits already 
gathered m this our mission may be the signs of abundant harvests. 

One word more : 

God it is who most manifestly works in Italy, not m.en. Hi? 
providence is palpable not only in the works of his wondrous creation, 
which sin and error have in vain attempted to ruin, but in a special 
way in the merciful preservation of the Waldensian people, and in 
the miraculous restoration of our present liberties. And where God 
works so evidently, there is an aim, there is a future, and there is for 
us a duty. If God is for us, who will be against us? We will see 
that the mountains shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be 
made straight and his name will reign. Besides, God is master of 
(Bternus. Every good seed will give fruit, but in 
its season. I here are no machines to plow, nor to sow, nor to reap 
in the field of truth. oremus et laboremus. See, to-day, 

who is it that triumphs at Rome? Arnaldo da Brescia, but after 
seven centuries of expectation. Indeed, the army of the pope is 


862 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


greater in comparison, while the evangelicals are a little company. 
But look on high to the standards ; that of the pope now reigning has 
one star, but 1 know another that has seven, and says ; Lux lucet in 
ienebris ; higher still, and who do I see ? Christ, who says : “ Fear not, 
little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the 
kingdom.” Luke xii. 32. 

The Rev. Leonard Anet, of Brussels, then addressed the 
Council on 

THE CHURCH IN BELGIUM. * 

At the request of the Programme Committee I prepared a paper 
upon the question of Romanism and the school question in Belgium ; 
and I am very happy to say, and you will doubtless be as happy to 
hear, that the paper has gone into the hands of the printer and I can- 
not read it. The Business Committee was kind enough to save you 
the trouble of listening to my paper. But I ask your permission to 
say a few words about our Church in Belgium. 

The Church I have the honor to represent here is very young, 
almost the youngest of our Alliance ; though I think sometimes she is 
the oldest. This is seemingly a contradiction, but I am sure, after 
two minutes of patience, you will agree with me. In the sixteenth 
century the gospel was preached in Belgium, in all our cities and 
towns, and not only was it preached there, but it was accepted by all 
the people. Congregations were assembled. In 1561 the ministers 
and elders of those congregations met together at Antwerp and 
created a Presbyterian organization and a Confession of Faith. That 
confession of faith, if it is not one of the best, at least is one of the 
most earnest, confessions of faith of the sixteenth century. It was 
adopted by the Synod. It is the confession of faith of the Reformed 
Dutch Church, and I beg you to remember that it originated in Bel- 
gium. It was sent to Philip the Second of Spain with an application 
to obtain freedom of worship. He answered in such a way that the 
Church was put to death by tortures, by fire and by sword, and not a 
single member, not a single child, of that Church remained on the 
soil of Belgium. 

A dear old friend of mine said to me a few days ago that our old 
creed grew up through fire and blood. The confession of faith of 
our fathers was the first that passed through blood* and fire. The 
blood of our fathers in that century has been the baptism of that con- 
fession of faith, and if there is any creed that has passed through fire 
and blood it is our confession, the first before all. And from that time 
the Church was immured in the tomb for ages. Then at the end of 
the third century, or at the end of the third day, just as you may call 
it, she heard the voice of her Redeemer and rose from the dead. In 
1848, after ten years of labor among the Romanists, we got a Presby- 
terian organization, and we adopted the very confession of faith of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


863 

our flithers with the motto, “Be faithful unto death.” We have the 
same confession of faith, and we do not forget that its standard was 
baptized by the blood of our fathers. All the members of our Church 
have been brought out from the Church of Rome by the united power 
of the gospel and the Holy Ghost, just as was the case with our fathers 
in the sixteenth century. 

It will thus be seen that our Church is the same Church as the 
Church of the sixteenth century. She appears younger, and in her 
new garments she seems to be something different, but she has the 
same faith,^ the same organization, the same spirit, the same Saviour, 
the same God, and I may say the same life. She trusts in the Lord 
that the time will come in which all the children of Benjamin will be 
gathered into her tent. We work for that great end, and I am sure 
that you will earnestly pray for us and for that young girl, our 
Church, who is growing with every year. I hope that she will be- 
come by the blessing of God more vigorous and stronger than her 
mother. 

The prepared paper of M. Anet will be found in the Appendix, 
p. 929. 

A MESSAGE FROM FRANCE. 

Dr. Prime. — I desire, in a few words, to state to the audience 
the circumstances under which we are favored to-night in receiv- 
ing a deputation from the Protestants of France. A few years 
ago, in the midst of the great conflict between popery and 
Protestantism in that country, a distinguished lawyer, author 
and journalist, came to the front, and by his eloquence and his 
power as a reasoner and speaker awakened extensive attention 
throughout that country, and held vast audiences thrilled by his 
utterances. By and by, in the midst of this war, it pleased God 
to touch his heart with divine grace, and he became not only a 
political opponent of the papal power, but also a child of God, 
a follower of Christ, and an earnest advocate of the cause of true 
religion. The Protestants of France have desired this distin- 
guished gentleman to come to America for the purpose of in- 
forming us in regard to the progress of the truth in that country 
to which we are so ardently attached by national ties, and in 
which we are so much interested. We regret, and he also does, 
that he cannot speak our language. Oh ! for the gift of tongues ; 
but we have it not. A young servant of God connected with 
the MacAll Mission in Paris, the Rev. George Theophilus Dodds, 


864 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


a son-in-law of a well-known friend, the Rev. Dr. Bonar, of 
Edinburgh, comes with him as a delegate to this Council from 
the Free Church of France. These gentlemen will both address 
us, the one in French and the other in English. The first gen- 
tleman will speak now for the first time to an American audi- 
ence ; and it is one of the most interesting providences connected 
with this great Council that just at the close of our sessions 
these beloved brothers should arrive on our shores, and come to 
this city, and have 'their first appearance in this country greeted 
by such a Council and such an assemblage as this. I now have 
the pleasure of introducing to you Mons. Eugc^ne Rcveillaud 
and the Rev. George Theophilus Dodds of Paris. 

Mons. R6veillaud spoke as follows in P'rencli, and was inter- 
preted sentence by sentence in English by Mr. Dodds : 

If I cannot speak to yon in your own language I should like you to 
understand that it is not through any lack of respect, but through a 
lack of custom. The time no longer exists when even in PVance it is 
possible to despise language. Every one in France is required to 
have at least a knowledge of one foreign language, and we (’annot afford 
to despise the language of Shakspeare and of Longfellow. At this day 
the smallest boy in our colleges must be able to speak a foreign tongue, 
and in referring to myself I must say that I have profited at least a 
little from the lessons I received from my English professor. Of the 
lessons which I received I remember, at leiist, two words wlfie.h are 
perhaps more American than English, and they are words with 
which one can travel from the east to the west of your great conti- 
nent. Those words are “all right” and “go ahead.” Therefore 
understand, dear friends, that it is not the language of your country 
which I despise, but it is a want of habit which prevents me from 
speaking your tongue. Yes, I respect your great tongue too much to 
have a desire to spoil it by an attempt to address these remarks to you 
in it. 

You have already been told of the special object wc have in coming 
to Ameri('a. I come to plead before you the cause of the holy 
war of religious independence waging in our country; and it is a 
joy for me to speak here in the city of Pldladelphia from whence 
Franklin set sail for France, and where for the first time was rung the 
bell tliat proclaimed the independence of the United States. There 
are two bells that are celebrated in history. 'Phe one is the bell 
which was rung in a church in Paris, St. Germain I’Auxerrois, and 
which tolled the beginning of the massacre of the Hugu-mots. The 
other is the Protestant bell that proclaimed the independence of the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


865 

United States of America. For a hundred years these two bells have 
rung together. A little time since the Protestant bell begun to gain 
the upper hand over the Roman Catholic bell ; and when the time 
shall have gained a final victory antichrist 

will be destroyed. 

It has been to me a great joy to be present here at the sittings of 
this great Council, and to see before me the realization of the idea 
which once struck Calvin, and which he attempted to realize in his 
tnoughts— the idea of a great Council of the Presbyterian and Prot- 
estant bodies of the world meeting together. For three hundred years 
one waited in vain for the realization of that great idea. The 
providence of God reserved for this century that realization of it 
which took place at the very time when the Vatican Council was 
promulgating its decrees. One can now see that just at that time 
when the Vatican Council met together, there really had come about 
a downfall of the Roman rule and an awakening of the realization of 
the Protestant idea; and you are realizing to-day in this great Council 
the oecurnenicity of the faith of Jesus Christ. 

I have the honor to represent before you this evening some of the 
old Churches of what we call the desert of France. They are the 
Churches which have given to the Lord the martyrs of St. Bartholomew^ 
and the dragonnades of Louis the Fourteenth, and which have sent their 
exiles to every shore of the habitable globe. Louis the Fourteeniih 
commanded the destruction of the temples wherein they worshipped 
God, and when he had sent them to the ends of the earth, he caused 
a medal to be struck with the device, “ Destruction to the Heretics; ’ " 
but this edict of Louis the Fourteenth was not carried out. They 
were not destroyed. One hundred years after, the National Assembly 
opened their doors in France. Whom did they name for their pastor? 
It was none other than the son of one of those very pastoxs, and that 
man as he went up the steps to the throne of the president said, “ We 
are the sons of a great people.” Louis the Fourteenth thought that 
he had exterminated this great people; and yet at this very day, 
and in that very palace, even at the very doors that Louis the P'our- 
teenth endeavored permanently to close, can be. heard the Psalms of 
the old Huguenots ^ung to the praise of God. 

You may well believe that the terrible persecutions to which the 
Christians in France were subjected have left their effect upon our 
country. The Church has come back to life, but in what position 
has it found itself? It is in the position of that poor man, wounded, 
bruised and lying on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, who was 
rescued by the rich Samaritan, dbe Scriptures teach us that the poor 
man came back to life. He needed the saving oil to be poured , into 
his wounds, and the care of the good Samaritan. What I ask of you 
this night is that you should be a good Samaritan to our poor France. 

Reproaches have been made against the French Church because it 
has not been able to meet the wants of the people in regard to e van- 
55 


866 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


gelization ; but those reproaches will fall by the wayside if you will 
only listen to my speaking to you in relation to two facts. The first 
is the present position of France after the persecutions of two centuries ; 
and the second is the present position of French Protestantism. The 
French Church has suffered from something far worse than the perse- 
cutions of Louis XIV. She has suffered from the pestilential wind 
of infidelity that blew fierce upon it. The worst of all the wounds 
inflicted upon her is presented in the fact that, at the beginning of 
this century, there should be found in the Reformed Church a French 
pastor who knew nothing whatever of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But 
a revival, thank God, has taken place, and infidelity has been con- 
quered ; and on the very day that the faith came back to the Church 
religious activity became stimulated. Since the year 1820 three 
societies of evangelists have been founded in France, two Bible 
societies, and the French missionary society of which you have a 
worthy representative in the person of Mons. Mabille, from Basuto 
Land, who addressed you the other evening. That noble man has 
founded thirty missionary stations in that district, and through- 
out the whole of that country he has opened up gates for the en- 
trance of the gospel which is destined to stretch across that great 
continent. 

I do not include in this work which has been done in France, the 
benevolent societies which exist there for the orphans, nor other charit- 
able institutions and asylums. I desire to lay before you one fact 
which will give you a good idea of the living power of tbe Protestant- 
ism of the Church of France. A society has been founded for the 
purpose of extending assistance to those who receive very small sala- 
ries. It is devoted to the collection of what you would call pennies. 
When there was to be a partition of the income of that society, there 
were found no less than thirty societies who came to ask for their pro- 
portion. Thus you can readily see that this activity of the Church of 
France is a real fact, and that the power which it has manifested is 
something of great importance. 

I desire to say, however, that we find • ourselves to-day in a new 
position, and under circumstances which are quite peculiar. We do 
not hide our eyes to the fact that we need generous efforts. We ask 
you here, in this country, to put your shoulders together and help to 
discharge a portion of what I may say is your duty and privilege. 
We are now just exactly in the position of Simon Peter and the other 
apostles, at the time when the miraculous draught of fishes occurred. 
The Lord has allowed us for many centuries to cast our net into the 
sea, but we have caught nothing, and he has now said to us, ‘‘ Cast 
in the net.” We have cast in the net and are drawing it to the shore, 
but we have found in its meshes such a quantity of fishes that the net 
is beginning to break, and to our lips there come the words which 
came from the lips of the disciples, “ Come and help us.” The ac- 
count in the gospel says that at this request of the disciples, the others 


867 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

came. Shall it be said that we have shown to you our great needs 
have shown to you also that the net is about to break, and that 
America did not come to our assistance ? 

I will now bring before you some facts which are more eloquent 
than any words I can address you. I have been for about three years 
one of the Rev. Mr. MacAll’s chief assistants. You know very well 
the story of the work of faith which he performed, and how, after 
having been spoken to by a workman in one of the streets of France, 
he came to Paris at the request and entreaty of this workman to speak 
of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He came not alone j his brave wife 
came along with him. When he reached Paris he had no knowledge 
of the French language at all, and when he did speak it, it was with 
the same imperfection that characterizes my attempts with the English 
language. He entered those quarters of Paris which are full of mis- 
ery and degradation, and wherein one can hardly believe there exists 
a soul. He went to those people and showed them there was an im- 
mortal soul by opening up his own soul to them. And now through- 
out that whole city, even extending to its very centre, there are*no 
less than twenty-three meeting places. The gospel of truth is preached 
once or twice, and sometimes even seven times, during the day in 
those meeting places in Paris. The halls are always full, and the 
workmen and the industrious classes are the very first to bear witness 
to the good they have received in those meetings. In every quarter 
of Paris, even though it is well known that his is a Protestant work, 
the name of Mr. MacAll is venerated and blessed. There is a great 
society in France called the Society for the Encouragement of Good 
Deeds. When, two years ago, it was anxious to add another to the 
list of those who possessed its medal of honor, the name of Mr. MacAll 
was selected, and to his button-hole they affixed the medal. 

It is well known that evil is not alone in its power of spreading' 
contagion, but that good can also exert a powerful influence. So we 
find that the result of the efforts of Mr. MacAll in the heart of Paris 
has extended beyond the scene of his personal exertions, and that now 
the outlying districts and towns of France are being covered by similar 
prayer meetings. Five halls have been opened at Lyons ; others at 
La Rochelle and Bordeaux ; besides in many other places which I 
have forgotten. Even in Marseilles five prayer-meetings were held in 
mid winter, which is a time of year when the citizens are very unwill- 
ing to come out of doors ; and yet those meeting places have been 
filled with worshippers. 

I can say that I am the lowest of these evangelists. In fact, I can 
repeat the words of the apostle, and say that I am not worthy to be' 
called an evangelist, and that I have been born out of due time ; and 
yet what do I see ! In forty towns of France, as well as in many out- 
lying districts, tl'K; grace of God has given me an opportunity to go 
and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have preached the gospel 
in theatres, and in hialls as beautiful as this, though not so great. I 


863 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


have preached the gospel in taverns ; I have preached it in ball- 
rooms ; I have preached it in Catholic schools, for you must remem- 
ber that in France we are still under the power of the Church in regard 
to education. I have, however, been less fortunate than one of my 
friends in the work, who had the great good fortune to preach the 
gospel in a Roman Catholic church — a church long established for 
the purpose of religious worship according to the Roman Catholic 
rites. 

You can form some idea of the state of religious fervor in which 
France is to-day, and of the multitudes in the country and the towns who 
are being detached from Romanism, when I tell you that not long ago 
I read a petition from a number of inhabitants residing in one of the 
departments asking that a Roman Catholic church might be turned 
into a place of worship according to the Protestant faith. This may 
seem a little curious, but the immense proportion of the municipal 
bodies in France would do the same thing if the opportunity was af- 
forded them. There is, however, a piece of information I have to 
give you which is even more curious, and that is that the municipal 
council charged with the building of the church I have referred to, 
voted to give up the building as a Protestant place of worship. 

Without exaggeration, I can say of France what has already been 
said in this Council of other nations — not only that the Holy Spirit 
will come, but that the Holy Spirit is upon France. I do not want 
any other proof of this glorious fact than the applause, encouragement 
and enthusiasm which everywhere meet our evangelists and mission- 
aries as they go about preaching the gospel of peace. Eight months 
ago a Catholic priest wrote to me requesting that I should visit his 
manse for the purpose of preaching there. It was in a little village. 
When I went there, I found gathered about thirty fathers and mothers 
with their families. At the end of the service they came forward and 
.said to the priest, “Go on, and we will follow you.” The priest, 
after having gone a certain length, returned like the dog to his vomit ; 
but these thirty fathers and motners remained faithful to their promise. 
Not long ago I received an invitation to preach ; and at the end of 
the meeting, out of the 2,000 or 3,000 people present, no less than 
200 heads of families came and signed the declaration that they wished 
to belong to the Christian Church — the Church of Jesus Christ founded 
upon him. Upon another occasion, in another place not far from 
Paris, the Rev. Dr. Hitchcock and the Rev. Mr. Newell went with 
me to confirm the impression I had received from preaching there, 
that the gospel was making its way among the people in that locality. 
Mr. Newell could tell you of the enthusiastic manner in which the 
few words he spoke to them of the gospel of Christ were received. 

I wish to thank you for listening to my remarks, and, as I do not 
wish to prolong them, I can only add that France is ready to receive 
the gospel in all her villages, in all her towns, and even in her most 
bigoted Catholic districts. The three great societies of France, which 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


86 () 

were founded some years ago, have done and are doing all they possi- 
bly can to meet the pressing needs of the people of France, but they 
have not done all that the Lord has called them to do, and that is 
why we come and call out to you, “Come to our help.” That is 
why we say to you we have need of your prayers, need of your sym- 
pathy, need of your missionaries; and also we need your money. In 
one of the proverbs of Italy we read of the spread of information by 
means of a runner who, taking a torch in one hand, sped on with the 
news, and, when exhausted, passed it to another who carried it still 
further on. This is the way in which Christianity has spread the gospel. 
It has passed the flaming torch from the East to the West. From Jeru- 
salem it has been passed to Greece ; from Greece to Italy ; from Italy 
to France; and from France to other countries. It was only the 
darkness which fights with the light that assisted for a long time in 
obscuring that torch ; and, therefore, you must bring back the torch 
to us in France, and then we shall pass it on to Italy ; Italy shall pass 
it on to Greece ; Greece shall pass it on to Jerusalem, and the power 
of Christianity shall be felt in all the high places of darkness and 
superstition. Then glorious shall be the day when the gospel of 
Jesus Christ shall be proclaimed, and he shall reign throughout the 
whole earth. 

In concluding this address, M. Reveillaud added, in English : 
“Brethren, God bless this Council; and advance his kingdom 
through the alliance of France and America.” 

The Rev. John Marshall Lang, D. D. — An opportunity is 
afforded us this evening, in the presence of this vast assemblage, 
of testifying in some special way our gratitude to the distin- 
guished brethren from foreign lands who have addressed the 
Council. I am sure it was worth while to come three thousand 
miles across the Atlantic to listen to the addresses we have 
heard this evening; and I think, without seeming invidious, I 
may say that the interest of this vast audience concentrated 
mainly upon the wonderfully stirring address just delivered by 
Mons. Reveillaud. I am sure I am interpreting the thought of 
every person present, when I say that we ought not to part 
without specially asking our beloved and honored friends to 
accept our warmest wishes, our hearty God-speed in their good 
work, and our pledge and assurance that we will remember them 
in our prayers, and help them with our means. 

The Rev. Principal John Cairns, D. D. — The thought has 
occurred to my mind that, inasmuch as so many of us who have 


870 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


had the pleasure and delight of being in this meeting are going 
away, and there cannot possibly be such a meeting to-morrow as 
we have here to-night, it might be well — though, perhaps, antici- 
pating the action of the Council to-morrow — by a rising vote to 
tender our thanks to the people of Philadelphia — Christian peo- 
ple, Presbyterians and others— who have so nobly received 
and entertained and encouraged the Council. I think we shall 
not do justice to the greatness of this occasion, if, at this hour, 
when undoubtedly the largest meeting of the Council is being 
held, or can be held in connection with it, we do not by a rising 
vote return our inexpressible thanks to our dear friends, the 
.brethren and sisters in Philadelphia. 

The suggestion was agreed to, and then the Council adjourned, 
with devotional exercises, until to-morrow morning. 


NINTH DAY’S SESSION. 

Saturday, October 2d, 1 880. 

The Council was Called to order at 10 o’clock, by the Rev. 
Prof. D. R. Kerr, D. D., President. 

After devotional services, the minutes of yesterday were read 
and approved. 

The President. — This session is to be devoted to what is 
termed miscellaneous business, in which the Council is to de- 
clare its conclusions, and to adopt measures for the furtherance 
of the objects of the Alliance. I hope each part of this busi- 
ness as it comes up will receive close attention, that there will be 
no unnecessary delay, and that we will go along in good order. 

BIBLE REVISION. 

The Rev. Prof. Calderwood. — I have now to submit from 
the Business Committee certain resolutions which were prepared 
yesterday. The Business Committee is still in session, under 
the chairmanship cf Dr. Prime, who will submit the remaining 
resolutions as they are prepared this morning. The first of the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


871 

resolutions is that bearing upon the revision of the Bible. After 
very careful consideration and discussion, the committee resolved 
to recommend that no action be taken until the work be pub- 
lished. The desire of the committee is, to secure that there 
should not be called for from the Council any expression of 
opinion as long as we have not the revision itself published. 

The recommendation was agreed to. 

RULES OF ORDER. 

Dr. Calderwood. — The second resolution has reference to the 
rules of procedure, or parliamentary rules for the guidance of 
future Councils. After consideration, your committee resolved 
to recommend that there should be appointed a committee to 
prepare such rules, and that the committee consist of the follow- 
ing: Drs. Prime, Jenkins, Rainey, Rev. R. N. Edgar, Justice 
Strong and William J. Menzies, Esq., of Edinburgh, with the 
clerks. 

The recommendation was agreed to, and the nominations of 
the committee confirmed. 

PROGRAMME. 

Dr. Calderwood. — The third subject brought under the con- 
sideration of the committee, was concerning the programme for 
the next Council. The committee recommend that this be re- 
ferred to the Committee on Arrangements appointed in view of 
the next Council. 

The recommendation w'as agreed to. 

ADMISSIONS TO THE ALLIANCE. 

Dr. Calderwood. — The next point brought under considera- 
tion was that referring to the application for admissions to the 
Council. The committee resolved to recommend that a com- 
mittee on this subject be appointed, to consist of Principal 
McVicar, Drs. Cairns, Flint, Brown, Watts, Rainey, and Kerr, 
with Judge Strong and Francis BrOwn Douglas, Esq., as elders. 

The recommendation was agreed to. 


S72 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


HELPING CONTINENTAL CHURCHES. 

The Rev. Dr. Blaikie. — The Business Committee recommend 
the following on the modes of helping continental Churches : 
The Council approve of the report of the committee, and record 
their thanks to them for what they have done in the Waldensian 
pastors’ aid fund, and express their hope that that movement will 
be prosecuted to a close. They authorize the committee to take 
such steps as they may deem best to show sympathy with the 
Bohemian and Moravian Churches on the occasion of the cen- 
tenary of the Edict of Toleration next year. The Council re- 
solved that the committee shall consist of a European and an 
American section, to work in concert, as follows : The European 
committee — J. A. Campbell, Esq., LL. D., M. P., and David 
Maciagan, Esq., C. A., joint conveners ; Rev. Dr. John Marshall 
I-^ng, Rev. Dr. Blaikie, Rev. Dr. Robertson, Rev. Dr. Dykes, 
Rev. William Welsh, Rev. Dr. A. Thomson, Rev. John S. Mac- 
intosh, Rev. Dr. W. Gillies, James MacDonald, Esq. The 
American committee — Henry Day, Esq., chairman ; Rev. Dr. 
Breed, Rev. Dr. Murkland, Rev. Dr. Hall, of New York, Rev. 
Dr. VanNest, Hon. W. E. Dodge, Rev. Dr. Prime, William 
Neely, Esq., Rev. Dr. W. J. R. Taylor, Hon. Stanley Matthews. 

The report was agreed to. 

DESIDERATA OF PRESBYTERIAN HISTORY. 

Dr. Blaikie. — In reference to the “ Desiderata of Presbyte- 
rian History,” it is recommended that the Council approve of 
the report of the committee, and record their sense of the great 
loss sustained by the death of the late honored convener. Prin- 
cipal Lorimer, and the late Mr. David Laing, of Edinburgh. 
The Council remit the documents, to be completed and arranged, 
to the following committee: Prof. Mitchell, Principal Caven, 
Principal McVicar, Principal Cairns, Principal Rainey, Profs. 
Monod, Montauban, Balogh, Debreezen, Rev. Dr. Breed, Rev. 
Dr. McCook, Prof Green, Dr. Boggs, Dr. Matthews, Dr. 
Struthers, Dr. Wm. Graham, Dr. Apple, Dr. Boyce, Dr. Milli- 
gan, Dr. D. R. Kerr, T. W. Taylor, Esq., Toronto, Dr. George 
Smith, of Edinburgh. Professor Mitchell expressed his desire 


SECOND GENEEAL COUNCIL. 


873 

to be relieved from the convenership, but the Business Com- 
mittee thought his services were of so great value that they 
could not accede to his request, and reappointed him to that 
office. 

The recommendation was agreed to. 

THE STATISTICS. 

Dr. Blaikie. — The Committee on Statistics recommend that 
the Council discharge this committee, and remit to the clerks to 
complete the statistics now collected, that they may be published 
in the proceedings, and to make arrangements for more statis- 
tical information against the meeting of the next Council. They 
authorize them to suggest to churches that have no statistical 
committee the desirableness of such appointment, with view 
to more authentic and uniform statistical returns. It was 
thought best that the clerks should be intrusted with this branch 
of the work. On the first day of the Council, I brought up 
from them a report which was not complete. I hoped that 
during the proceedings we would be able to complete that report. 
There were some important returns which we had not received. 
We have not yet, however, received returns from some important 
churches in this country, though I had the hope that we should 
get them during the Council, so as to have completed the report. 

The recommendation of the committee was agreed to. 

COMMUNICATION WITH THE CHURCHES. 

Dr. Calderwood. — The Business Committee have had under 
consideration a plan to be suggested to the Council for uniform 
communication by the clerks with the several churches holding 
a place in the Alliance ; and they submit to you the following 
resolution : 

That the Council respectfully suggest to the several Churches in the 
Allicfnce the appointment of a small standing committee with whom 
the clerks of this Council may correspond ; and further, that the 
Council request the delegates present at this Council to bring this 
suggestion to the attention of the Churches they severally represent. 

If this be carried, it will fall to the convener of each delega- 


874 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


tion to submit to the Supreme Court of the Church this sug- 
gestion. 

The recommendation was agreed to. 

PERTH CONFERENCE. 

Dr. Calderwood. — The committee had referred to it a letter 
of congratulation and good wishes from the Perth Conference. 
In reference to that we suggest that this letter be acknowledged, 
with thanks from the Council, and that the acknowledgment be 
sent in the name of the Council by its clerks. The Council will 
remember that a communication came at an early period in the 
sitting from the conference which met at Perth, desiring that the 
divine blessing might descend upon us as a Council. The Busi- 
ness Committee think it well that we should take an account of 
such a communication, although not coming from a Church, but 
from a General Conference. 

The recommendation was agreed to. 

FREE CHURCH OF BRESLAU. 

Dr. Calderwood. — The committee next had laid upon its 
table a letter from the Free Church of Breslau. The letter bears 
upon the history of its Church, upon its wants, and very specially 
upon its conflict in Germany as to proper Sabbath observance. 
After consideration, the committee resolved to recommend that 
the friendly greeting of the Council be presented to this Church, 
and quo ad idtra that this letter be sent to the Committee on 
Continental Churches. 

The recommendation was agreed to. 

METHODIST CONFERENCE. 

Dr. Calderwood. — There was next laid before the committee 
a communication bearing upon the Methodist Conference to be 
held in London in i88i. The committee recommend that a 
letter conveying friendly greeting and good wishes be sent 
from this Council by the clerks, indicating our desire for the 
success of thai meeting. 

The recommendation was agreed to. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


875 


FINANCES. 

Dr. Calderwood. — The next step brings us to the question 
of finances, which will require some consideration from the 
Council. The committee, after a v'ery careful consideration, 
came to the conclusion that we had now reached a period in the 
history of the Council when it had become necessary to make 
some definite arrangement for the discharge of the business by 
our clerks, or by those who are to be employed under those 
clerks for carrying through the work. They have resolved to 
submit to the Council the following proposal bearing upon finan- 
cial arrangements: That $\,ooo be appropriated annually for the 
services of the clerks, in addition to their necessary expenses, 
until the meeting of the next Council, the sum to be appropri- 
ated under the direction of a committee. If this be approved, 
it is recommended that the committee consist of Henry Day, 
Esq., and Rev. Dr. Prime, of New York; Rev. Dr. Knox, of 
Belfast ; with Messrs. A. P. Niven, Esq., and James MacDonald, 
Esq., of Edinburgh — the object being to represent the Churches 
on both sides of the Atlantic. 

Dr. Wallace. — Where is the money to come from? 

Dr. Calderwood. — The committee have a scheme to submit 
to you as to the quarter from which the money is to come. The 
question submitted at present is, whether, being organized as we 
are, and having undertaken certain responsibilities with a large 
amount of work to do, we shall not at once decide that our 
clerks are to be paid for the work so done, and then arrange for 
the raising of money — which should be a very small matter, in- 
deed, for this Council. 

Dr. Wallace. — I respectfully suggest that the whole scheme 
of finance be read, before we vote upon any part of it. 

Dr. Calderwood. — The latter part has only now come into 
my hands. That was the part the committee was still con- 
sidering. It recommends, in addition, that this sum be 
raised, one-half in Europe and one-half in America, under the 
direction of said committee. 

T. C. Henry, Esq., of Philadelphia. — I hope there will be no 
hesitation about adopting that report of the Business Committee. 


876 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


In the first place, as Dr. Calderwood has properly said, there 
will be a good deal of business to be done by these clerks ; we 
cannot expect them to give their time and attention to it without 
some compensation. In the second place, this great Council 
cannot hesitate one moment about appropriating the small sum 
of ;^i,ooo. I think there can be no possible doubt, that if the 
amount was very much larger than that, it would be forthcoming 
without any debate or difficulty from those who are interested 
in the Council. 

Henry Day, Esq., of New York. — There seems to be a 
misunderstanding among some around me regarding the 
amount appropriated, whether it is ^1,000 for each of the 
clerks, or 1,000 for both of them. There is no doubt as 
to what the meaning of the committee is — that it is 1,000 for 
the services of both. They will have a vast deal of writing to 
do, correspondence with all other bodies and Christian people 
and missionary fields. 

The Rev. Dr. Robson, of Inverness. — I would suggest a verbal 
alteration in the resolution. It says “ that this sum be raised.” 
That might seem to imply simply the 1,000. But reference has 
been made to other expenses ; therefore that should be altered 
to be “that the requisite funds be raised.” 

Dr. Calderwood. — That is quite clearly a necessary altera- 
tion, as it is proposed to raise not merely the 1,000, but any 
additional expense — postage or travelling expenses, etc. — that 
may be necessary. 

Dr. Breed. — A resolution of the Council provides that a copy 
of the report of the proceedings be sent, at the expense of the 
Council, to every theological seminary in our Churche.s, and to 
every one of the programme writers. To provide for the ex- 
pense of that, money must be raised. 

Dr. Calderwood. — Will not all that is required be involved 
in this, “ that the sum necessary for all expenses be raised ? ” 

Dr. Prime. — Is it proposed to remit to this committee the 
raising of the money necessary for carrying on the business of this 
great Council ? 

Dr. Calderwood. — It is so recommended, and Dr. Prime will 
have the obligation on his shoulders. 


877 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL.. 

Dr. Prime.— Then I may be pardoned for one remark. is 
said m our country, that the first qualification of a good elder is 
to take his minister to the Presbytery and pay all expenses. I 
hope the eldership will bear that in mind. 

The recommendation of the committee was agreed to. 


THE OFFICIAL VOLUME. 

Dr. CALDERWOOD.—The point which next came under the 
consideration of our committee, was the arrangement which the 
Council would make bearing upon the papers submitted to it. 
I he committee recommend : 


to Thif ronnHl°"'‘"®XK' Understanding as to the papers submitted 
t3 this Council: i. That the papers prepared for the Council be re- 
garded as the property of their authors. 2. That the original manu- 
script be handed to the editors of the volume, and be retained as a 
memorial of the Council. 3. That the Council authorize the sepaSte 
pu^blication of any paper for wider circulation in the interests of the 

undena’w^ fh? 1 arranging for such publication 

iidertake the entire charge, and that every such reprint bear on it 
tnat It IS extracted from the authorized report of the proceedings by 
arrangement with its publishers. ^ ^ 


Principal Caven, of Toronto.— If I rightly understand this 
recommendation, I am afraid that I cannot assent to it. I under- 
■stand it to give permission to any parties who have read papers 
to have them published as authorized by the Council. 

,Dr. Calderwood.- I think it will be better to submit the reso- 
lutions sencitiiny so aS to allow criticism upon the points involved ; 
probably that would be a better plan to secure a right understand- 
ing. There is no special sanction orauthority proposed to be given, 
but if Principal Caven will obseiwe, as we pass on, his criticism’ 
may fall upon the third point. The committee felt it to be ex- 
ceedingly desirable that there should be some distinct and defi- 
nite understanding amongst us concerning the use and custody 
of the papers; and they thought that now the time had come 
that we should put upon record what that understanding was, as 
not only regulating this Council, but regulating our arrange- 
ments in times to come. Hence, it is recommended, “ first, that 
the papers prepared for the Council be regarded as the property 


878 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


of their authors.” That is to say, this Council distinctly ac- 
knowledges that the author of every paper is entitled to make 
what use he pleases of his paper, over and above the place it 
occupies in our proceedings. 

The recommendation of the committee was agreed to. 

Dr. Calderwood. — The next is concerning the custody of the 
original manuscript : “ That the original manuscript be handed 
to the editors of the volume, and be retained as a memorial of 
the Council.” 

The recommendation was agreed to. 

Dr. Calderwood. — The next is the point to which I would 
ask Principal Caven to give some attention, lest it contain his 
difficulty, which I think it probably does. The committee felt 
that it might very easily occur, after the Council had been dis- 
missed, that a considerable number of friends might wish to 
select some one paper for circulation through the churches, 
either here or on the other side. We carefully communicated 
with our editors, to ascertain whether such liberty as this might 
prove an infraction upon the arrangements made with the pub- 
lishers. We then, after receiving their reply, and in harmony 
with them, came to the conclusion that any circulation of distinct 
papers such as these, if it were allowed, would not hinder the 
circulation of the volume, but rather help it. Further, the com- 
mittee came to the conclusion that there were some of the papers 
bearing upon the practical or doctrinal interests of the Church, 
which might be regarded as papers suitable for a wider circulation 
than the volume may have. Accordingly, their recommendation 
takes the following shape : “ That the Council authorize the sepa- 
rate publication of any paper for wider circulation in the interests 
of the Church, on condition that the friends arranging for such 
publication undertake the entire charge, and that every such re- 
print bear on it that it is extracted from the authorized report 
of the proceedings, by arrangement with its publishers.” The 
object of the first part — which is the one requiring consideration 
— that the Council authorize the separate publication, is this: 
That in the event of such publication taking place, it should not 
be a possible question to be raised whether, by such circulation, 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 879 

any one had been guilty of an infraction of the understanding 
had at this Council. We wanted simply to have k distinctly 
laid before the Council, and assented to, that if there could be 
found in America or Scotland or elsewhere any desire to circu- 
late any one of these papers singly and by itself in the form of a 
tract, that should be allowable, and should be distinctly recog- 
nized by us as a Council. 

The Rev. Principal Caven. — Professor Calderwood is quite 
correct in saying that my criticism would fall, with very great 
respect to the committee, upon this third resolution. The objec- 
tion to it the Council will see at once. I am sure the Council is 
not afraid to be responsible for the whole volume, taking the 
essays and the criticisms upon them together. I need not say 
that almost every essay that has been read highly commended 
itself, both in its theology and in its spirit. I regret to say, how- 
ever, that there have been one or two exceptions. It is quite a 
possible thing that those papers, which I may not now specify, 
might, under this authorization, be published. The point I re- 
spectfully submit to the Council is this : Are you willing to have 
any paper which unfolds views that the Council does not as- 
sent to (and I venture to say that two or three papers do 
that) published under the authorization of this Council without 
the accompanying criticisms ? If the Council is prepared to do 
that, I must very earnestly decline any responsibility of that 
kind. If parties wish to publish the papers they are at liberty 
to do it, because the Council has very properly voted that they 
are the property of the writers ; but I would allow them to pub- 
lish them without any authorization of this Council. 

Dr. Calderwood. — Probably Principal Caven’s objection would 
be obviated if we were to strike out the word “ authorize,” and 
insert “ offer no objection to.” 

A Delegate. — How would the word ‘'allow” do? 

The Rev. Dr. De Witt. — How can we “allow” other persons 
to publish papers that already belong to them ? 

Mr. Croil. — So far as I understood it, it was the distinct un- 
derstanding in the Business Committee, that not only should 
the volume, but also every paper that might be printed in the 


88o 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


way now spoken of, be distinctly guarded against anything in 
the direction of Principal Caven’s objection. We agreed, if I 
am not wrong, that every paper that went from this Council 
should bear upon the face of it the declaration that the Council 
do not hold themselves responsible for the statements in it. 

Dr. Calderwood. — That is not the understanding that I had 
of the decision we reached ; and that is the next point to be 
submitted. 

Dr. DeWitt. — The first resolution submitted by the com- 
mittee, and already passed by the Council, is that the papers 
read by the several authors are the property of the authors 
themselves. Now, it is proposed by the Council, if this resolu- 
tion passes, to allow these authors to publish the papers that 
they have read, with the proviso that they state upon the title- 
page that it is done with the permission of the publishers. How 
can a publisher permit an author, or make any condition of his 
permission to an author, to publish his own paper? I will 
stretch my imagination so far as to suppose an inconceivable 
case, that the paper I had the honor to read to this Council 
should be printed as a separate pamphlet: must I, according to 
this resolution, place upon that paper that it is printed by per- 
mission of the official publishers of the Council ? So it would 
seem from the resolution. But I do not conceive that I must 
put that on, according to the first resolution, for the paper is 
mine. I therefore trust that the last part, “ by permission of the 
official publishers of the Council,” be stricken out. There 
ought to be no proviso whatever. 

Professor Calderwood.— This is not the understanding. 
Dr. De Witt misunderstands what the object of this third point 
is. Of course it is obvious, from passing the first that the author 
may do what he likes with his paper. But you observe these 
papers are not papers that belong only to the author ; they are 
not, after they are published, papers over which the author can 
keep control as if he had a copyright. It is intended to provide 
for such a contingency as this : that any committee, interested 
in the action of this Council, may extract and circulate any single 
paper, if only the paper bear upon its face that it is an extract 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. ggi 

from our official report by arrangement with its publishers. 
This would be a little infraction on the rights of the authors, 
if they were copyrighted; and what we want simply is that there 
shall be a full understanding, among all the Churches in 
this Alliance, that they might make for general interest such a 
use of these papers as is indicated here in the third resolution. 

Rev. James Rodgers, of Derry, Ireland. — All the desiied 
ends would be met by using a word less emphatic than 
“ authorize.” 

Dr. Calderwood.— I suggest that we sub.stitute the word 
‘‘permit” for “authorize.” 

Dr. STARK.---If Dr. Calderwood could put the explanation he 
has given into the words that would express it, it would get 
over all objections. The resolution does not carry out what 
Dr. Calderwood so clearly expresses. I think-we should modify 
it so that the Council permit any committee, or any party that 
may think it will do good by publishing these papers, to do it — 
but only by permission and without authorization. 

Dr. Calderwood.— Shall I again read the form in which it is 
at present? “That the Council permit the separate publication 
of any paper for wider circulation in the interest of the churches, 
on condition that the friends arranging for such publication un- 
dertake the entire charge ; and that every such reprint bear oil 
it that it is extracted from the authorized report of the proceed- 
ings by arrangement with its publisher.” Now the understand- 
ing of the committee was^ that by this allusion to the friends, 
arranging for it, we were pointing to those who might be a com- 
mittee of a church, or at least who might be generally interested: 
in works of benevolence or evangelization ; and that thus we 
had left it very wide. 

Hon. Thomas A. Hamilton, of Mobile. — It seems to me that 
the understanding in the Business Committee, as stated by elder 
Croil, will meet every objection. It was my understanding in 
that committee that each one of these papers, which might be 
sent forth as an extract from the proceedings of this Council, 
should bear upon its face the statement that it was not neces- 
sarily the ‘expressions of the opinions or views of the Council! 

50 


882 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


As it stands now, if a paper should go forth, separately, as an 
extract from the proceedings of the Council, it might be inferred 
that the Council indorsed it. But if it should bear; upon its face 
the statement that it is simply an extract from the papers read, 
and that it is not indorsed by the Council, it seems to me that 
would obviate all objection. 

We have no objection, I suppose, to these proceedings being 
scattered, provided they are sent forth as the statement of the 
views of particular individuals. Therefore it seems to me that 
to place upon it the same statement which is required to be 
placed upon the proceedings themselves would answer every 
purpose. 

Dr. Breed. — The object of this motion is to promote the dif- 
fusion of Presbyterian literature. It is quite possible, and almost 
certain, that our .Philadelphia Board of Publication will select 
some of these articles and publish them as tracts, and send them 
broadcast over all the land. We want them to go just as far as 
possible. The object of this motion is to promote such a diffu- 
sion and distribution. 

Dr. Schaff. — The objection just raised is all provided for 
and met by an additional action. If Prof Calderwood will be 
kind enough to read that, it will cover the whole ground. 

Prof. Calderwood. — That comes as the next step. If it will 
relieve the mind of the Council I will read it as the thing that 
follows next; only the question is quite a different one, whether 
we shall have such an imprint on every separate paper, which I 
do not submit I am agreeing to in reading this : 

That the editors of the volume of the Proceedings of Council be 
instructed formally to state in its preface that the Council does not 
make itself responsible for the opinions expressed in the papers sub- 
mitted for consideration. 

That is to be submitted to you as another resolution. The 
question really before the Council is whether, knowing that it is 
to be suggested as an cssent.'al part of the preface of the volume, 
you are also to insist that, in case of the extract from that 
volume of any paper, such paper shall bear this statement. With 
all submission I do not think it should be done. • 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 883 

The recominendation of the committee was then agreed to, the 
word “ permit ” being substituted for “ authorize.” 

Professor Calderwood. — I submit further from the com- 
mittee that which I have just read, which becomes the next 
resolution. 

That the editors of the volume of the Proceedings of Council be 
instructed formally to state in its preface that the Council does not 
make Itself responsible for the opinions expressed in the papers sub- 
mitted for consideration. 

The recommendation was agreed to. 

Dr. Breed.— As supplementary to what has already been 
done, I offer the following : 


Resolved, i. That the standing committee on the expenses of the 
Council, of which Dr. Prime is the chairman, be authorized to fill 
any vacancies that may occur in their number. 2. That in case of the 
disability or removal of either of the clerks of this Council, this com- 
mittee be authorized to fill the vacancies thus occasioned until the next 
meeting of Council. 

The resolution was agreed to. 

CO-OPERATION IN FOREIGN MISSIONS. 

Tlie Rev. Dr. Mathews read the following report in reference 
to co-operation in foreign missions : 

Inasmuch as one of the great objects embraced in the constitution 
of this Alliance is to entertain all subjects directly connected with 
the work of evangelization, such as the relations of the Christian 
Church to the evangelization of the world, the distribution of mission 
work, and the combination of church energies, especially in reference 
to great cities and destitute districts ; and this Council having manifest 
evidence from various quarters of the strong and increasing desire 
among the Churches in connection with it that some suitable measures 
should be taken to secure as far as practicable co-operation in the 
work of foreign missions ; therefore be it resolved : 

^ First, That the success which has attended the work of foreign mis- 
sions claims devout gratitude to God from the whole Christian Church ; 
and the desire expressed for such co-operation as may be found suit- 
able should be recognized as one of the most hopeful signs of the future. 

Second, That the Council is deeply impressed with the importance 
of close union in the practical work of the mission field among the 
Reformed Churches ; and approving generally of the recommendations 


884 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


accompanying the report of the committee on co-operation in foreign 
mission work, and remitting the same to the various churches of 
the Alliance for their consideration, regards it as most desirable and 
timely were the Churches represented in this Council to adopt such 
measures as in their wisdom might seem meet for maturely consider- 
ing the question of the best means of further organizing and unifying 
evangelization in the several fields in which a plurality of Presby- 
terian missions are contiguously established, and this in such a man- 
ner as to be in harmony with the interests and claims of the parent 
Churches. 

Third, That the Council, assuming no right to offer suggestions or 
‘initiate measures for the Churches represented in it, does respectfully 
approach them by the communication of the paper hereby adopted 
with the expression of its fraternal and dutiful regards as an assem- 
blage of committees appointed by them to confer upon matters of 
common interest in promoting our common Christianity, and with 
the prayer that these great and holy ends may be advanced by a care- 
ful consideration of the matters herein set forth. 

Fourth, To carry into effect the reference of this matter to the 
several Churches concerned in it, the Council does hereby appoint 
two committees, namely, for the United States and Canada : Rev. 
William M. Paxton, D, D., of New York, Convener; Rev. J. Leigh- 
ton Wilson, D. D., of Baltimore; Rev. J. B. Dales, D. D., of Phila- 
delphia ; Rev. Philip Peltz, D. D. ; Dr. Jas. Boyce ; Dr. John O. 
Ferris; Jas. Croil, Esq.; Rev. I. M. King; Dr. S. M. Wylie; Dr. 
Fisher ; for Europe and other places not otherwise provided for : 
Dr. Murray Mitchell, Convener; David MacLagan, Esq., Edinburgh; 
Rev. Dr. Graham, of London ; Rev. George Robson, of Inverness ; 
Rev. Dr. John Marshall Lang, of Glasgow ; Rev. J. S. Macintosh, of 
Belfast; Geo. Smith, Esq., LL. D. ; Rev. H. Wallace Smith, of Kirk- 
newton ; Rev. Dr. Main ; Rev. Geo. Thomas Smith. 

It shall be the duty of these committees to communicate in such 
manner as they may deem best with the Churches assigned to them 
and report the result to the next Council. 

Fifth. Should it become manifest in the meantime that plans of co- 
operation to some extent can be agreed upon amongst some of the 
Churches interested, the said committees are authorized and requested 
to give such aid in carrying them into effect as may be found prac- 
ticable. 

The various resolutions were agreed to, and the whole paper 
was adopted. 


COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS. 

The Business Committee recommended, and the Council with 
amendments agreed to their recommendation, to appoint the fol- 
lowing, with power to add to their number, as the Committee of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


88s 

Arrangements for the next meeting: Rev. R. Knox, D. D.. 
Chairman; Prof. R. Watts. D. D. ; J. S. Macintosh; J. S.' 
Hamilton; Jas. M. Rodgers; R. M’Edgar; Jas. C. Ferris; S. J. 
Hanson; Jonathan Simpson; Edward P. Simpson; J. Marshall 
Lang, D. D. ; Principal Rainy, D. D. ; Prof Calderwood, LL. D. ; 
Alex. McLeod, D. D. ; S. I. Prime, D. D. ; Wm. Brown, D. D. ; 
W. J. R. Taylor, D. D. ; Thos. C. Porter, D. D., LL. D. ; J. 1. 
Bonner, D. D. ; John Jenkins, D. D., LL. D. ; J. B. Dales, D. D. ; 
David Steele, D. D. ; A. M. Milligan, D. D. ; Theodore W. J. 
Wylie, D. D. ; John Hanson, Esq. ; A. T. Niven, Esq. ; Edmund 
Archibald Stuart-Gray, Esq.; David Corsar, Esq.; Geo. Junkin, 
Esq., with the clerks. 

INTERNATIONAL PEACE. 

Rev. W. j. R. Taylor, D. D. — I desire to offer a resolution 
upon a topic which has not been touched in the discussions of 
the Council. I have no speech to make in regard to it, and do. 
not suppose that it will awaken any discussion ; 

Resolved, That this Council, representing the common Christian 
faith and the civil and religious liberties of many lands, respectfully 
and earnestly lifts up. its voice for the preservation of the peace of the 
world by the application of those principles of Christianity which 
underlie the system of modern international law, which have already 
prevented war between the most powerful of Christian nations by 
successful arbitration, and which are the heritage of the world through 
the gospel and kingdom of the Prince of Peace. 

Dr. Prime. — I second this resolution most heartily. 

Dr. Blaikie. — I entirely approve of the resolution, but I think 
it would have been better if it had been submitted to us at an 
earlier time, so as to pass through the usual process to which 
resolutions are submitted. I merely state this for guidance in 
the future. 

The resolution was adopted. 

LETTER TO THE CHURCHES. 

Dr. Prime. — The Business Committee heard, before it ad- 
journed, the letter which Dr. Lang and Dr. Paxton were ap- 
pointed by the Council to prepare. They adopted it, and directed ' 
that it should be read by Dr. Lang to the Council. 


i 


886 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

The Rev. Dr. Lang, therefore, read the following letter : 

To Ministers, Elders, Office-bearers, and Members of Presbyterian 

Churches: Grace be unto you, and Peace from God our Father and 

from the Lord fesus Christ. 

Dearly Beloved Brethren : At the close of our sessions it seems 
good to us to send a letter of cordial greeting to the Churches which 
are represented in our Alliance. 

We ask you to rejoice with us in the tokens of divine favor which 
the Council has so largely received during this, its second meeting. 
The kindness of our honored friends in Philadelphia in the prepara- 
tions made for our reception, in every arrangement for the transaction 
of our business, in the hospitalities so generously conceded, has left 
an ineffaceable impression on our hearts. You will join us in the ex- 
pression of our warmest thanks to all who, at so much cost of time 
and means, have provided both for our work and our comfort far 
beyond our utmost expectation. The marked interest taken in our 
proceedings, as evidenced by the crowds which have listened with 
earnest attention to the papers and discussions, was most gratifying 
and encouraging. We have pleasure in certifying that our delibera- 
tions have been characterized by a harmony never broken ; that, 
whilst on many points, differences of opinion have been manifested, 
charity and courtesy have never failed. Subjects of lasting impor- 
tance to all our Churches have been freely and fully considered, and 
the interchanges of thought on these subjects have been both welcome 
and profitable. Let us say, farther, that the concourse of brethren 
from many lands, declaring in many languages the wonderful works 
of God, has proved the essential unity of Reformed Christendom, 
and foreshadowed the blessedness of that day of the Lord, when a 
multitude which no man can number, of all nations and peoples and 
kindreds and tongues, shall stand before the throne and before the 
Lamb. 

Truly the good hand of our God has been good upon us. Let us 
extol his name together. 

But we cannot part from the scene of our fellowship without offer- 
ing some words of friendly counsel, and endeavoring to strengthen 
you in the love and service of our Lord and Master. 

During our proceedings we have been often reminded of the con- 
flicts and incertitudes of the time in which we live. Never more 
called for than now is the exhortation of St. John to Christians : 
“ Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are 
of God.” You need no unction from the Holy One to sift the true 
from the false, to discriminate and rightly judge as to the voices 
which appeal to you claiming the homage that is due to truth. All 
truth is welcome to the Christian. Reverently he listens to all that 
science teaches or philosophy interprets. 'He knows that there can be 
no contradiction between the works and the word of God, that, when 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. sSj 

there seems to be such a contradiction, either the observation of the 
works or the understanding of the word is imperfect. And he is con- 
tent to wait until the Lord himself shall reveal things now beyond his 
reach. His assurance is that in Christ are hid all the treasures of 
wisdom and knowledge ; and, amid the feverish and harsh cries of 
men, in quietness and confidence he finds his strength. May that 
quietness and that confidence be yours. 

We desire, beloved in Christ, to emphasize our acceptance of the 
vScrijitures of the Old and New Testaments as the only rule to direct 
us iiow we may glorify and enjoy God. I'he Scriptures not only 
inspired ; they are inspired ; for all of us— for all men, they are 
breathed through and through by the living Holy Spirit of God- 
God's word to us in the special circumstances of our life and history. 
He does indeed speak in divers manners ; there ar^ manifold whispers 
and unveilings of hiniself; where there is the eye to see, he is always 
present ; where there is the ear to hear, he is always audible. But the 
one authoritative declaration of his will for our salvation is made in 
the Bible. For that purpose Holy Scripture is fully inspired. Let us 
intreat you to stand fast to the immemorial doctrine of the Church of 
God as to the sufficiency, perfect and sole, of the inspired word. Let 
us remind you that the right honor to give to the word is, to use it, to 
teach it, to make it your meditation, “ to lay it up in your hearts and 
practise it in your lives.” The literature that is offered to you is 
various and abundant. We are heartily thankful that knowledge is 
running to and fro ; but we ask that no literature ever supersede the 
Bible; that no compilations of texts or passages ever be put in its 
place ; that earnestly, humbly, prayerfully, you study the Book itself, 
comparing spiritual thin'gs with spiritual, and seeking to see the light 
in the light of God. 

Affectionally, we urge on you the maintenance of worship in the 
family circle. Wherever the Christian’s home is, there should be the 
Christian’s altar. We fear that often, owing to the strain on time and 
strength, so prevalent among us, the blessed exercises of family reli- 
gion are hurried over, if not wholly neglected. But the family is the 
germ of the state and of the Church. What the temperature of the 
home is, that the temperature of the Church will be. Nay, more ; the 
tone given to your homes affects powerfully all the relations and 
arrangements of the household. Suffer us to express the hope that 
ministers will press the duty of all in this matter with kindness and 
urgency, and that the faithful people of Christ will conscientiously, 
and as those to whom it is not a mere form, but a reality, observe the 
stated time of worship, in which parents, children, servants — all form- 
ing the home circle — unite in thanksgiving, prayer, and the reading 
of the word of life. 

It may seem unnecessary to rer-;»ll to you the obligation and privilege 
of a faithful observance of the Lord’s day and a habitual attendance 
on the means of grace. But is there not too much occasion for anxiety 
lest the sacred ness of the Christian Sabbath be violated ? We feel our- 


888 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


selves bound to remind you that the ^‘one day in seven” has been 
marked off as holy to the l.ord ; not, indeed, the only day that is 
holy, but that which, “enthroned in its sovereign sphere,” witnesses 
for and is an aid to the holiness of every day. Let us warn you 
against the laxities which are increasing amongst us. Let us suggest 
to you that whatever takes from the religious character of the day, 
brings it so much more within the sphere of influences which, secular- 
izing it,Jmperil the continuance of its blessings for the weary sons of 
toil."" Should we not beware of contributing by our example to such 
secularization? Should we not make it manifest that to us it is “a 
delight, holy and honorable? ” Not a time draped in black, sad and 
(Irem-y, but a time brimful of joy in the Lord, consecrated by the wor- 
ship whose note was struck in the message ot the Resurrection Morn- 
ing, “ The Lord is.^not in the grave ; he has risen ? ” And earnestly, 
in this connection, would we remind our brethren that they are re- 
sponsible to Christ and his Church for a regular and hearty participa- 
tion in the services of the sanctuary. This is no mere matter of per- 
sonal liking ; it is a matter of personal duty. The Christian member 
is as much'bound to be in his jiew, as the Christian minister is to be 
in his pulpit. The worship of God is their common business, and the 
sign of their common priesthood. Having, therefore, brethren, 
boldness to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, let us 
not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of 
.some is. 

To your warmest regards we commend the missionary agencies and 
efforts of our Churches. Our hearts’ desire and prayer is, that Christ’s 
jieople may realize, with new vividness and force, the truth of his per- 
emptory commandment, to go into all the world and make disciples 
of all nations. It has cheered us to listen to the accounts of beloved 
missionaries who have been present at our meeting, and to be assured 
that whilst it is still the day of small things, the signs of the Holy 
Spirit’s power in the missions of the Church are not withheld. Indeed, 
the results in most parts of heathendom already realized are exceed- 
ingly abundantly above what, considering the faithlessness of the 
Church, we might have expected to receive. 

Would that all our Churches were blessed with a new baptism of the 
Holy Ghost and of fire ! Then would the word of God have free 
course and be magnified ! Then would the gospel of Christ break 
forth on the right hand and on the left. Beloved, we need more clear 
apprehension of the will of God as to the salvation of men. We need 
more sympathy with the heart of God, in his longing for the answer- 
ing love of the heart of man. Think of God so loving the world as 
to give his only begotten Son ! Do we not feel the throb of that love 
in our hearts? Will we not seek to have a part in sending the good 
news of the kingdom to every creature ? 

The members of the several churches — all who have the privileges 
of a gospel ministry — will not be slow to prove their gratitude for 
such privileges, by tlie liberal support of those who are called to minis- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 889 

ter in holy things, and by their gifts to the treasury of the Lord, for 
the sake ot his cause, and tor purposes connected with Christian phi- 
lanthropy. Systematic benevolence is greatly needed among us. This 
does not interfere with the spontaneity which should mark all Chris- 
tian offering : it is only the mode of giving effect to the will quickened 
into activity by the sense of the love of Christ. May we remind you 
of the apostolic order as to sacrifice? First. Your ownselves conse- 
crated to the Lord, and then yours. What you have is the expression 
0/ what you are. What a gain to the work of (L)d would be realized, 
if those who know the grace ot Christ, more fully acted up to the pre- 
cept cf St. Paul — “to lay by them in store as God had prospered 
them.” How solemnly the word of the prophet sounds in our ears, 
“Ye have robbed God. Wherein have we robbed ? In tithes and 
offerings. Bring ye all the tithes into the store-house, that there may 
be meat in mine house and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of 
Hosts, if 1 will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you 
out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” 

Beloved fathers and brethren in the ministry of the Christian Church, 
we offer you the expression of our most affectionate and loyal regard. 
Pastors and overseers in the Church of God, yours is indeed a most 
solemn and glorious calling. The highest interests of man are your 
immediate care. You work for eternity. The eternal in the life of 
man, as distinguished from the merely temporary, is ever with you. 
The domain of your action is the conscience. You see that conscience 
in its ruin through sin. You bring to it redemption in Jesus Christ. 
You are interpreters of the mysteries of the human being; you are 
stewards of the mysteries of the Divine. Deem it not intrusive if we 
plead with you. Be faithful. Speak plainly as to sin. Be faithful in 
the declaration of the whole counsel of God. Do not shun that be- 
cause of the likings or dislikings of men. Aim at the apostle's mark 
— to know nothing among your people save Jesus Christ and him 
crucified. A full Christ — a free salvation — be this the end of all your 
preaching and labor. Rightly divide the word of truth. Remember 
the immature, the young in years or in wisdom ; “ Feed the lambs.” 
Remember the mature, the old in years or in wisdom ; “ Feed the 
sheep.” Our Master is very kind and gracious. He takes our poor 
service, and thinks kindly of us when our hearts are set to do his will. 
Toil on, dear brethren. The sound of his footsteps is ever behind 
you. Whatever your interests in those amongst whom your labor may 
be, it is as nothing to his. You are to be ministers to the people. 
His joy will be your strength, if, trusting him, you realize the position 
that you are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech them 
by you. 

Beloved brethren in the eldership, we offer you the testimony of 
our appreciation of your work and labor of love. 'I'hose of your num- 
ber who have deliberated in this Council have helped largely by their 
wisdom and earnestness to make it successful. And our experience 
is only a mirror of the benefits to a congregation of a zealous and 


890 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


efficient eldership. In Presbyterian Churches your position is one of 
honor, and opening into many ways of usefulness. Let us entreat you 
to reflect on the duties of your office. Do not rest content with a 
merely perfunctory discharge of them. The service of God’s Church 
should obtain more than mere scraps of time or fragments of energy. 
Your shrewdness, your capabilities of administration, your spiritual 
and mental gifts, should be freely offered to the purposes of your call- 
ing. We ask you especially to regard the Sabbath-schools connected 
with your churches as your charge. When the elder, as teacher or 
overseer, proves Ids interest in the school, both teachers and taught 
are encouraged, and the right relation of the school to the church is 
maintained. Brethren, be circumspect in your daily walk. Hold up 
the example of a life — in the world, yet unworldly. Be in your several 
places Christ’s witnesses — yourselves ruled by him, and so prepared 
to rule in his name and spirit in the congregations with which you are 
associated. 

Brethren who call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, we have 
realized with most gracious power the oneness of all believers. We 
have felt how large is the section of the family of Christ holding the 
Presbyterian system. And we ask you and others to adhere loyally 
to this section of the family. Its history, its fconstitution, the sim- 
plicities of its worship, and the purity of its doctrine constitute its 
claim on your regard. But Presbyterianism has been to us during our 
conference less than the consciousness of Christendom. Christendom 
is one. The sea is one, although there are many seas. The flock is 
one, although there are many folds. And so with the Church. The 
same current of thought, the same forces, drifts and tendencies, ap- 
pear, sooner or later, in all Churches. None can shut itself off from 
the other. “If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; 
if one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.” May 
we not assure the weaker Churches on the European continent or on 
more distant continents, of the loving regard and sympathy both of 
the old and the new world? May we not pledge that those to whom 
much has been given will pray for and help, with purse and with 
prayer, those who are called to pass through a great fight of afflic- 
tion ? 

It is one of the principles of our Alliance that no interference in the 
creed or constitution of the Churches forming it is allowed. We do 
not touch on aught in which one denomination stands apart from the 
others. We bid you all God speed in your several fields. We desire 
that every Church may receive, in ever increasing measure, the power 
of the Holy Ghost, and that all standing in their lot may manifest 
that charity which “ suffereth long and is kind, which envieth not, 
vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, 
seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, re- 
joiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, 
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” 

That God in his own time may heal division all will pray; but 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


891 

meanwhile the surest way of union is for each Church and each Chris- 
tian, to live at the great centre of blessing — Christ himself. In him 
we are one. Through him we shall be one in a resolute and holy war 
against the devil, the world and the flesh ; one in the longing to labor 
for the perfected kingdom of God ; one in the response of the re- 
deemed : “Even so, come. Lord Jesus.” 

Comrnending you to God and the word of his grace, we bid you 
farewell. “Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in 
peace, and the God of love and peace shall be with you.” 

Rev. Charles Read, D. D., of Richmond, Va. — I desire the 
honor of moving the adoption of this paper. I rejoice, before 
God and the presence of this brotherhood in Christ, for the 
privilege of having listened to many papers, and most of all of 
having listened to this one. 

You find in Ps. 1. 5 , these words, which contain the doctrinal 
law of Christian union : “ Gather my saints together unto me ; 
those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” This is 
addressed, as you will perceive, to persons who are infirm, and 
whose infirmities and sins are rebuked. They are expectant 
saints. The word “ saint,” if I understand it, stands always con- 
nected with the fall and depravity of our race. But for the fall, 
the word “ saint ” would never have been placed in the nomen- 
clature of the world. But take the second characteristic, “ those 
that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” What a field 
of thought is opened here ! Two modes of clothing, sin early 
introduced into the world : the one the clothing of fig leaves, 
and the other clothing at the cost of God. When these gar- 
ments were received by our first parents m Paradise, if I under- 
stand it, there was the making of a covenant with God by sacri- 
fice. That was the beginning of the system of vicarious sacri- 
fice, and of justification by faith. 

Among the very first acts of worship are those which took 
place when Abel came with his sacrifice of blood, and Cain, a 
free thinker, and perhaps a man of very aesthetic tastes, may 
have brought his flowers ; but the sacrifice by blood was ac- 
cepted, and the sacrifice without blood was not accepted. 
Thenceforth human history is diverted into two streams, the one 
the Cainite stream and the other the Abel stream. The one, de- 


892 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

veloped all through the sacrificial system, conveys and sustains 
that grand idea of covenant by sacrifice. To the man who 
repudiates all reliance upon personal righteousness, and who 
trusts solely in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
enters into covenant with God by sacrifice, here is my hand, and 
my heart is in it. I care little for architecture, little for .dress, if 
this one great feature is realized, covenant with God by sacrifice. 
Here is the foundation of union among Christians. Things that 
are like the same thing are alike to one another ; and the nearer 
Christians get to the Lord Jesus Christ, the more they are 
imbued by Christian spirit, the nearer should they come to each 
other. Names are little ; life power is everything. Very little 
is the shape of the loaf, bat the quickening power of the leaven 
is everything. 

Then there is another aspect of the case. It is not good for 
a man to be alone. Man was not made to be alone ; sociability 
was stamped upon his very constitution. I find it in the nerves 
of my hands. Those nerves will never thrill as they were meant 
to thrill until I grasp the hand of a fellow-being— not simply a 
human being, but a Christian fellow-being ; never will the nerves 
of my ear 'thrill as they are made to thrill until I hear the voice 
of praise to God, the highest use of the ear, and the highest en- 
joyment of the soul ; and never will the nerves of my eye thrill 
as they were made to thrill until it sees down in another human 
eye wells of joy or wells of grief springing up responsive to my 
own. If I meet a brother, whether from India or Africa, and 
find him entering into the covenant of God by sacrifice, trying 
to get nearer to Christ, here I find the perfection of our nature, 
and the whole soul vibrates under this principle of united fellow- 
ship. 

We stand upon the old doctrines. These have been evolved 
and asserted over and over again. Adherence to them runs 
through this letter, which is now, I trust, to be sent to the 
Churches. 

Dear brethren, tnis is my first utterance. Do you enter into 
the covenant of God by sacrifice ? We of the South meet you 
on that ground. Are you striving to draw nearer and nearer to 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 893 

the Lord Jesus Christ under the power of faith and sanctifica- 
tion? We greet you upon that ground. Do you find your 
feelings thrill under these influences of union with God and 
union with one another in the covenant of Christ? Then we 
of the South, in the providence of God, greet you upon this 
ground. I rejoice to move, as I have moved, the adoption of 
this Letter to the Churches. 

Henry Day, Esq., of New York. — I second the motion. 

Prof. Stephen Alexander, of Princeton.-In the remarks 
which have just been niade, as well as in the Letter itself, there 
is implied the apostolic rule of Christian fellowship and recogni- 
tion. It is found. in I Corinthians i. 2. It has been properly 
quoted several times in this Council. It tells whom we are to 
recognize as a Christian brother. “Unto the church of God 
which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, 
called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the 
name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.” It is veVy 
simple and beautiful— all that in every place call upon the name 
of Jesus Christ our Lord. Whoever does that according to the 
apostolic rule is my Christian brother. 

The Letter was then adopted by the Council. 

' Rev. Dr. Prime. — I move the publication of the Letter. ' Of 
course, that will be done in the volume of Proceedings ; but I 
move also that the Council request the pastors of all the churches 
represented in this Council to read it publicly to their congrega- 
tions. 

Rev. Dr. Brown, of Fredericksburg, Va. — I second the mo- 
tion. It has been my privilege, as it has been of others, to hear 
many good letters of a pastoral or friendly character ; but I never 
heard one that more completely came up to my idea of what a 
communication of that kind should be than this has done. While 
I rejoice to hear the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures 
so clearly— though briefly, as it must necessarily be— presented 
in that letter, I cannot but remember that there is another, 
though a lower, kind of inspiration, and I felt that the brethren 
who drew up that letter had it, and wrote under the guidance 
of the Spirit of God. It cannot fail to accomplish a blessed 


894 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


work among all who read it. I rejoice in a resolution that will 
encourage the circulation of it, not only in the newspapers, but . 
from the pulpits to congregations. 

Dr. Prime. — I am requested to add a clause to this resolution, 
to the effect that a particular Sabbath be appointed for the read- 
ing of the Letter. I would suggest the first Sabbath of January 
next. 

Rev. Dr. Pierson, of Detroit. — The sooner that Letter follows 
the adjournment of this great Council, the more effect it will 
have. 

Dr. Prime. — Name an earlier Sabbath. 

Dr. Pierson. — If we could present it to our congregations 
about the middle of November, it would be far better than to 
wait until the first of January. There is no reason why it cannot 
go before all our congregations by that time. I would sugge.st 
the third Sabbath of November. 

Dr. Schaff. — That is impossible. Th(^ document has to go 
to South Africa, to Australia, to India, and the ends of the 
earth. It cannot be received by that time. I doubt if it can be 
read by the first Sabbath in January. 

Dr. Prime. — I have no doubt that the first Sabbath in January 
is the earliest possible time in which we can accomplish it. We 
want it read at the antipodes as well as here, and we cannot 
have that done before the first Sabbath in January. 

Dr. Prime’s motion was agreed to. 

RESOLUTIONS OF THANKS. 

The Rev. Dr. Knox then introduced the following resolutions, 
calling on various members of the Council to move and second 
them severally, wLich they did, with brief addresses : 

This General Council cannot adjourn without recording its deep 
sense of obligation to the local committees. All the arrangements 
have been made with consummate skill and taste, and with the most 
delicate regard for the comfort of the Council and the efficiency of its 
proceedings. 

The Council desire very specially to thank the gentlemen connected 
with the press for the fulness and the accuracy with which the proceed- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. S95 

ings have been reported, since thereby the influence of this Council 
has been extended from day to day, not only to every part of this 
continent, but to other lands. 

One of the arrangements that has contributed greatly to the con- 
venience of the Council, has been the free and unrestricted use of the 
splendid rooms of the Board of Publication, 1334 Chestnut street, 
and the thanks of the Council are eminently due and are hereby ten- 
dered to the Board who have charge of that institution, and have 
placed its conveniences at our disposal, as well as to the different 
officers in charge. 

The cordial thanks of the Council are expressed to Mr. D. M. 
McKee, the leader, and. to the members of the choir severally, for the 
efficient and acceptable assistance they have rendered in this portion 
of our devotional exercises. 

The Council is under great obligations to the societies and public 
institutions of this city, which have sent kind and courteous invita- 
tions to its members, and desires to express regret that owing to pres- 
sure of business, many were unable to avail themselves of them as fully 
as they could have wished. 

The especial and cordial thanks of the Council are hereby tendered 
to those brethren who prepared the Programme ; to the writers of the 
many able and eloquent papers; above all, to the three brethren. Dr. 
Blaikie, Dr. Mathews, and Mr. Newkirk, who have acted as honorary 
clerks; and also to the gentlemen who have been in charge of the 
post-office arrangements. 

This Council is deeply indebted to Thomas Cook, Esq., of London, 
for his generous action in regard to the travelling of the delegates to 
and from the Council ; and directs a copy of the minutes of our 
proceedings to be forwarded to him, and also to his agent in New 
York. 

The Council has also pleasure in thus acknowledging the kindness 
shown the delegates by the Pennsylvania, and Reading, and Baltimore 
and Ohio railroads. 

No words can adequately express the high appreciation felt by this 
Council for the princely hospitality of the Christian people of Phila- 
delphia, who have taken us not only to their homes, but to their 
hearts; and of the kindness with which the delegates have been 
received every one will cherish a lively remembrance as long as he 
lives. 

The resolutions were all unanimously adopted. 

Dr. Prime. — The Business Committee recommended for the 
order this morning, that after the adoption of these resolutions; 


896 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


vve shall hear from the Rev. Dr. Dickey in behalf of the mem- 
bers and others in Philadelphia, when a response will be made 
from a member of the Council. Then we propose to conclude 
with devotional services. 

Dr. Blaikie. — At the Edinburgh meeting, instead of w'eary- 
ing the audience at the close by reading the minutes of the 
closing session, which were large in consequence of the number 
of small pieces of business, they were remitted to the Committee 
of Arrangements and the chairman. Would it be agreeable to 
the Council that the minutes of this morning’s meeting be re- 
mitted to the clerks and the chairman of this session for re- 
vision? 

Dr. Prime. — It may safely be done ; and I move it. 

The motion was agreed to. 

Rev. C. a. Dickey, D. D. — 

FAREWELL. 

Mr. Chairman, Fathers, and Brethren : I cannot hope to bring 
words worthy of this solemn, sacred hour that is to close this memor- 
able Council. Speech seems an intrusion when reverent silence would 
be so appropriate. Standing on the summit of this mountain, which 
we have reached by the successive steps of these splendid days, in 
whose sweet communion we have been so well satisfied, our hearts, en- 
tranced by the visions of such a transfiguration, can only find expres- 
sion in such a wish as the bewildered Peter pressed upon his Lord, “It 
is good for us to be here. ... let us make here three tabernacles, one 
for the blessed Lord,” whose glorious person has had the pledge of so 
much love and loyalty; and “one for Moses,” the representative of 
the holy law, whose binding force and honor we are better ready to 
sustain; and “one for Elias,” the representative of prophecy, in the 
splendid fulfilments of which we stand and praise the power that has 
shown us such wonders, and in hope wait confidently for the accom- 
plishment of all the “glorious things that are spoken of the city of 
God.” ^ 

Taking up the refrain of the symphony of the sweet instrument that 
has so charmed us, I remember the key-note so skilfully touched at the 
beginning. The strains have been exquisite; the harmony has been 
delightful ; the whole song has been a Te Demn Laudamus. Presby- 
terianism has been clearly defined and nobly defended ; but the Person 
of Christ has been more exalted. The cloud of witnesses gathered 
out of the conflicts of centuries, out of the smoke of many martyr- 
doms, might nbt be ashamed of the steadfastness of these successors, 
who have contended so earnestly for the foith they gave their lives to 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 897 

keep. The great doctrines, defended by the faith and endurance of 
darker days, have been asserted with a distinctness and advocated witli 
a determination that intimate neither decline nor departure. 

The treasures intrusted by the Reformation have not been tarnished. 
I he blessings which cost so much have been carefully preserved. Relig* 
kas had a splendid demonstration in the Council, and 
civil liberty has received impulses that both imply and promise ad- 
vance. 

When I saw our honored chairman, whose ministry has linked both 
^ntinents, grasp the hand of the endeared representative of Good 
Hope, and in the name of this Council, that has gathered its represent- 
atives from the ends of the earth, express fraternity and good cheer, 
1 felt that we witnessed the glorious .symbol of triumphs already 
assured, and of blessed hopes that are being already realized. We 
might safely adopt Good Hope as the watchword of this Council. We 
have witnessed a unity that gives the hope of increasing strength. 
We have witnessed presentations of power that give the hope of pre- 
vailing. We have witnessed a procession of triumphs that gives a good 
hope of final and complete victory. We have witnessed the spring 
and flow of a spirit which, sanctified and consecrated, encourages the 
hope that the clay is not far distant in which the Psalmist’s prophecy 
shall find fulfilment: '‘All nations shall call him blessed.” 

When I remember that this Alliance was formed for the distinct 
purpose of emphasizing the principles of the Reformed Churches, 
and of more firmly establishing the Presbyterian system, which 
together constitute our bond of union, I feel disposed to ask, first, the 
question, "What has the Council accomplished for ourselves, for the 
churches we represent, for the principles to which we have pledged 
our adherence, and the system which we believe to be .scriptural in all 
its essentials, and most likely to accomplish the mission of the 
Church?” The success of this Council in all directions will be de- 
termined by the degree to which we have assured our own unity and 
strength. The chain of the Church of Christ can be no stronger than 
its single links; and unless we are most deeply concerned about the 
strength of our own link, we may discover that the catholicity, by 
which we would assure the closer unity of Christendom, is but a senti- 
ment that reveals weakness, and more likely to break than to weld. 

Our own consistency will be the expression of the truest catholicity. 
Our own strength and unity will be the best contribution we can make 
to the success of Christianity and to the unity of the body of Christ. 
By keeping our own octave to the key-note, we will most likely help 
the harmony whose sweet strains are to fill the finished temple. If I 
have rightly observed and interpreted the doings and influences of 
this Council, I think they bear testimony to the determination of the 
Reformed Churches to adhere to the principles of the Reformation 
and to the Presbyterian system ; to study a closer unity among our- 
selves that, with the sign of the cross to distinguish us, and character- 
ized by this atonement, we may bring a power into Christendom that 
57 


89^5 THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

will sooner insure that larger alliance of Christian Churches for which 
we long and wait, which can only be formed by following on in the 
path that is lighted by the truth as it is in Jesus. It is not separation 
that we seek by fidelity to truth as it is revealed to us— we would only 
be separated from sin and error — but we plead for consistency and 
unity within our own lines, that we may the more quickly realize the 
brighter hope, the broader fraternity, of the friends and followers ot 
Christ. Egypt’s pyramids must stand where her princes planted 
them, under the crust of centuries, and in the remoteness that answers 
us with silence ; but her obelisks may throw the shadows of their strange 
inscriptions on the waters of the Seine, the Hudson, and the 1 hames. 
So there are great cardinal truths in our Confessions that only hold 
our faith because they cannot be moved— that must stand where the 
word of God has set them. We may submit to the transfer of our 
obelisks, but must continue to contend lor the permanency of our 

^^Let us not hasten in our judgment of results. Let us not mistake 
discussion for division ; let us not count free thought friendliness to 
error or betrayal of truth. Let us be careful lest we overesUmate the 
enthusiasm of these memorable days. I rejoice when 1 think of the 
possible results we may fi d in this community that has been blessed 
with the direct impressions and influences of this great gathering ot 
Christ’s servants. But what a speck in the field over which these • 
sowers of the seed are soon to scatter ! Who shall estimate the pos- 
sible harvest ? Who can tell the fruit-gathering that shall gladden 
wounded France whose crimson fields are white; and splendid Swit- 
zerland, that listens for the hushed voices of her old Reformers ; and 
BeHiiim, breaking from her chains; and Holland, whose memories 
should be showers; and Spain, so full of promise; and Italy, whose 
rising chapels are grander than her galleries ; and England, Ireland, 
and Scotland, where the soil was never richer and the sowers never 
more resolved to reap for Christ ; and our neighbors of the North, 
whose frankness will be the pledge of their fidelity ; and Bohemia and 
the desert of the Dark Continent; and our own beloved land, that 
has not withheld its welcome, and shall blossom and bloom and bear 
rich and abundant fruit, unless we waste these opportunities with a 

neglect that should turn our heritage to others? 

But I have too long trespassed on your time. There is one thing 
needful, brethren, to insure these blessed expectations. Four years 
ago Philadelphia invited the world to our Centennial Feast. The 
nations brought their works of art and spread before us the symbols 
of their prosperity. In one great hall was displayed the machinery 
of all nations. Each set up its own, polished and prepared for 
action. America placed in the centre a powerful engine, beautiful to 
behold, a giant of strength ; the belting was carefully adjusted ; every- 
thing was ready for action — but still nothing moved. The fuel was 
gathered and put in its place, but still there was no motion ; then the 
fire was applied, the force generated, and at a given signal the great 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 899 

hall was alive with action. So I think we have all things ready. Our 
ecclesiastical machinery makes a promising display— it shows careful 
.adjustment; but we must have fire from heaven to insure the motive- 
power that shall give success. This pentecostal picture will be a Pen- 
tecost ind^d, if the Holy Spirit will come and make our Council the 
power of God. 

Rev. Prof. Calderwood. — I respond to the obligation laid 
upon me by the Business Committee, and venture to say a few 
words in acknowledgment of the great kindness we have re- 
ceived in Philadelphia; and of the sense we have of the pres- 
ence of the Divine Master and the outpouring of the Divine Spirit 
upon us as we have been gathered together. Many of us came 
to Philadelphia well acquainted with and deeply attached to 
each other, but entire strangers to many of those with whom 
we were to meet. I think I am only expressing what is the 
unanimous feeling of the Council, when I say that those who 
came here as friends return to our kimiliar .spheres still more 
closely bound together in the ties of Christian affection than we 
were when we started ; and that those of us who have met with 
fathers and brethren as strangers are returning now no longer 
strangers, but with strong attachments}, to our newly made 
friends. We carry with us new interests and new bonds. We 
have found in the centres of Christian sympathy a love which, 
in the secret of our closet and in the midst of our public worship, 
will rise from our hearts in most earnest supplications. 

We look back upon our procedings with gratitude to God for 
the evidence that we have had that as a Council we are most ear- 
nestly and thoroughly united in our adhesion to the faith. We 
bow with all reverence before our God to make acknowledgment 
of his divine sovereignty and grace ; and with all gratitude we 
acknowledge the wealth of the Spirit’s power. If there be any 
one thing upon which we would specially dwell, I think it is this: 
that we have been favored to see the evidences from all parts of 
the world of how the blessed and glorious gospel of Jesu5 Christ 
is winning its way. We have heard from far-distant lands ; 
from the islands of the sea ; from the continent of Europe. And 
we have heard, with intense interest, of that stirring throughout 
the whole extent of France, which we together unite in hoping 


poo 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


and praying will become a great national movement in the ac-^ 
knowledgment of Jesus Christ our blessed Saviour. 

Acknowledging as we do all these tokens of divine goodness 
and love, I think that we rightly close if, uniting in heart and soul, 
we desire that God would grant unto us, as united Churches in 
this Alliance, an increase of the power of Christian faith; that 
he would grant to us yet more of the ardor and the power of 
brotherly love ; and, above all, would give to us more of the 
spirit of complete consecration to the grand purpose of our 
Master, when, coming forth from the tomb victorious, he said, 
'‘Go, go, even to the ends of the earth, and preach the gospel 
to every creature.’' 

After the singing of a Psalm, the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, 
D. D., LL. D., led the Council in prayer ; and then 

The President declared : This Council is now dissolved, and 
the next General Council is appointed to meet, by leave of Prov- 
idence, in the town of Belfast, in Ireland, in the year 1884, on 
such a day as may be agreed upon by the Committee of Arrange- 
ments. 

After which he pronounced the Benediction, and the Council 
dissolved. 


THE APPENDIX 


The Appendix consists of the foito7ving Divisions : 

I*— The Papers that were prepared for the Council 
and transmitted to it, but not read. 

II. — The German Meeting, 

III. — The Statistical Reports. 

IV.— The Creeds. 

V.— Foreign Mission Papers. 


VI.— Miscellaneous : Letters. 


902 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


I. 

The following is a translation of the paper (see page 250) of Ed. de PRESSENsfe, 
D. D., of Paris, France, on 

THE ACTUAL CONDITIONS OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 

Apologetics is not the apology itself of Christianity; it confines itself to a question 
of method. It gives the outline, but does not fill it ; it arranges the plan of attack, 
but does not join battle. It is true that this plan depends on a general conception 
of Christianity, which implies and expresses a determined theological tendency. In 
order to be complete, apologetics ought to assume a scientific form, and display 
an appearance of reasoning which borrows its principles from the different branches 
of theology. Side by side with this systematic apologetics there is a fragmentary 
apologetics, equally scientific, which defends some particular point of Christianity. 
Finally, there is a familiar daily apologetics, which forces itself into the pulpit and 
the journals, as well as. into public and private discussions. The former is a ground- 
work for the latter. It serves as an arsenal for them. Above all, it directs their 
course. 

.My design is to treat of the general principles which should in, spire Christian apolo- 
getics in every form, seeking the best means of convincing our contemporaries, in 
this troubled and agitated age, of the truth of Christianity. These principles may 
vary in their form of exposition and their applications, according as the question 
bears upon the scientific or popular apology, but their sul>stance is the same. Chris- 
tianity ignores esoterism ; it desires a demonstration satisfactory to the people. 
The proof which can be presented to the poor and ignorant, and not to the learned, 
woulcj surely be injurious; it would be still more so in the contrary case; for an 
argument which would only reach the expert, and the erudite, and which would 
fail before the artless, could not be intended for human nature. Science, doubtless, 
creates special difficulties which must be met on their own ground; but this is the 
secondary part of the apology. The decisive proof must be universal and truly 
human, answering to the general laws of certitude, for we do not require any 
jinvi’ege or exemption for our faith., 

I hope to establish the fact that theological progress accomplished in our time, 
according to the general acceptation, at least as I understand ii, has really had the 
effect of giving power to this universal and truly human proof. The scholasticism 
of the various churches had enveloped the victorious sword with a thick sheath, 
which could not be drawn even in the hour of conflict. It is, however, necessary 
to draw this sheath, that the sharp point of the blade may be ex|X)sed. 

Apologetics IS not the less needed to-day, within the somewhat undefined pre- 
cincts of the historical churches, than without it, for it is well known that a religious 
radicalism is springing up among them which rejects the supernatural. 

Antichristianiiy has some points which I am far from disregarding. Nevertheless, 
in my opinion, the central idea of the gospel is diverted, and the idea of redemption, 
in its broadest .sense, is replaced by that of evolution. However, nothing is more 
dangerous than to confound the apologetic question with the ecclesiastical question 
in the body of the Church and state, which has neither the right nor power to impose 
unity of doctrine. It is impossible to liken the tolerance of people to that of ideas ; 
and the pardon of offences does not imply the abandonment of the rights of truth. 
Whatever may be the honorable reasons which similar ecclesiastical institutions 
maintain, tl>e vigorous defence of the essential truths of the gospel is incumbent 
upon all those who admit them. Antichristianity being in force, the arm of de- 
fence must be turned against it. Latitudinarianism, which pretends to settle the 
profound divisions of thought by sentimental homilies, would end not only in the 
weakening of the evangelical faith, but what is still more serious, in the lamentable 
enervation of Christian thought. It is then an established fact, that Apologetics 
has a place above even the Historic Church. 

Moreover, I think it is necessary for the believing portion of the Church, that 
their faith should be constantly confirmed by Apolegetics ; for every breath of wind 
that blows to-day brings a doubt. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


903 


The attack on Christianity is everywhere active, energetic, and quick to assume a 
clear and brief form. The work of consolidating is as indispensable as that of 
propagation. Those who are in frequent contact with our young, know that this is 
an important task. Hence, the great importance of the question on which 1 have 
I'eeii commissioned to speak, and concerning which I shall be able to present con- 
clusions only, without enlarging. 

I will review, succinctly, the moral and theological conditions of a good apology 
fir Quistianity, under existing circumstances, trying especially to bring forward the 
new requirements which the present state of antichristianity imposes upon us. 

I pass by the historical part of the subject. 

I. I will s^:)eak briefly of the moral condition of Christian Apologetics. It 
should be careful to avoid confounding a firm confidence in the cause with a tone 
ot piematuie victory. Nothing is more weakening than to take a triumphant posi- 
tion before beginning the combat, whether the objection to lie refuted is carefully 
lessened, or summarily dismissed. You are not forced to enter on a philosophical 
01 scientific combat. Being content with sharp aflirmations, you fortify what you 
pretend to crush. This victorious air has done great harm to the Catholic Apolo- 
getics, which always seems to have one foot on heresy, and the other on philosophical 
rationalism. It is like a talileau of St. Michael destroying the dragon. To mount 
to the Capitol before giving battle, armed with ignorance and self-sufficiency, is only 
to jnit yourself in a bad position, and provoke remarks which are not flattering. Let 
us be on guard not to be too good Catholics in this respect. 

Let us handle only the points of discussion which are familiar to us, approach 
them when we are able to discuss them thoroughly, and never mistake declamation 
for an argument. Especially let us avoid replacing the latter by denunciation. To 
attack an argument is not to reply to it. To threaten is vulgar, a proceeding which 
affects only the ignorant; the surest means of attracting generous spirits is not thus 
found. I speak here only of such denunciation as is possible with us, and not that 
which has flourished so much in the Ultramontane camp, and which attaches itself to 
the social or political danger of the doctrines. When behind the Creed the gen- 
darme’s tricorne is seen, the intellectual combat is suddenly finished for want of a 
combatant. 

The Christian apologist ought, farther, to keep from any snare into which he might 
be drawn by the exaggeration of a point true in itself. It is certain that in the per- 
sistent denial of the gospel, there is for us a moral consideration, and in a general 
way, the words of Christ, — Vote would not come unto me, because your deeds are 
evil — find their justification in the facts. 

We have no more right to attribute all opposiiion to Christianity to moral deprav- 
ity, than we have to conclude that all her adherents are godly. Opjxisition, as well as 
adherence, must be analyzed with care; the second perhaps can be only intellectual, 
and consequently imaginative, and the evil becomes more serious under this cold light. 
On the other hand, opposition to Christianity can be connected with ignorance and 
misunderstanding, united to a great generosity of spirit. We must then be very 
careful not to criminate unbelievers. When they are treated thus, they seem im- 
pressed, without remembering the old idea that Christendom belongs by right to 
the Church, and that unbelief is a revolt. 

The word unbelief cannot be applied indiscriminately to all opponents; many of 
them believe in conscience, in duty, and in a holy and good God. Doubtless they 
have illusions which we should try to dissipate, in awakening in them a sense of 
sin. But it is not by violent attacks that they will be led to an impartial examina- 
tion of religious truths. If you begin with violent reproaches you will be left to 
harangue to yourself alone. Let us avoid all this old rhetoric of authoritative apol- 
ogy which takes refuge in mandates only. Protestantism is too often adorned with 
what the latter casts off. To our adversaries let us show ourselves respectful and 
scrupulous; discussion will be more manly, for nothing is more senile than loquacious 
anger. 

II. I come to the heart of the question and ask. What is the best method of argu- 
ment to establish the truth of the gosjjel ? I repeat it, we wish only to lay claim to 


904 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


the genera] and normal laws of certitude. But it, I state, has two conditions : first, 
it is to rely upon a sufficient experience, and second, to appropriate llie modes or 
instruments of expeiience to its different objects. This is the root of the experi- 
mental method — so far as it is applicable to our subject. I apply this method to 
Christianity, which has found its Descartes in Claude Bernard. It forms a vast 
organism. It has had its realization in history; this history has its documents; the 
latter belong to the science of documents; that is, criticism. 

Christianity has an aesthetic side, born of the imagination. Its parts are closely 
united; it is the part of logic to break the chain, and search for order in the rich 
synthesis of life. But that is not its essential, characteristic feature. It professes to 
be a power of redemption and restoration, and claims to have been revealed through 
a person both human and divine — Jesus Christ. 

This moral, religious, living side evidently addresses itself to our corresponding 
faculties, that is to say, to the conscience and heart. It is the experimental science 
itself which gives us the power to show it in clear light. Please to remark, that it 
is not a question to be hastily decided. No, the experiment should be made seri- 
ously. It is from the contact of the soul with Christ, that the light will spring, 
which will produce belief, if there is harmony between them. 

This contact was immediately possible for those who met him, either on the shore 
of the Lake of Gennesaret, in the plains of Samaria, or under the porch of the Temple. 
This is a self-evident fact. There never has been an apologetic superior to that. 
Christian science has no other aim than to make it possible to establish, after such a 
lapse of time, this contact which drew the first disciples to the feet of Christ, Also, 
its great effort should be to put the true Christ in the presence of true humanity, 
which seems to sleep in the depths of our souls. The latter too often allows only 
the worldly side of human nature to appear, which delights in sin. 

The Christian apology has then a double task. It should first of all reveal the 
soul to itself by an experimental psychology which analyzes the truth of conscience, 
throws a light upon the duality, the sorrowful contradiction in which our moral 
nature struggles, and reveals to it both its divine aspirations and its frightful 
miseries. 

In the second place, this apology ought to present Christ to mankind by showing 
his claim to their confidence. This will establish from the beginning the historical 
authenticity of the testimony contained in our sacred books. 

But its principal task will be to revive Christ himself, rather than his image, and 
to show those points which appeal to mankind. It is thus that apology reproduces, 
as much as possible, the simple way in which Cliristian conviction showed itself 
when Christ was on earth. Then a broken-hearted penitent looked through his 
tears upon the loving, majestic face of the Redeemer — all was understood between 
them. To-day, from the heart of the sinner revealed to himself, the same aspiration 
must l>e called forth, and the holy image of Christ presented in the gospel must be 
reproduced and placed before him. But faith can result only from their contact. 
The belief thus formed answers perfectly to the laws of certitude, for it is an expe- 
rience. According to the remarkable words of Clement of Alexandria, who has 
laid the foundation for the apologetic doctrines of all the great defenders of Chris- 
tianity, from the time of Justin Martyr to that of Pascal and Vinet, it has proved 
like by like. 

To believe, for us, is not to renounce sight; it is to open the eye which perceives 
w'hat is divine, that by its proper use the will may have its legitimate and decisive 
part, since the Redeenrer is our living law — godliness realized in human conditions. 

We will now bring to a close, as best we can, the famous proceedings so long in 
discussion between external and internal proof. The question is, what is to be un- 
derstood by the former? If it is compared to the historical proof w^hich establishes 
the credibility of the documents by a reasonable and careful criticism, and brings 
forward the originality of Christianity, by a comparative study of the doctrines which 
have preceded it to show the impossibility of explaining it by antecedent writers, 
the historical proof is indispensable ; the internal proof which endeavors to In ing 
forward rhe relation between the conscience and the gospel cannot be separated 
from it. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 905 

Moreover, the external proof needs the internal proof; for without an intuition 
ot the divine, It cannot distinguish the true character of biblical testimony. The 
critic who hnds it human and ordinary does not recognize its originality and worth. 

n this sense the external and internal proofs mutually affect and strengthen each 
other r^leyertheless, we cannot forget that the external proof has been presented 
tor a long nine in a very different manner. It was likened a few years a>iO to the 
proof of miracles and prophecy. If was stated that the prophets had predicted the 
future and the apostles had worked miracles; therefore the book written by them 
was the word of God ; further, that it should be accepted as an infallible oracle. 
According to this conception the belief in Jesus Christ rests upon a belief in the 
authenticity of the Scriptures established by miracle and prophecy. 

In this way it is made necessary to go from the Scriptures to Christ, and not from 
Christ to the Scriptures. Yet upon this point an amphilology rules. We also think 
that Christ can be found only in the Scriptures, in the sense that they alone make 
him known, by nght of original evidence of his Spirit. What we resent is the theory 
winch rests faith in Christ, not on contact with him, but on the authority of the 
bole, established by external facts, however conclusive they may appear. 1 regard 
this apologetic method as altogether erroneous. The evangelical theology of^’our 
time, in its line of regular progress, has rendered us a great service by giving the 
death-blow to this apologetic external method, and attacking its foundation, which 
was a false idea of revelation. 

Most theologians of the seventeenth century described revelation as the super- 
natural communication of the doctrines of God and man. It was for them essen- 
tially an orthodoxy. A similar theory makes the book containing the divine formula 
almost identical with the revelation itself. It became the direct object of faith, and 
signified that it was divinely proved by prophecy and miracles. There has been 
one point gained to-day — that is the distinction between the revelation itself and 
its document. Revelation is a history and a person ; the book which guards it for 
us is the Bible. It has no other mission than to make us know him who has said, 
I am the triithy In reality, the book loses nothing by this. On the contrary, 
it has gained what it seemed to lose. 

When it was considered as a code or catechism fallen from heaven, it became 
cold and dry. Since it has been considered especially a testimony to the effective 
manifestations of God in history, and above all to the highest— the incarnation— it 
is living like the Christ whose image is stamped upon it. The scholasticism, which 
finds m the Bible nothing but forms that chill the aspirations, seems to have put 
a bandage upon the eyes of the disciples. In reading the Bible they find Christ un- 
real, the ^on of a gnosis altogether metaphysical. Since a biblical testimony is 
especially needed to fill the commission of the much-loved disciple— “ 77/A is 7 vhat 
rve have seen, this is 7ohat we have heard, concernhtg the 7 vojd of life : 7 vhich onr 
hands have touched, that we an)iounce to yon — the Bible seems to have received 
a new life; it is no longer a mere book, it is the vibrating voice of the apostles 
and prophets. 

If it does not lead us nearer the truth by way of an outward authority, which moves 
us by the marvellous, as by a heavy blow, it is none the less clothed with the highest 
authoiity foi those who believe in it, and is the only means of reaching Christ, 
and knowing his words, his works, and his thoughts. I say his thoughts — of which 
the apostleship is, in reality, the faithful expression in its fundamentaf belief. 

It is from the Bible that we learn more and more of the true and living Christ, 
beyond the subtleties of Councils, even of those which our fathers accepted with- 
out persuasion because they could not accomplish everything in a day. After hav- 
ing read the gospel again, we cry from our hearts: O Christ, not of Nicea, nor 
of Chalcedon, nor of Byzantium, still less of Arius, of Eutychus, or of Nestorius; but 
the Christ of Mary of Bethany, of St. Peter, and Sc. John, who art also the Christ 
of St. Paul, it is thee to whom we would go directly, and whom we would present 
to the men of our generation, saying, Look and see. This is better than to say, 
Tolle et lege. Our apology has no better proof to present, either scientific or popu- 
lar, in the chair of the professor or pastor, before the literary men of our day, or 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


906 

in the public streets. It is summed up in this sublime motto which Tholuck has 
borrowed from Melancthon : 


Fuc lit possim demonstrare, 

Quantum sit dulce te amare, 

Tecum pati, tecum here, 

Et semper tecum congandere. 

III. I do not conceal from myself that the manner in which I have presented the 
question of authority, without departing, however, from the apologetic point of view, 
is open to ol>jections. Ihere is no question that we belong to a time which no 
longer believes in authority, partly on account of the excess to which it lias been 
pushed in the Ultramontane camp. Whether this pleases or not, it is true. There have 
been times when a whole generation would instinctively give its aid to authority ; when 
the Church could control without difficulty the young Christians, and fashion, more 
or less, the public opinion. Often, doubtless, its teachings were neglected ; but when 
they returned to them, they accepted at once certain grounds of belief which were 
identical wdth Christianity. They could cease to be Christians, but to return to the 
Church they must admit certain principles and facts which it does not question, 
'rhese steps w’ere thus made very easy. It is no longer so at this day. Hence, the 
necessity of giving prominence to the proofs which bear upon truth itself, rather 
than upon its guarantees. 

This total ruin of all that resembles an accepted authority arrives at its 
last consequences in radical philosophy. The great current of antichristian 
thought entirely denies the moral world ; the idea of obligation which is the sub- 
stance of conscience, and which has had, at least in former times, the authority of 
an axiom, is met at the outset with all the theistic principles of which it is the root. 
It is in view of this situation that we must take an unmistakable stand ; it is a very 
grave position. We can attribute it, for the most part, to the grand development of 
.natural science in our time, or rather to the confusion into which it has thrown con- 
temporaneous thought. Natural science has wished to dissipate everything; w.e 
' have thus arrived at what is called Monism, that is to say, to a new kind ol Uni- 
' (arianism, which sees only the action of mechanical forces in the universe. Thus, 
vve find ourselves very far from positivism, w'hich, according to the beautiful image 
r of Littre, stops before this great ocean of the unknown, w hose dark waves beat our 
shores. In the opinion of the contemporaneous materialist, there is no longer an 
unknown. No; by the principle of the transformation and permanence of forces, 
as well as through their changes, they pretend to explain everything, notwithstand- 
ing they destroy, by the same explanation, the moral life — inseparable from liberty 
and duty. Not only is the idea of God destroyed, but that of personality disap- 
' pears with the same blow. These theories, more subtle in English psychology, 

■ modified by the bold inconsistencies of Stuart Mill, coarser and more glaring in the 
transformations of Heckel, penetrate everywhere, through the writings of the learned 

■ as well as the penny journal. They are the glory of the municipal councillors of 
our great cities, who dream of making them the object of lay teaching. They are 

.frightfully perilous to the democracy, and, above all, the most mortal poison to our 
population. They grant full indulgence to all immoralities, and, above all, cause 
the loss of immortal souls. 

, ,We cannot ignore them. The first duty of apologetics is to know them well — 
to possess such knowledge that the blows may not be vain and hazardous. I can- 
not approve too highly of the establishment of scientific courses in our theological 
universities, at least where they are not already introduced. I am convinced that 
the more information is spread, the more easy will be the victory over contempora- 
neous materialism. 

The more I consider its gigantic efforts to ruin the belief in the spiritual world, 
the more I am persuaded of the force of our position towards each other, as Chris- 
tian spiritualists, and that we should not ignore the opening of the combat which is 
inevitable. ■ . ’ 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


907 


I will, in a few words, show what our plan of defense should be 

At first I will suggest without urging, because I think that I am breaking throutjh 
a door already opened, that it is necessary to understand that natural science is in- 
dependent of revelation as long as the former does not depart from the principle 
that God reveals to us only what we cannot discover. The Bible does not teach 
astronomy nor philosophy nor cosmology. We must therefore I e careful not to pro- 
nounce such and such scientific theories to be incompatible wilh Christianity — even 
Darwinism, with the proviso that it confines itself to the domain of natural facts. 

In the second place, we must kiep closely to the orjierimental method. The natural 
sciences constantly rush into pure hypothesis, to end in hazardous conclusions. All the 
theories of transformation, of the origin of life, and the formation of the spirit, rest 
on suppositions and not on facts. The explanations which they give are more diffi- 
cult to understand than theism. Among the admirable works which have been 
written to establish this fact, I will mention the fine book of M. Janet, on “ Final 
Causes, that on “ 1 he Unity of Mankind,” by M. de Qiiatrefages. For all this irrelim- 
inary part of the apologetic, spiritual philosophy is our natural ally. But we will not 
on that account, surrender to it. We may suggest that its folly is equal to ours— the 
creation is not less absurd than the cross in a pure natur.al sense. Divine liberty has 
always two different degrees. Let us set forth the insignificance of the spiritualism 
whioli IS in the way, and which wishes to conceal the divnie liberty which it acknowl- 
edges, in the fatal circle of natural organism, but at the same time let us guard against 
disreganling its support. Above all let us be careful not to sacrifice our common 
truths to any particular theological theory. To compare men to animals in order to 
ariive at a conditional immortality, seems to me a very dangerous undertaking, and 
I do not like to see Hobbes, Herbert .Spencer, and Bain invoked as fathers of the 
Church, in the effort to sustain the theory of the annihilation of hardened sinners, 
without trying to solve a problem so grave. 

The lay discourses of M. Charles Secretan, the remarkable work of M. Ernest 
Naville, published this year in the “ Philosophical Review,” on the physical and 
moral, where the possibility of preserving liberty, with the permanence of force, is 
established, are model apologetics; vigorous and well informed in the face of ob 
jections taken from the natural sciences. The apologetic of Ebrard is of great 
value on this account. 


It is more than ever necessary to fortify philosophical studies in our theological 
universities, especially in what concerns anthropology. The history of philosophy 
has a great apologetic importance in showing, by the rapid succession of systems, 
how far we can trust the human mind, by itself, to destroy the error. In reality’, 
each system perishes in proportion to its falseness, it reveals this dialectic spontaneity 
of the reason which forces each doctrine to produce all its consequences, and thus 
to end in an irresistible reductio ad absurd lun. 

Ihe study of the history of philosophy prevents our return to useless modes of 
reasoning, which have entirely passed away. Since Kant we are no longer satisfied 
with the philosophy of Des Cartes. We ought to observe and follow closely the 
decisions of the critic of the great philosophy of Koenigsburg. It leads us elsewhere 
on this ground of true morality, where we can more easily overcome contempora- 
neous naturalism, because in denying obligation and substituting Utilitarianism, it 
comes in contact with experiences which no artifice can destroy. 

The history of Materialism by Lange can be useful to us in establishing w’hat is 
least certain; it is precisely matter that we know only through the medium of sen- 
sation. I cannot recommend too highly the profound study of Maine de Biran, and 
the works which have more or less adopted his line of thought in our P'rench phi- 
losophy under the influence of M. Ravaisson. 

The history of religions also claims the most serious study of the apologist. The 
linguist show^s us in the most elementary language the powder of generalization 
which implies reason, to which an animal can never reach. Even in the 
grossest superstitions of savages, the divine instinct is found. The history of prim- 
itive civilization, written in the sense of transformation by a Taylor or a Lubbock, 
makes it appear in the depths of an African desert. The w'orks of Max Muller have 


908 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


forever taken from fetichi£m the character of the primitive religion. The most reli- 
able documents on the Aryans and ancient Egypt establish the fact that Monotheism 
is at the depths of the human soul, since it appears spontaneously in every clime with- 
out being able for a long time, it is true, to disengage itself from its natural symbol. 
The history of the religions of the old world makes us take the same evolution towards 
the religion of the future, as we discover in Judaism under a form purer, because 
divinely superintended. It is thus that this grand science is a magnificent commentary 
on the discourse of Paul at Athens. It ought, therefore, to occupy an honorable place 
in our universities of theology. ‘In opposition to the theories of syncretism’ especially 
fleveloped among us by M. Havet’s book on “The Origins of Cliristianily,” which 
makes the latter merely a mingling of Greek and Oriental elements, it will establish 
peremptorily its own character, and prove that if it has been prepared by all human 
history, it is not its simple product, but has besides a still higher source. 

This, then, is the task in which the apologist must resolutely engage. 

We shall now touch upon the question of the supernatural. It remains the vital 
question. Let us not allow it to be put scornfully aside, for this is only a conve- 
nient way of refusing to examine it. Let us show the falsity of the deductions 
which are drawn against it from the progress of the natural sciences. Let us make 
it clear tliat the more science discovers the order of nature, the more she shows 
us the intelligence, the wisdom, the spirit, that which in every way surpasses it, and 
consequently that which has fashioned it, and is capable of interposing and directing 
to its ends. ^ 

Still more do I admire Kncfiog — that is to say, a world wisely ordered. Still more 
has the supernatural been rendered possible in showing the powerful ordaining 
ruler of the world; above all, if we admit, even in the name of natural sciences, 
new interferences of this power each time that a new step is taken in the ladder of 
life. In my opinion, the question of the supernatural should be boldly and cate- 
gorically stated. We must not reduce it to the simple possibility for the Creator to 
combine laws unknown to us. Why hesitate to say with Rothe that the first law 
is the dependence of nature over against conscience ? * The right of confounding the 
supernatural with the arbitrary is lost, when once the interference of God, in nature 
and the world, serves as a motive for the disorder introduced into the world by evil. 
The evil below, and the sovereign power above, are the two grand explanations 
of the supernatural, which is frequently confounded with the same question of lib- 
erty — that is, with the essential principle of the moral world. It is to this height 
that the Christian apologetist should carry this great problem. 

Allow me, in conclusion, after having tried to indicate what should be the condi- 
tions of contemporaneous apologetics in a moral, theological and scientific point of 
view, to report that nothing can take the place of a Christian life, unless we admit 
the famous reasoning of the Jew of the sixteenth century, who entered the Roman 
Catholic Church because he thought that a Church which has so many unworthy 
representatives can only exist with a divine protection. I think that we could not 
have much faith in such an argument. Let us show Christ in the Church, or we 
will try in vain to show him. We have already said, more than once, that the 
enemies of Christianity have but one excuse, but it is a strong one — the indifferent 
Christianity which they see around them. Let us endeavor to make it more decided. 
Our consolation is, that above all weaknesses of argument and inconsistencies of 
life, theie is a direct apology of God to the soul. It is his prev'enient and efficacious 
grace wdiich we believe to be the highest manifestation of his liberty and his love. 


* See the fine thesis of Mr. Boutroux on Uie “ Contingencies of the Laws of Nature.”' 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

The following is the paper (see page 447 ) of George Fisch, D. D., of Paris, on 
RECENT EVANGELISTIC WORK IN PARIS. 

- ;r;h- tSe- 

work wh|^ch concerns the whole evangelical Christendom. “ 

stood r/ntrof the Tolltp™ r'Tair^’'’ 

of Europe^'^The Rome, the religious centre of the we.st 

Jiaurope. Ihe youth of all nations was attracted by its university Innumemhle 
convents covered the city, and ruled in it. When the Reformalion^appearer 
lepulsed fiorn Pans with incredible cruelty. Everyone suspected of heresy was 

heiHe ""fT ^ "ot think possible to live in this boilin^ 

kettle of fanaticism without joining the Church of Rome. The Protestants of his couit 
and suite were obliged to worship at Charenton, at the distance of six miles Afiei- 

t^he revocation, tfie Reformed Church was utterly eradicated from the city and the 

^ Theircame^h^’^'^^r^ "il'® business met in the Swedish^Embassy. 

the eighteenth century. The popish faith disappeared, and Paris be- 
came the gr^t focus of infidelity. The terror raged there from 1793 to 179c more 

sen" 

that fearful tempest popery tried every means to recover its former influence 
ovei the Parisian population. It never succeeded to it. Of course there are oarts 

of ihe iifi ban'irnnd is largely represented, viz., several quarters 

V*i • u i’ / ^ west end. In the centre, the women alone believe 
whilst their husbands are totally indifferent, and in the remaining parts of Paris’ 
more than one million of people have no religion at all, and hate, from all their 
hearts the teaching imparted to them in their childhood. The priests are laughed 
at, and exert no influence whatever over these masses. ** 

The Parisian working classes form a most interesting subject of observation. 
They are quick, intelligent, witty; they are impulsive, generous, always in the op- 
position, considering It their task to protect the weak, and to resist injustice. They 
like every theory which is grand and lofty, but as they are very ignorant, they are 
easily taken by declamatory sentences, and by great words. They uphold each 
other with self-denying love. Sometimes, if one of them is expelled from his home 
for inability of paying his rent, they collect between themselves the money which is 
wanteo. to restore that family to its abode. If parents die, leaving orphans, the 
neighbors divide them between themselves. ^ 

Such a class of men is peculiarly apt to be seduced by socialistic schemes, which 
promise to create a sort of paradise on earth. These plans of renovation for man- 
kind are all founded upon atheism. It is heartrending to see the progress made 
among our Parisians, by the most outrageous impiety. At this time athefsm is mak- 
ing an immense effort to get hold of our population. Every morning innumerable 
newspapers, full of this venom, appear and are eagerly read by hundreds of thoiu 
sands. They tear to pieces everything that is sacred— God, the family, civil society 
God IS called a ferocious invention of the human mind. He is the arch enemy— 
the source of evil. To free our race from such a monster, is to redeem and to 
save It. No effort is too great, no sacrifice is too costly for achieving this glorious 
work* 


910 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


The Atheists have formed lately a kind of churcli, under the name of Society of 
Free Thought. It covers llie whole city, and has branches in every one of our 
twenty arrondissevients. They meet lor hearing irreligious speeches made by gen- 
tlemen and ladies. There is one Miss Auclerc, who is very prominent by her elo- 
c|uenl attacks of the Su])reme Being. On Friday, when the sincere Roman Catholics 
abstain from meat, the Freethinkers have banquets where the most abundant dish is 
fresh flesh. This shows how much the Parisian atheism was engendered by popery. 
'The only God of vvliom they heard was the God depicted to them by their religion 
as him who keeps in the Haines of purgatory those whose relatives are too poor to 
p.iy masses for them, and who condemns to hell the child whose parents did not 
Ij.iptize him in good time. Such a God is, indeed, hateful. 

This prevalent impiety is now incarnate in the municipal council, electe<.c by the 
eighty wards of Paris. There are not more than fifteen out of these eighty members 
who dare acknowledge the existence of God. The only one who is bold enough to 
speak out on this subject is an Ultramontane, who utters so much nonsense that no- 
body listens to him. The great purpose of the council is to eradicate religion from 
education. A book proposed for the schools, and where the word Providence was 
timidly inserted, was rejected for this only reason. Of course, many of our coun- 
cillors think better in the bottom of their hearts, but they do not avow it by fear of 
their constituents. 

Is it not most melancholy to see our working classes abandoned like sheep, under 
the care of such shepherds? Every one who lived among them during the siege, 
knows the real worth of the Parisians. The sufferings of hunger, frost, and desti- 
tution when, after having waited for seven hours before a baker-shop to get nine 
ounces of bread, where only one-tenth part was wheat, mothers found their baby 
wrapped, on their arms, in a shawl, frozen to death ; these horrors were accepted 
with unbounded patience. Not a word of discouragement was uttered. These men 
felt happy to endure these torments for their dear native land. If such a popula- 
tion came under the influence of the truth, what wonders would it not achieve ? 

Let us now come to the evangelistic work performed in these masses; and first 
say a word of the Protestant Church in Paris. 

When, at the beginning of this century, Napoleon, then first consul, acknowledged 
and paid the salary of the Catholics, the Lutherans, the Reformed, and the Jews, a 
small number of Protestants, who had all come from without, formed themselves 
into two churches: the Reformed, to whom the government gave two old Roman 
Catholic places of worship, and the Lutherans, who met in the old convent of les 
Balletfes. Their number has grown so rapidly that it reaches now 75,000 people, 
including the English-speaking. No notice is to be taken of the figures given by 
the official census, made in such a way that two prominent pastors, whose families 
and servants numbered thirty-five Protestants, were put down as Catholics. The 
Protestant churches and chapels increased with the same rapidity, and are now, 
with the addition of the evangelistic halls, fifty-eight within the walls and seven- 
teen on the outskirts. 

The work of evangelization of the Roman Catholics was begun in 1830. A mis- 
sion was opened by the Church Taitbout, and continued by the Evangelical Society 
in the two vast quarters of the Faubourg du Temple and the Faubourg Saint An- 
toine. Two missionary churches were founded with large .schools, which numbered 
at a time 800 children. The Lutheran and the Reformed Church gathered in large 
and flourishing schools, many hundreds of Roman Catholic children. But God had 
siill belter plans for the great city which he had prepared by the awful trials of the 
.Niege and the commune. 

At the end of the week of fire, as we named the seven days of fight from house to 
liouse, when Paris was retaken by the Vtu-sailles troops, M. MacAll, a Congre- 
gationalist minister of England, visited Paris. The fires which devoured its edifices 
were still smouldering, and the rivulet of blood running through many of its streets 
v/as not yet dried. He went to Belleville, which had been the centre of the great 
insurrection. He passed before a coffee-house, where a great many people were 
drinking. He gave them a few tracts. Soon every one came out and asked for these 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


this si<.ht felt a call of God to leave 

lie went' hacMoiria’ T <^hrist known to these perishing sinners, 

i e went back to Lngla.id, and wished to inquire whether this work was ]K)ssil)le lie 

naive oAhT 1 " Congregational year-book the 

he h f r 'V" him a first answer, saying that 

me ai d h- d"nra --^e 1 second 

Gocks wi l^ Hr?f 1 inquiry might he the sign of 

fir ha he P.!- objections made in England to his undertaking : 

first, tha the I ansians would never listen to his broken French; second that his 
hie would not be secure in Belleville. His correspondent ansxvered firs^ I hit if 
he made the I ansians understand that God and himself loved them, he would be 
WhenT’ second that he pledged himself for the safety of M. Mac All’s life 

the^envelonT^air r of an hour without opening 

he s"?d ’ n '''’I'- he had read it 

mu low street J allien Lacroix, put up a lumen on which were printed these words: 

Tel^s ‘he love of 

Jesus. He had bought sixty straw chairs; they were soon filled. Then he opened 

new shops ni other parts of Paris. The work grew constantly. Every yeai new 
hired, and as soon as one of them became too small, it was replaced 
by a hall three or four times larger, which was immediately filled. 

God had endowed M. Mac All for the great work intrusted to him. No foreigner 
has ever so well understood the wants of the Parisians. Friends from other nations 
bring too often then native soil with them. They address a Roman Catholic or 
nfi el audience as they would speak before Protestant Christians at London or New 
York 1 hey speak in the Protestant language, which is no more understood by our 
people than Hindustani or Chinese. All the terms expres.sing religious things are 
ditierent. The way of reaching the hearts is not the same. M. MacAll understood 
us. He knew that our I^risians, by hatred of their owm worship, detest any relicr- 
lous service; therefore, he refused to hold his meetings in Protestant churches or 
chapels. He avoided to give to his appeals the form of a divine service; he calls 
them moral and religious lectures. There is no opening prayer, only a short word 
of prayer in conclusion. People remain sitting w'hen this religious act is performed 
as wdl as during the singing. M. MacAll telt that any act implying adoration 
would be repulsive to these men who must first be won to the belief of God. There 
IS always a variety of speakers, and the addresses must avoid any resemblance with 
preaching. Our brother is displeased when his orators take out their Bibles from 
their pocket and begin by taking a text. The amazing success of the work proves 
that he is right. ^ 


Singing is one of the great powers of attraction in these meetings. The songs do 
not resemble those of a funeral service; they are swift, keen, full of impetus. Hun- 
dreds of our working men who had never sang anything but bacchic tunes, not only 
join in these beautiful hymns with all their heart, but also repeat them at home 
during their daily toil. 

When this work begun, the Paris police was very shy. The great majority of the 
National Assembly was clerical. The government allowed these lectures on the 
condition that neither politics nor controversy against Popery should be touched 
upon. Now, everything is changed in ITance, and the present government allows 
our Protestant lecturers throughout the country to thrash Popery in every way. 
However, M. MacAll thinks that he must persevere in fulfilling the condition which 
he first accepted. 

The protection of God upon this mission. under the two Jesuitical Cabinets of the 
24th of May, 1874, and l6th of May, 1876, was indeed marvellous. The priest- 
hood, which was reigning through the clerical government, did its utmost to suppress 
these meetings. The Ministers never yielded; on the contrary, they were so fully 
impressed with the excellence of the sacred work done by this mission, that they ‘ 
encouraged it constantly. One day M. MacAll was summoned by the police com- 
laissioner of Batignolles. Pie w6nt, fearing that his meeting was to be closed. No, - 


0 


912 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


this ofTicer had called him to say: “ I regret to see that the hall opened in my dis- 
trict is not yet full, but I am sure that it will soon fill; you mus’ not be discouraged.” 

M. MacAll takes great care to have his halls on great thoroughfares. There is a 
little band of young men who stand before the meeting compelling to go in all those 
who pass by. Generally, when a new district is invaded, there is a good deal of 
noise. Several times the police had to interfere, but, after a few weeks, order pre- 
vails, and the meeting is adopted by the attendants as if it were their church. In- 
stead of spending their evening in the theatre or in the wineshop, they come to pass 
a peaceful hour, which delights them and gives a new turn to their life. 

The present number of the meetings is thirty-five every week in twenty-four places, 
having 5,302 seats. About 8,000 adults listen there every week to the good tidings 
of salvation. During the year 1879, 328,838 persons have attended the halls. In 
the Sunday-schools and children’s congregations 1,726 meetings were held, with an 
attendance of 87,739 children. The number of juvenile meetings was 236, with an 
attendance af 97,925 young men. 

God provided also the work of a suitable agency. M. MacAll found two excellent 
associates, M. Rouillyand the Rev. Geo. M. Dodds, the son-in-law of the venerated 
Dr. Bonar. He has a few paid helpers, but the great majority of the speakers con- 
sists of Parisian laymen and ministers of all denominations. Our evangelical clergy 
found there an enlargement of their ministry. All rallied around him as one man. 
This work has become an Evangelical Alliance on the practical ground. M. Mac- 
All has a most unsectarian spirit, and he did a great deal to bring the Parisian 
Christians together. A committee was formed to help him. Each meeting is now 
under the superintendence of one of the Paris ministers, who conducts there a*BibIe 
class. 

The fruits of this mission are abundant. In order to judge of the spiritual power 
exerted by it we must look at the difficulties which it has to overcome. 

1. The Roman Catholics in Paris have no religious notion whatever. They 
attended for one winter when ten years old the so-called catechism — the religious 
teaching of the priest. The little book which they learned by heart, after three 
pages devoted to God, P'ather, Son and Holy Ghost, came at the fourth page to the 
sign of the cross, to the seven sacraments and to the way in which God must be 
hallowed in the Eucharist, without letting the crumbs fall away. They receive the 
confirmation when they are eleven years old. From that time the boys never enter 
a church. Their religion consists of a vague remembrance of ceremonies which 
appear to them as ludicrous. The great facts of the creation, the fall, the law, are 
utterly unknown to them, or appear to them clothed in the usual sarcasms spread by 
Voltaire in the French mind. 

2. Their consciences were distorted by popery. The notion of sin is perverted 
by the dogma of venial sins, by the idea that a bit of meat eaten on PT iday is a trans- 
gression equal to a theft, and by the childish conception that Adam was condemned 
to death for having eaten one of our apples. It requires years to restore in their 
souls the majesty of the moral law. 

3. The third obstacle is the levity of the Parisian. From his- childhood his at- 
tention was diverted upon all the things pleasant and attractive, which our beau- 
tiful city displays. No room remains in his mind for the things that are invisible. 
His soul is like a sand blowed by the wind in every direction. He receives readily 
a good impression, but it is scattered away by a thousand others. 

In spite of these difficulties, the number of conversions effected is quite surpris- 
ing. Hundreds have entered the narrow way. A great many young men have 
thrown away their profligate habits and help now in the work. One who confessed 
that he had been guilty of every sort of crime, has now the care of a meeting-hall. 
In Belleville alone there is a young men’s meeting, which numbered at a time more 
than sixty memliers, all professing to seek Christ. 

And now this form of evangelizing our Roman Catholics spreads over our whole 
territory. God provides his Church at every period with the kind of net appropri- 
ated to the wants of the time. The MacAll meetings are the only w'ay in which 
the masses of our great cities may be approached. The mission has opened halls in 


9^3 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


nor.-leaux, Lyons, and other large towns, with an aggregate number of 2,080 seats. 

Meetings of the satue kind were undertaken by others in Marseilles, Toulon, Nomes, 
1.1 lie, and elsewhere. 


Ollier Christians also came after the siege and the commune, to bring the balm 
..f the saving truth to our wounded and bruised Paris. Among them we must men- 
tion MisS de Bruen, who built at Belleville an iron church, with large schools. A 
daily service is held for the crowds which pass by in large numbers, as this church 
IS near the gate of the splendid park of the Battes Chaumont. A missionary physi- 
Clan brings the work into contact with thousands of families which are visited by a 
zealous evangelist. ^ 


Ihe combined action of this double mission, seconded bv the worthy Reformed 
pastor, M Kobon, has already changed the outward appearance of Belleville. This 

once so ill-lamed quarter has become one of the quietest and most orderly parts of 
our city. ^ ^ 


We must also mention here the admirable work founded after the commune by 
Madame de Pressense, in the Chaussee du Maone. It exerts a blessed influence by 
large schools, sewing circles, and an industrial school. The good work of Madame 
Daleriiyart, the mission among the ragpickers of Clichy, and many others of the 
same kind, show that Christian charity is largely at work in every part of Paris. 

show the excellent dispositions of our people. Last sprino- M. 
MacAll hired for several weeks the large dancing hall called P Ely see Montviartre, 
which may hold 2,200 people. It is haunted by the worst part of this ill-famed dis- 
. tnct. It was a daring enterprise to offer to such a class of people the preaching 
of salvation. But the experiment succeeded. In the beginning there was some 
uproar in these dense masses, but since the third evening the audience was atten- 
tive, earnest, and cheered enthusiastically several of the speakers. 

The Rev. M. Gibson, a well-known Methodist minister, tried another step not 
less daring. There is near the Madeline a hall devoted to scientific, philosophical, 
and literary lectures. There an elite of three hundred gentlemen and ladies, be- 
longing to the educated classes, meets, in the week to hear our most renovvned 
lecturers. The general strain of this teaching is thoroughly infidel. M. Gibson 
hired this hall for every Sunday evening. Evangelical lecturers proclaim there the 
foolishness of the cross. The audience of the week meets around them in the same 
number. The hail is full. The lecturers are warmly applauded. One of the favorite 
orators there is M, Reveillaud, the Roman Catholic advocate, whose conversion 
was so marvellous, and who is now about starting for America. 

I conclude now by an earnest appeal to my brethren of the forty-nine Presbyterian 
Churches represented in this Council. When a fortress is the key of the enemy’s 
territory, a good general understands that he must storm it at any cost. When Ger- 
many invaded France, Moltke saw, with the eye of genius, that to take Paris was to- 
conquer us. Paris was impregnable. Never mind, he formed the gigantic enter- 
prise of famishing a city presenting a line of defence of seventy miles. He did it 
with so much decision and patience that, after twenty weeks, the great capital sur- 
rendered, and the war was at an end. I ask now, will our Christian brethren do 
less for the kingdom of their Master? Will they not besiege Paris with the same 
energy and firmness of purpose? Will they not effect, by their prayers and Chris- 
tian efforts, that sooner or later this immense city may fall into the hands of Christ, 
and become an unspeakable blessing for the world ? 


58 


914 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


The followin" the paper (see page 474) oi the Rev. Prof. J. J. Van OosteRzee, 
D. D., of Uuecht, on 

*TIIE CONFLICT BETWEEN FAITH AND RATIONALISM IN 

HOLLAND. 

“The Conflict between Faith and Rationalism in Holland " is the subject on 
which the General Presbyterian Alliance, assembled this year at Pliiladelphia [Ro- 
men sit omen!) desires and expects a report from me. The importance of the 
question thus raised will hardly Ire underrated by any one who, with Goethe, re- 
gards “the conflict between faith and unbelief” as afl'ording, “in reality, the most 
profound theme in the history of the world.” Nor will its interest be diminished, 
irecause the arena of the conflict happens, in this case,, to be one comparatively nar- 
row and circumscribed. It will be recognized that in the domain of the Kingdom 
r»f God, tlie geogrn-jrhical standard Is far from the highest. Switzerland, for example, 
is out of all proportion-smaller than Russia, yet who'will slippose, on this account', 
that the former casts a less decisive weight into the scale of belief and unbelief than 
the latter? Holland, the cradle of the Reformation, the early asylum of freedom, 
in its brightest days the training-ground for the Reformed theology, even of other 
lands; once, in the language of Prof. Tholuck, “the Goshen of philological 
sturlies ” for the exegesis of Scripture, and, to this day, a principal seat of Evangel- 
ical Protestantism in Europe — Holland merits something more on the part of breth- 
ren at a distance than the neglect of cold indifference, or the interest of a cursory 
g'ance. It is true the warfare there being waged, for or against the truth in Christ, 
is substantially the same as that maintained in England, France, Germany, and else- 
where, yet, in details, it displays its |>eculiar and national character; and though 
we confine our retrospect to a period of a little over the twenty years last past 
{1858-1880), beginning with the rise of the so-called Modern Theology, the ma- 
terial is still of sufficient extent and importance to repay careful attention. In en- 
tering, without further preface, upon its treatment, be it only premised that the ex- 
pression “ Faith,” as here employed, is used not in the special ecclesiastical sense of 
that term, but only in its oecumenical Christian sense, and that, in like manner, by 
“ Rationalism” is here implied, in the general sense, the radical denial a 7 id oppos- 
ing of Christiartiiy, in its claim to be the historic revelation of salvation, conferred 
by God in a supernatural ivay, in the persoJt a 7 id xvork of fesus Christ, the So 7 i of 
God a 7 id Saviour of the world. 

Seldom, indeed, have so many causes conspired to bring about a new departure 
in the domain of the Church and theology, as in the Holland of somewhat more 
than twenty years ago, when modern rationalism first began to lift its head. The 
empiric philosophy, as expounded by its talented representative. Prof. C. W. Op- 
zoomer, at the University of Utrecht, had widely disseminated the seeds of doubt 
with regard to the supernatural. The C} iticis 77 i of the Tubingen School, at first op- 
posed, i>ut afterwards warmly espoused by the Leyden Faculty, began more and 
nfore to shake the general confidence in the authenticity -and credibility of the bulk 
of the New Testament writings. The lofty flight of Natttral Science, w'hich looked 
down with proud disdain upon'the simple faith in Bible and Revelation, opened-itp 
for many minds an ever-widening distance between believing and knowing. The 
Evangelical Protestant Church, long divided by manifold internal conflicts, and less 
and less refreshed by the warm breath of an earlier revival, for many no longer 
afforded the desired satisfaction, and as a result the religious life of the individual 
and the congregation fell, in numerous instances, into a condition of languishing. 
The influence, too, of other la 7 ids, in which the spirit of denial evermore loudly 


* The limtts assigned to the extent of this paper, by the esteemed committee of the Presbyterian 
Council, at Philadelphia, rendered necessary great conciseness of statement. Compare, therefore, 
by way of supplement and illustration, the Report on Holland, in the “ Proceedings of the Evan- 
gelical Alliance at Basle,” 1879, as also what was earlier written on The Gospel History and Modern 
Criticism, in the “ Proceedings, etc., of the Evangelical Alliance at New York,” 1873, PP- 238-249; 
cf. pp. 734, 735. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. g,j 

wTerftlW feVh,“If'r l""" ',’1 "• SwitKrIand-wa» 

fedf there are ne haJ' f" Ihe latter country 

list It, there are peihap. few lands where a voice which appeals to the love of free 

Pfovmce, is sure of meeting with a more emphatic re.sjionse than here 
No wonder, freedom was the precious fruit of its formef heroic single ; fLdom 

l coi^ounded with freedom m Christ < in Christo) ; and in 

ni way the door was opened for public opinion to express itself, as a rule, in favor 

,ho . : t the banner of in whatever negative sense, whUe 

hose who felt bound to take their stand for the IrutK accord, ng to the ao pe of 
the Scnptures were ordinarily decried as intolerant and exclusive " ^ 

nnlnrearw' influence of the Walloon theologians 

dkpi^ f^Tr~ Edmond Scherer, the widely-divennng 

disciple of Alexand,^ \ inet— at fii-st contribute to assure an easy triumph to Modern 
Ra lonahsm in the Netherlands, The names of C. Busken Huet, Albert Reville 
Allard Pierson, and others call forth distinct associations in this respect, in the 
mmd of many a Netherlander. Yet we should he guilty of an injustice to these 

that they arose with the defiiiite.a/w of undermii^- 

hfv ho of laying waste the Church in which 

they had hitherto ministered. On the contrary, their watchword was at first not 

fo oay, paradoxical, as it may sound, their endeavor 

to kindle the new light, in ever wider circles, was stamped with a certain comeivc^^ 
t^ve and apologetic character. They really believed themselves able, and, indeed 
under obliption, in this way, to attach to the cause of Christianity many who would 
otherwise be inevitably lost to the Church. The endeavor was mado, just as, 
by Colam, in France, to win over the men of the age to the attendance of the preadi- 
ing, by the proclamation of a Christianity without revelation and without miracles * 

the truly human religion of the noble Jesus was to replace the religion 
of Christian tradition, now regarded as obsolete. Only by slow gradations, and 
after the lapse of time, did it become touchingly apparent that “ whosoever denietb 
the Son, the same hath not the Father;”* and that he who rejects the Christian 
revelation, will in the end forsake the Christian religion; if, at least, he possesses 
the courage of consistency. To the spirit of denial the wings grew by degrees^ 
and only too great is the number of those who, after having ventured a first hesitat* 
ing step upon the path of doubt, have within a comparatively short time descended 
Nviih alarming precipitancy into the gloomy depths of God-abandonmenl and im- 
morality. ’ 

^ The progress of the conflict l>etween faith and rationalism in Holland wn'thin the 
iast few years has been a constant advance from a comparatively timid denial to ap 
ever bolder one, upon an ever-widening platform. That which was at first only as 
It were, whispered in the ears of a few in the academic class room, was anon openly 
proclaimed to the congregation from the pulpit, instilled into the mind of a yoanger 
generation, and finally brought home, both orally and in a printed form, to the gen- 
eral public, alike educated and uneducated. After the note of doubt had been 
more or less distinctly sounded, in the first place, with regard to the Saviour’s visi- 
ble ascension, the assault was presently directed against the main bulwark of tfie 
Christian faith of revelation — the bodily resurrection of the Prince of Life; and 
with astonishment the congregation heard, for the first time at the Easter festival of 
i860, the miracle of the Lord’s resurrection disputed and denied in the same pulpit 
from which it had been so long proclaimed. Nor was the ultimate limit reached 
yet : it soon became evident that the ways and thoughts of men separate not only at 
the empty grave, or at the Olivet of Ascension, hut even at Bethlehem’s manger. 
Above the history of the miraculous birth was appended, as in large letters, the. in- 
scription, “Cunningly devised fables.” The alternative was presented betvveen the 
Christ of Bethlehem and rabbi Jesus of Nazareth; and by very many was resolved 
in favor of the latter. Then came the fatal year 1864, which, after the romantic 

* I John il. 23. 


•916 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


'“Life of Jesus,” of Ernest Renan, witnessed the appearing of caricatures of the 
life of Christ, in tlie jxjpular elaboration of that biography by David F. Strauss, and 
in the “ Cbarakterl>ild Jesu,” of Dan. Schenkel. When, in 1835, the first edition 
of Strauss was brought out in Germany, the Dutch translator ot that work experi- 
enced the greatest diificulty in finding a publisher, and the eventual publisher was 
branded by his compeers with a sort of moral ostracism for his part in the matter. 
Yet, when Kenan, with impure hand, smote in the face the Christ of the Gospels, 
the publishing houses rivalled each other in their eagerness to transfer this exotic 
poison-])lant as quickly as possible to Dutch soil, and to offer it at the lowest price; 
the work, morever, found champions and encomiasts, even among professors of 
theology and preacheF.s of the gospel. Many no longer shrank from saying that if 
'it should please Strauss (were he still living) to visit our land, he would be incon- 
ivenienced rather by the ardor of his numerous friends than by the hostility of his 
adversaries. “ Lives of Jesus,” composed in the spirit of the above-mentioned 
leaders, began now to issue from the press, and to find a more or less extensive class 
of readers. 

How much was left therein of the miraculous history of the evangelists may easily 
be divined. The pruning-knife of criticism was employed by all sorts of hands as 
an anatomical dissecting knife, and the maxim, “ Faciamus experimentum in corpore 
vili,” put into practice with relentless haste. In thus speaking we do not deny that 
a great deal of acumen and learning was applied in our land to this work of destruc- 
tion, Ihe authenticity of the Fourth Gospel, e. g., was disputed by Prof. Scholten 
(l864jin away which fully occupied the hands of his opponents, and worthily 
developed the method of negative criticism originated in other lands. This conflict, 
however, could not lead to the desired results, because the umpires proceeded from 
principles diametrically opposed. The Apologetes took their stand upon the ground 
of the supernatural, while the Moderns made more and more manifest their adhe- 
sion to a naturalistic conception. A war of extermination was declared, in particular 
by Professors Scholten and Kuenen, against all supernaturalism in the theological 
domain ; and W'hat had been accomplished by the former of these with respect to 
the New Testament, was attempted by the latter, amidst the applause of many, with 
regard to the Old. Kuenen's “ Introduction to the Writings of the Old Testament ” 
and his “ History of the Religion of Israel” furnish a remarkable instance of what 
a criticism of the sacred writings, which claims to be historic, is able to effect when 
applied in the interest of an a pyioti jihilosophic system. While always appealing 
to the requirements and law's of a truly organic historiography, which nowhere 
a^limts of the intervention of a supernatural agency, the learned waiter succeeds in 
giving us a history of the Old Covenant, in which everything — Israel’s monotheism, 
‘its prophets, even the expectation of salvation itself — is, to a certain extent, naturally 
Explained, while, for the rest, we are absolutely forbidden to take into account the 
supernatural factor in seeking light upon that which still remains unexplained and 
inexplicable. Even 7 vith this new conception of Israel’s religion, no final stage has 
yet been reached. The study of the comparative history of religions, pursued within 
the last decenniums with a zeal hitherto unprecedented, has become an important 
lever in the hands of that tendency w'hich may be here characterized (“ sine ira et 
studio”) by the name of modern rationalism. Among not a few of the most meri- 
torious exponents of this science, it is already tacitly assumed that between the 
Israelitish and Christian religions on the one hand, and those of heathendom on the 
other, the difference is not at all specific, but only one of degree; and that the origin 
of all religions, without exception, is to be satisfactorily explained by the hypothesis 
oT a merely gradual development, wherein the higher, in due time, 'proceeds spon- 
taneously from the lower. 

Thus by degiees the w'hole question as to the nature and origin of religion w'as 
lemoved frona the province of theology to that of psychology, according to some, 
even of physiology; but, at the same time, the intimate bond which had hitherto 
subsisted between theology and ethics was fatally severed. The “ Sancta Theo- 
logia was degraded to the lower rank of science of religion-; the higher unity of 
doctrine and morals perilously ignored; the “morale indepcndante ” extolled as the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 917 

u?i\y^nThe^domah!'?r^ absolute emancipation pleaded for, not. 

cipation of which the banefur fruit fordnrt^^- *^1 rr Practice— an eman- 

come apparent. An incurabk dolSo t i ^ ^>«- 

of an epidemic disease; the sino-le^’dofTmi 0 -»ia acquired in some places the character 
seded all others in the estimafion o^th.Q and can hew dogma, super- 

and — but enough: “difficile est Histirin ^ "‘well abreast of the times/’ 

The resume? the att'lck on th. . r ’ Satiram scribere.” .. 

and its confessors has not failed ^ trr apostolic Christianity 

modernism exerted a Lrtain oov^^^ ^ At its ris^ 

such as set store by the Confession of the^^pT church members, even 

the first glance to afford a satisfaction foi lo "J S^wlnt ^jemed at 

ism especially appeared to those xv hr. ell u ants. I he modern dctermin- 

akin to the ancient / >° be 

ideas were expounded by mfted advor earnestness with which the new 

the case of miny a plve^ful efflt C rY'- P'-oduced in 

the prospect of a better future onenpH ^ illusion vanished, and 

more than a delusive j^'er/a Mm- ^ up upon this side soon proved to be nothing 

g«.f which yat::7h«:;e1f'ttrt:o .lte:trend::"'':-.|f.h“/f‘'^ eve.. deepe„inf 
flowers of poetry and eloquence was ^ 1 I fragrant but fading 

that the Jesus of Modernism and th^ ri it became daily more clear 

in common save the name and that P Scriptures had hardly anything 

decided No unon IVY? ' fvationahsm could only utter an even more 

and amen Put question answered in the apostolic gospel with yei 

reldrgTther^tre'e^r^s^nmtit'^T Y? 

alter a time, unendurable for the greater and best mi-t nA 

?h-S 

re'^lsm a;>fo,.ldox"'“f Radicalism in,o Vor/rss J a.Ommoltle'con! 

Sven Ly Ze "r InLence frin1rCh"!irc/whWn"rh,.TeZi‘ 

Even by thiKse who at first still continued to attend the ministrations the Church wa< 

w:;scho:rr.|;^iaT;L^^^^^^^^ 

ceptibly declined, and the so-called Candidatennood ” (dearth of candidate^! lose 

^ Reformed Church some two to three humlred 

pastoiates remained vacant, in single instances, for years in succession In the 

iZ e ‘urheaT/of “'f 'b= 'nodern .spirit gave rise to a state of affitim 

nelo e ui'heaid of. 1 he Remonstrants, Baptists and Lutherans forsook wholly or 

Me“,noT/b Ih'ZanTi with the doctrines of Arminhis; 

^^’^her and became, to an increasing extent, voluntary associations for 
the cultme of a religious and moral life in the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth Wholly 
untrammelled congregations arose, in which the old Christian fe.stivals were either 

fo mer in '?he hisl“ with a purely .symbolical interpretation no 

longer in the historic sense ; and the utmost po.ssible freedom from all confession 

TnTs ^ which held together for a time the ever-varying number of attend- 

ants. By means of popular .scientific lectures every effort w^as made, and not without 
•success, to lead the multitude to apostatize from the faith of their fathers, and to 

nZ, The state school. proVe.ssedly 

neutral, wa.s, in very many cases, a modern sectarian school, the hot-bed of super- 


THE PRESB YTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


-918 

6cial iinl)elief and frivolous levity, and the national mind was modified in such 
fashion that a despite befoie unknown for everything that is sacred became the order 
of the day. Without regard to the counsel of the wise king,* “the ancient land- 
•marks which the fathers bad set” were not only “removed,” but altogether de- 
stroyed; and a desolating stream of denial arose, which threatened to sweep away 
even the last barriers and dams. Not Christianity and revelation alone were 
scorned, l)ut religion and morality, nay, human refinement and decency, were in 
tvery way outraged. It seemed as though the spirit of criticism could not rest until 
It had annihilated its own object. 

Like a tree which sheds its sere and shrivelled leaves under the blasts of autumn, 
so the aged and venerable tree of the Church cast from it a number of withered 
members and teachers, to seek elsewhere that which they could no longer find 
within its bosom. The endeavor to bring about a formal and legal exclusion of the 
heterogeneous elements in the ecclesiastical domain, was not crowned with perfect 
success, and the attempt was made to retain as long as possible the semblance of 
outward union. The opposing parties exhausted their eftbrts in seeking a ?/io(ius 
vivendi^ and usually ended, however reluctantly, with remaining in statu quo. 
Hut, whether matter of rejoicing or regret, this, at least, is certain : the inner sepa- 
ration of spirits has long been complete. Even the bridges are broken down, w Inch 
formerly served to keep up the communication betvi-een the opposite camps, am' — 
if w'e are to credit the bold declarations and predictions of the apostles of unbelief 
— the day is not far distant w hen Christianity, as the religion of the people of the 
Netherlands, will be no more, and the fate reserved for those Christiani of the 
nineteenth century who still survive, as little enviable as that which once overtook 
4 he Pagani, everyw'here outflanked and driven into obscurity, in the Roman empire 
of the fifth century. 

In presence of all these disquieting manifestations on the part of unbelief, it is a 
natural, but, at the same time, gladdening phenomenon, that a decided reaction set 
in on the side of belief. In opposition to the modern naturalism, Christian orthor 
;doxy in due time raised its voice in the field of science, and the Church of the 
Lord show'ed itself not unmindlul of its obligation to “give a reason of the hope 
that is in it. ”f H<flland, during the last twenty years, has not been wanting in 
vigorous apologetes; the mode of defence being, as usually happens, determined 
by the nature of the attack. The historic reality and abiding import of the resur- 
rection of Christ from the dead w'as brought into relief on various sides, in accord- 
ance with the requirements of the time; the certainly and significance of the gos- 
pel record of miracles circumstantially proved ; the belief in the supernatural char- 
acter of the Saviour’s life w'as maintained on all cardinal points, and the modern re- 
volt against the fourth gospel, in particular, effectually taken to task. Strauss, 
Renan, Schenkel, and others like minded, found in Holland not only friends anil 
allies, but also opponents and antagonists, of w’hom the influence and reputation has 
extended far beyond the limits of Holland. The years 1860-1S70 were specially 
abundant in more or less important contributions to apologetic literature. A com- 
plete catalogue of authors and titles will hardly be expected here; enough that the 
names of Doedes, van Oosterzee, ter Haar, Hofstede de Groot, Stemler, Cramer, 
and others, appear in the list of those who, as men of science, have not been 
ashamed of the testimony ol the Lord Jesus, and as opportunity presented itself 
have, with good effect, exposed the arbitrary and capricious method of the criticism 
of unbelief. 

• In many places popular apologetic lectures were delivered in vindication of mis- 
represented truths, and not wdthout leaving the desired impression. The preaching 
of the gospel, too, especially in the givat towns, manifested and develojied in an 
increasing degree an apologetic char ' ’< r; and, in counteraction of the influence of 
Leyden, the University of Utrecht, and later that of Groningen, flourished as train- 
ing schools of future ministers of the gospel, in the spirit of Christianity and the 
Reformation. Nor w'ere efforts wanting in defence of assailed portions of the Old 


♦ Proverbs xxii. 28. 


t I Pet. iii. 15. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


919' 

Testament ; although it must be confessed this side of the beleaguered citadel was, 
for want of adequate forces, the least powerfully defended. It was, moreover, to 
be deplored that the Hague Society for the Defence of the Christian Religion, founded 
towards the close of last centuiy upon an orthodox basis, gradually proved itself 
more and more not the opponent, but the ally, of the modern rationalism. The 
more encouraging therefore becomes the fact, that what was too greatly lacking in 
point of scientific opposition to unbelief, was made good, so far as possible, on the 
popular and practical side. As against the modern State-school, the cause of the 
Christian instruction of the people, on the basis ot the Bible, was energetically sup- 
ported, even at the cost of very considerable pecuniary sacrifices. By means of 
evangelization and foreign missions every available effort was made to rescue the. 
masses from the doom of an utter unchristianizing, and a “Union for the Promotion 
of Christian Literature,” contributed its part during successive years to scatter, in 
opposition to so many tares, the good seed iqxin the wide field of the nation. Many 
voices were raised on every hand against the growing spirit of apostacy, and in face 
of increasing resistance the endeavor of the friends of truth to “overcome evil with 
good,” in accordance with the apostle’s exhortation,* was still zealously maintained, 
and regarded with favor in influential quarters. While the periodicals, and in par- 
ticular the iournals, were here as elsewhere, to a large extent, in irreligious and 
antichristian hands, a number of daily papers and weekly or monthly magazines, 
which were now published, gave forth a wholly different note, artd in every way 
it was made manifest that “the sect” which is “everywhere spoken against, ”f w.as 
still a force to be reckoned with in a Christian state. 

That which had been zealously prosecuted in 1860-1870 was also, in general, 
continued and extended in 1870-1880, so far as the course of circumstances per- 
mitted. If, nevertheless, the scientific and practical reaction of faith has, during 
these last years, made less advance than the violence of unbelief, such phenomenon, 
anything but cheering as it is, is, on more than one ground, explicable. In the first 
place the paralyzing effect of growing indifference was experienced on many sides 
in connection with the materiaiistic and positivistic current of thought; the interest 
in theological and critical questions perceptibly waned; enough was still written 
but less was constantly read concerning “ the sign which is spoken against.” The 
social cpiestion in its various phases replaced the theological one in the estimation 
of many, and the continued absence of any decisive crisis, after the warfare had 
been so long waged without essential results, sufficed to account for the weapons 
dropping from the weary arm of many a combatant. Again^ not all the movements 
which arose in the province of theology and dogmatics exerted an equally favorable 
influence upon the apologetic and polemic labor. The ethicai-irenic school (repre- 
sentatives, D. Chantepie de la Saussaye, d. 1874, and J. H. Gunning, Jun.) which 
-lays more stress upon the moral and religious, thain upon the supernatural-histoiical 
character of the Christendom, with its allies, manifested no great sympathy for a 
<lirectly apologetic endeavor, and looked for vastly more good from the thetic than 
the polemic labor. Finally, the ecclesiastical controversy in favor of ultra Calvin- 
ism, under the leadership' of men like Drs. Kuyper, Rutgers, Hoedemaker, and 
others, rose during the last years to a height which had not before been reache<l. 
'I'he desire for restoring the Church upon the historic national basis of Dordrecht 
{1618, 1619) asserted itself with growing emphasis, but at the same time, over- 
•<hadowed the labor for the defence of the universal Christian belief. The question 
as to that which is specially Reformed awakened in the Christian public much more 
general interest than that as to the Catholic Christian foundation which underlies ail 
*dfe different ecclesiastical commuUities. It is not here the place for forming a ju<lg- 
inent on this special confessionalistic tendency in itself, much less for determining 
what is to be expected of it for the future. But it will hardly be denied that such 
movement, legitimate as it may be, and to some extent commendable, could not 
possibly exert a favorable influence upon the conflict of principles between Natural- 
ism and Supernaturalism. Many lost sight of the common foe in turning their arms 


♦ Rom. xii. 21. 


t Acts xxviii. 22. 


920 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


against hrelliren, with whom there was an agreement as respects that which is pr^si-- 
live-Chrisiian, hut not altogether as respects that which is specially confessional. 
Thus also the opposite of the “Concordia res parvas crescunt” was witnessed; and 
the enemy, although here and there sensibly wounded, could derive new courage 
from thinking of the words of Matt. xii. 25. 

If we would describe in few words the momentary state of the “Conflict” under 
review, we should perhaps best say : there is a comparative truce, but no reasoii 
whatever for s))eaking of a real peace, much less of decisive victory. On the con- 
trary the well-known sayiiig of the Reformation age, “ Das interim hat den Schalk 
hinter ihm” has still its manifold application. On either side great words have been 
spoken, sometimes important deeds accomplished, now and then, also, little advan- 
tages gained over the opponent — and on the other hand, alas! rankling wounds 
inflicted and painful losses endured — but as a rule each one has retained the same 
position as he had once assumed; and Christian Apologetics meanwhile has found 
abundant opportunity of learning by experience, if she had not already known it, 
that testifying concerning the Lord is her part, but the personal convincing of the 
truth is the work of the Holy Spirit. For the present, during the lull in the storm, 
each one entrenches himself in his own camp, and acts in accordance with the pos- 
tulates from which he starts. The worst is that each party take less and less cogni- 
zance of that which is advanced against it by the other, and that each one less under- 
stands the other,* because, with slight exception, they no longer hear or read what 
the opposite party has to say. Modern Rationalism assumes an air of triumph over 
the Christianity of the Gospel and the Church, as a thing that has had its day. It is 
no longer thought worth while among intelligent people, we are told, to speak of 
such things as revelation, miracles, ancl answers to prayer, any more than of the mino- 
taur, the phoenix, and similar creations of a world of flible. A final rupture has been 
made with all tradition ; so far as there is still any quest, men are a la recherche for 
the unknown God and his service, and, as it now seems are on the way, under the 
influence of Edward von Hartmann and like philosophers of the day, to conquer for 
Buddha the position which they can no longer assign to Jesus. Der Nihilismus ist 
das Ende dieser gldnzenden Kriiik, says Kahnis, “ Nihilism is the upshot of this 
brilliant criticism.” No wonder that the dark shadow of Pessimism spreads more 
and more widely over the thinking and life of many, and that the question “ to what 
wdll this come?” — when literally all foundations are overthrown — is heard in tones 
of increasing anxiety. If only, in opposition to this decided antichristian power, 
there stood a Christian Church with closed ranks, and the word of the Spirit in her 
hand, ready, to the temporary oblivion of all subordinate differences, to make war 
against the common foe; if only a truly believing science would bring all its forces 
to bear upon the one great point, upon ivhich more than ever all turns, of resisting 
the fierce assault of the left — bnl W'e have already seen how- far we are removed from 
this. To the attack of the serried phalanx hardly any resistance is offered beyond 
that of a sporadic guerilla w'arfare ; and, even in this, ecclesiastical party feeling so 
often plays its odious part, that it is almost impossible to avoid thinking of the sor- 
rowfully severe word of the Apostle, in Phil. ii. 21. As in the day of Jerusalem’s 
destruction, in the A]X)stolic age, much greater mischief and misery is wrought by 
the zealots within the city than by the Romans without. 

Nevertheless, of the city of God of the New Testament it is still true : “ God is in the 
midst of her ; she shall not be moved.”* The final issue of the conflict wdth which we 
are occupied cannot possibly be foreseen and foretold in its details ; in the main, it ad- 
mits of no doubt. It is true the prospect for particular Churches and ecclesiastical socie- 
ties is at present far from clear, and for our part we can cherish no brilliant expecta- 
■tions for the endeavor to restore almost unaltered the ecclesiastical past. But the 
visible Church, even the best, is not on that account the living congregation of the Lord, 
in whose experience is still fulfilleo among us the consolatory promise, “ though they 
shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.”f A stupefying cup of doubt 
And denial is going the round of the generation now living, but the water of life .still 


* Ps. xlvi. 5. 


t Mark xvi. 18. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


921 

continues to flow on, also through Holland’s plains, and to lave the thirst of count- 
C'.s souls. Lven among the men ol denial two lines distinguish themselves with 
suthcient clearness, the one, that which runs upwards, the other, that which makes 
lot below. With regard to the second of these, it can already be foreseen that even 
the vciy last point must yet be attained: Atheism and the unbridled license of tlie 
lle^h. W e know indeed Irom the Apostolic word that the great Apostacymust come, 
and that no testimony in defence of the fiercely assaulted faith, however powerful, 
can avail to preserve the professing Church from the great tribulation which awaits 
hei not long before the approaching end. But among the better disposed, whose 
countenance though veiled is turned towards the everlasting East, begin already to 
lie witnessed preludes of a worthier future, and it is manifest for many a one who is 
not hopelessly blinded that the spirit which always denies does, as an inevitable con- 
sequence, ultimately stand self-condemned. “ Magna est veritas, et praevalebit” 
was for years the motto of one of the organs of unbelief in our country De Dage- 
laad ); much more fitting are these words, as the triumphant language of quiet 
strength, in the lips of those who in their own experience know the gospel to be tlie 
powei of God unto salvation. The assurance of faith, however, far from dispensing 
in any degree with the necessity of zeal and effort, calls and impels thereto with a 
force such as nothing else can exert. For the triumph of the kingdom of God in 
Holland everything depends on the question whether Christians, and especially the 
ministers of the Church, understand the signs of the times and show themselves really 
on a level with their vocation, now more than ever sublime. Not, as the disputing 
.scribes and Pharisees in the days of Christ, to weary themselves and the congrega- 
tion with things “which minister questions rather than godly edifying which is 
in faith but as the good Samaritan, in presence of the growing misery of the 
themselves for the labor of ministering love, and in the strength of this 
love to save what is still to be .saved, to bind up what is wounded, and to manifest 
to the opponent by the very glow of charity on which side is to be found the highest 
truth and the inviolable right, in the midst of all the conflict of parlies and of opin- 
ions— //zrr/ is the great task to which the Church must feel herself supremely called. 
If the Lord makes us faithful to this vocation His own word will be verified afresh: 
“ Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice;” and, with greater justice than 
this last quarter of the nineteenth century will assuredly the first of the twentieth 
speak of a truly Christian and God-glorifying HOLLAND. 

Utrecht, 1880. J. J. van Oosterzee. 

The following is the paper (see p. 729) of the Rev. Prof. Leroy J. Halsey, 
D. D., LL. D., of Chicago, Illinois, on 

CHURCH DISCIPLINE: ITS PROVINCE AND USE. 

Under the Presbyterian Ecclesiastical System, Discipline properly falls into two 
distinct departments, each having its own tribunal of original jurisdiction, and its 
own sphere of administration. The first relates to the conduct of the ministry, and 
is committed to the hands of the Presbytery as its pro})er tribunal. The second 
relates to the conduct of the membership, including elders and deacons, and is en- 
trusted to the hands of the Session of each particular congregation. In this paper 
we shall confine our remarks to the second of these applications of Discipline, as it 
is exercised by the Pastor and Ruling Elders of the local church over the body of 
members committed to their parochial oversight, and amenable to their authority. 

In discussing the true Province and Use of Church Discipline, three points must 
claim attention, namely: 

I . The Extent and Limitations of Discipline. 

I I . The proper Ends to be secured by it. 

HI. The best Means of securing those ends. 

The last will demand special consideration as involving many important practical 
questions. 


* X Tim. i. 4. 


•P22 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


I. As to the extent to which discipline is to he applied, and the limitations that 
restrict it it is sufficient to say that the Scriptures are the ultimate standard of duty 
not less than of doctrine. The law of Christ, therefore, as revealed in Scripture, must 
he the supreme and final test of all Christian conduct and opinion, both for the church 
mendier and the church office-bearer. Hence there can be no legitimate exercise 
of discipline, except within the limits of things clearly prohibited by the law of 
Christ. All rules of ecclesiastical discipline must be in full accordance with the 
supieme law of Christ, as it regards things approved or condemned by that law; 
and no act of discipline is of binding authority on the conscience which is in anv- 
t ling contrary to his law or beyond it. This important principle is emphatically set 
forth in that memorable declaration of the Westminster Confession of Faith • “ God 
alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and com- 
mandments of men, which are in anything contrary to his word, or beside it, in 
matters of faith or worship. So that to believe such doctrines, or to obey such 
commandments out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience : and the 
requiring of an implicit Hith and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy 
liberty of conscience and reason also.” ^ 

• The same equitable principle is also fully recognized in the Presbyterian Book of 
Discipline Discipline is well defined as the exercise of that authority and the an- 

appointed in his 

Cl. It has been appointed for the removal and prevention of offences. This 

scriptural idea. But in defining what an offence is, this authority tells us 
that an offence is anything in the principle or practice of a church member which 
IS contiary to the word of God : or which, if it be not in its own nature sinful, may 
tempt others to sm, or mar their spiritual edification. Nothing, therefore, oucrht to 
be consideied by any judicatory as an offence, or admitted as matter of accimtion 
whicn cannot be proved to be such from Scripture, or from the regulations and 
practice of the Church founded on Scripture, and which does not involve those evils 
which discipline is intended to prevent.” 

broni this it appears that there are two very different classes of offences, which 
may subiect church members to formal discipline: first, those which involve acts 
•sinful in themselves, as, for example, breaches of the Decalogue, like theft, adultery 
piofanity; and, secondly, those which are contrary to church order, injurious to 
others, and which mar the spiritual edification of the body, as, for example, all 
ose indulgences in worldly pleasure and amusement, which, though not sinful 
per aie often sinful from excess, and inexpedient. On the first class there can 
be no difference of (qnnion among Christians, and but little danger of a misapplica- 
on of discipline. On the second there is always room for much caution, and for a 
very vvise discretion in the administration of formal discipline. Some evaimelical 
nbne'^rir questioned whether it is ever wise to apply the rules of a rigid'disci- 
p. o . • transgressions, and they virtually ignore them. As 

Piesiyterians, we may well hesitate before we exact a rigid enforcement of the rules 
of foimal discipline for acts which are proved to be sinful only by inference or are 
shown to be such merely on the ground of inexpediency. We may have no hesi- 
tation in thinking them wrong in a church member. But then it is not every 

ciplme. Ihere may be a better, though less formal, way to reach and rectify the 

In fact, our Book of Discipline wisely cautions the church tribunals acrainst enter- 
taming accusations for offences not sustained by the Scriptures, or for which there is 
not sufficient evidence- inasmuch as nothing tends more to weaken the authority of 

onen^ce. II t should be said that the church authorities may think these offerees 

fiUincT%'u!XcK fi therefore 

no rnriil o thbik hit'"’'' '"e* ^he answer is, that the church tribunals have 

} Jhink that wrong and actionable which Christ himself has not con- 

fnd s.d • to make a law binding on the conscience of the member 

and subjecting him to church censures where the Scriptures lay down no law If 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


923 


v/e do, and subject men to punishment, on points as extra-judicial, as the sinf^ing or 
the not singing of a particular form of praise to God, then it is the Church itself, and 
not the individual, who commits the ofifence. In all such cases discipline is per- 
verted from its true intent, and becomes a great wrong. 

If these views be correct and scriptural, then we see clearly what should be the 
legitimate pi ovince, extent and limitations of church discipline. It has no province 
vvhatever outside of the Scriptures, or outside of those principles and duties in the 
life of a church member on which Chii-it, through his word, has uttered a clear and 
certain voice. Points of doubtful interpretation do not belong to its sphere. Points 
of merely inferential criminality, or of merely conventional and self-imposed impro- 
priety and inexpediency, ought not to be included within its law. All these can be 
best regulated and rectified by being teft to the conscience of the church member 
under the teaching of the word of God and the authorized instructions of the pulpit. 
While church discipline must take cognizance only of such ofTences as are clearly 
condemned in Scripture, it does not lollow that every departure from duty in a 
Christian is to be made a matter ol church discipline. If so, the Church would have 
perpetual employment on the single labor of disciplining its members, even the best 
of them. Much has to be left to the self-discipline of the individual conscience, ac- 
cording to the principle laid down by St. Paul: “All things are lawful unto me, but 
all things are not expedient; all things are lawful Gr me, but I will not be brought 
under the power of any.” “ If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no meat 
while the world standeth,” If, however, the tribunals of the church should under- 
take to enforce this higher law of the individual conscience upon its members by 
discipline, what then would beconie of the liberty and the conscience? 

It is easy to see how a too rigid exercise of discipline may be pushed to that ex- 
tent in which it would defeat its own ends by destroying the free and enlightened 
action of the individual conscience, or else of bringing that conscience into a state 
of sullen opposition, and even of open defiance, to all church authority. Where 
this is the case, the remedy is certainly worse than the disease. 

Hence we conclude that while church discipline is a good and necessary thing, 
and while it covers the whole life and conduct of the Christian professor as long as 
he lives, it must not itself create offences by being extended to acts or opinions not 
clearly condemned in the word of God. It is not to be denied that this unlawful 
extension of its province, and consequent abuse of its high function to the detriment 
of the cause of Christ, was not unfrequently witnessed in former times even in good 
and orthodox churches. Perhaps it i> not wholly unknown in our own times. Church 
discipline is very wide and very useful in its j^Iace; but it has three important limi- 
tations which should never be lost sight of. First, it should be restricted to those 
acts and principles of the church member which can be clearly shown from the 
word of God to be wrong; that is, sinful in themselves as violations of Godks law, 
inconsistent with Christian character, and injurious to the peace, purity and spirit- 
uality of the Church. Secondly, in its form of judicial process it ought always to 
be confined to those cases, even of flagrant offences, where the preliminary means, 
as enjoined by our Saviour, Matt, xviii. 16, have first been used to reclaim the 
offender. And, thirdly, it should in all cases of judicial process be restricted 
to those offences for which there is in the hands of the session sufficient proof of 
the guilt of the offender. 

II. The proper ends or uses of church discipline, *as stated in our Presbyterian 
standards, are the removal of offences, the vindication of the honor of Christ, the 
promotion of the purity and general edification of the Church, and also the benefit 
of the offender himself. This statement might be condensed and 'simplified by 
reducing the four ends to two, namely, the purity of the Church and the benefit of 
the offender; because offences will be removed, the honor of Christ be vindicated, 
and the general edification be best promoted, when the purity of the Church and 
the good of the offender are secured by discipline. The aim of all discipline should 
be to do this; that is, to maintain on the one hand the spiritual ])urity and welfare 
of the whole membership, and on the other the reformation and salvation of the 
offending party. 


924 


THE PRESBY2ERIAN ALLIANCE. 


In discnssinjT this branch of the subject, it is necessary to advert to a distinction 
which is not always sufficiently made, or is at least too often ignored.' It is the two 
different set)ses in which the term discipline may be employed: or rather, the two 
distinct things, each highly important, which are covered by the one word discipline. 
There are tvvo different, but real exercises of disciplinary authority over every churcli, 
with which the pastor and session are charged. One is the narrower anti formal 
discipline, which is exercised, after the offence occurs, for its rectification and re- 
moval by regular process in the church court. Thus far, in the present paper, we 
have used the term discipline only in this narrow, formal, and official signification. 

but it is obvious that the term has another signification and a broader application. 
There is lodged in the Church tribunal, and exercised by it a wider disciplinary 
authority, which, though less formal in its use, is not a whit the less real and salu- 
tary than that more special exercise of official authority which we may distinguish as 
the discipline of actual process. Now, it would be a most impotent conclusion to say 
there is no discipline in a church, or that church courts have lost or relaxed the reins 
of discipline, because there are no trials in the church, no offenders arraigned on 
charges of delinquency before the bar of the session. Complaint is sometimes heard 
that we have fallen upon sad times, there is no longer any exercise of discipline in 
the Church, and justice and equity have fallen in the street, while truth cannot enter. 

But in all this it may be found that discipline, so far from being a nullity, has been 
only exerting its best influences and reaching its highest ends. The best remedy for 
offences is to prevent their occurrence. And the highest and best end and use of 
disciplinary authority in a church, is when the general supervision of the pastor and 
elders is so complete, so vigilant, so perpetual, and so judicious over all its members, 
that no formal trials will occur, because none will be needed. It is a legitimate end 
of formal discipline to remove offences when they occur. But it is a still higher end 
of that general, silent, informal, yet potential disciplinary authority which is perpet- 
ually going out from the judgment-seat of a wise and faithful church session, to anti- 
cipate and prevent all flagrant offences, all cases which, from neglect or injudicious 
treatment, would be likely to call for formal judicial process. Probably more than 
half the cases which are allowed to grow until they result in formal church trials, 
might have been easily healed up or prevented altogether, had (here been a wise, 
watchful, and incessant exercise of this general supervisory discipline. 

Instead, therefore, of lamenting, as did the eminent and gifted Professor M. Vinct, 
as far back as his times, that discipline is no longer compulsory in the modern Church, 
that it is a word without meaning in our ecclesiastical institutions, and that the law 
of the Church is a dead letter, having no external sanctions to rest upon, since its 
penalties can no longer be enforced, we should rather conclude that a true discipline 
is now but passing into the higher and better stages of moral suasion and preventive 
power. What can a formal church trial do, half so potential in sustaining discipline, 
as that silent but ubiquitous moral power which goes out from the ceaseless watch 
and care of a faithful pastor and a large judicious bench of elders, whose eyes are 
over all the flock, and whose influence is backed by their own consistenMives ? 
Discipline would seem to be not in a state of neglect and decadence, but at its hio-fi- 
est perfection, when its government is so popular and so respected that a vast con- 
gregation of a thousand or fifteen hundred communicants is held together in love 
and unity so firmly that not one member, in a course of years, will dare to break the 
bond of common brotherhood by an offence calling for judicial process. However 
it may be with the discipline of the churches of Great Britain and Continental Eu- 
rope, this is certainly true of very many churches of our own order in America. 

We should say, then, that the infrequency, and even the complete cessation of 
flagrant cases of actual disciplinary process before the church session, instead of 
being taken as an indication that all discipline has fidlen in the streets, may be but 
the proof that discipline, in the broader sense, has been doing its work effectually 
and attaining its most useful ends in rendering such trials needless; and that the 
church is, in fact, in a healthful state of spiritual growth. 

“ It must needs be that offences come,^’ said our Saviour. And when they do 
come, whether from the world without or the church within, the appointed guart 


• SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 925 

remove the offence, even {hoimh it 
he painful duty of cutting off their own memliers. But there is hifThei^and 

..Uer work for a church ,o do than that of arraigning and „ying Us offcndfng L,h 
ren It is the work of extending over and around its members that shield of pro- 
tective influences, and that anticipative and controlling discipline, which will pre- 
vtnt them from becoming offenders, and thus prevent the stern necessity of resorting 
to a formal censure. Thus we should say that one great end of church disciplinf^ 

veSg the'm'"" forestalling and" p;;! 

In all tins, however, let us not be understood as aiming to disparage or set aside 
the narrower discipline of actual and formal process be.ore the church courts Our 
only aim is to show that this painful duty sl.ould he a last resort, and that which 
should be regarded as the strange work of the church. The position here main- 
tained is that when it can be avoided, it should be avoided : and that when, through 
t^he wise supervision of the pastor and eldership, and through what we call the anti- 

alUhJ^r'"'' exercise of disciplinaiy authority, it is in fact prevented, then 

all the true ends and uses of discipline are as effectually secured, and as satisfacto- 

and h^urd ’ '‘h of actual process instituted 

and issued. Here, if anywhere, is brought to pass the old saying, “An ounce of 

prevention IS worth a pound of cure.” ^ ounce oi 

ends of discipline by process be the removal of offences, the vindica- 
tion of the law of Christ, the maintaining of the purity and growth of the Church, 
and the spiritiial welfare of the offending party, certainly all these ends are fully 
reached by the wider discipline which forestalls and prevents the evils. To pre- 
vent the evil IS really to gam the good. In many cases, to foresee and heal a breach 
hy wise counsel, is to save the oifender and preserve both the purity and peace of 
the church Still, it must ahvays be clearly understood that the discipline of actual 
process, which may at any moment summon a gross offender before its bar, is not 
dead. It is only held in reserve for extreme cases, and as a last resort. It 'is held 
where God holds his own rod of judgment for the rebellious and incorrigible. That 
IS Its legitimate place, and there it w'ill be felt to do good. 

III. How can the ends of discipline be best secured ? This is the point of chief 
practical importance. It is one on which our church tribunals need all the lights 
of experience, and the perpetual guidance of that wisdom which cometh from above. 
The whole theory of the Presbyterian Church, as a spiritual body of believers sepa- 
rated from the world, and set for the defence and propagation of the pure doctrine 
of Christ, assumes that a thorough discipline is needea!, and that a thorough disci- 
pline must be maintained in all its congregations. There can be no question that 
such is the requirement both of the Presbyterian standards and of the Scriptures. 
The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. Its membership forms a holy 
nation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar people, zealous of good works. They are in 
the w'orld but not of it : and they are all under spiritual discipline. 

It is not to be denied, however, that in many cases more harm than good is done 
by a mal-administration of discipline. It is sometimes so rigidly enforced, so un- 
just and impotent in its decisions, that the ends of discipline are defeated rather 
than conserved. The offender, so far from being reclaimed, is only driven from the 
congregation, and his friends with him. Whole families have been known to quit 
the communion and take refuge in other bodies, because of the too severe and unjust 
treatment of a single member. Such cases, Avhen they occur, not only weaken the 
body, but bring much public opprobrium upon the church and its mode of discipline. 
Facts of this character render it of the utmost moment that our Church authorities 
should consider well the question of an improved administration of discipline. 

I. On this branch of the subject, the first important rule to be insisted on is, that 
W'hich the Book of Discipline itself lays down, namely, “ That private offences ought 
not to be immediately prosecuted before a church court, because the objects of dis- 
cipline may be quite as well, and in many cases much belter, attained by a different 
course; and because a public prosecution in such circumstances would tend unne- 
cessarily to spread the knowledge of offences, to exasperate and harden offenders, to 


926 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


extend angry and vexatious litigation : and thus to render the discipline of the 
church more iniurious than the original offence.” Still further, says the Book, “ No 
complaint or information on the suljject of personal and private injuries shall i)e ad- 
mitted, unless those means of reconciliation and of privately reclaiming the offender 
have keen used, which are required by Christ in Matt, xviii. 15, 16, And in case 
of offences, which though not personal, are private — that is, known only to one, or 
a very few — it is proper to take the same steps as far as circumstances admit.” 

Nothing could be wiser, safer, and more in accordance with the principles of natu- 
ral justice, as well as the spirit of Christ, than these weighty coun.-^els ol our funda- 
mental law. It is lamentable that they are so often departed from, or at least imper- 
fectly complied with in important cases brought before our church tribunals. It 
cannot be doubted that these principles, if honestly and rigidly aj^plied, would settle 
amical)ly many of the prosecutions which take place before our .Sessions and Pres- 
byteries. It cannot be doubted that these equitable maxims of the law of Christ, if 
fully adhered to in all cases of private and personal offences, would altogether fore- 
stall and prevent many prosecutions which hitherto have been suffered to take public 
form, engender animosity and scandal in the community, and so bring reproach and 
detriment upon the Church. If this venerable book of Church order should ever be 
revised, perhaps there could be no better amendatory clause added to these wise pro- 
visions than one which should make it an actionable offence on the part of the church 
courts themselves, when they set aside, or virtually slur over, this essential law of 
the kingdom of God. The peace and purity of the Church are not likely to be 
promoted by any rigid process of disciplinary censure which Iregins by violating so 
plain a maxim of the Divine Master as that which enjoins that breaches among breth- 
ren should be settled in the spirit of forbearance and forgiveness. 

2. Tlie second practical suggestion which may here be made, is that in disciplinary 
investigations and prosecutions all hasty action, all rash speaking, all personal preju- 
dice and passion, and all partisan judgments on the part of the session itself, ought 
to be studiously set aside. If the members of the tribunal cannot divest themselves 
of such feelings, they should be deemed incompetent to sit in judgment on the case; 
they sliould give way to more calm and impartial men ; they should refer the case to 
a higher court. It is better to have no investigation, and no proseculion, than to 
have it under such circumstances. Incompetency in the church session, by reason 
of prejudice, and of the inconsistent worldly lives of one or m.ore of its members, is, 
no doubt, one prolific cause of that insubordination under discipline, and that public 
contempt for discipline, which is sometimes exhibited in our congregations. The 
offending parties and their friends, instead of acquiescing in the condemnatory sen- 
tence of a tribunal thus constituted, have been too often ready to set at nought and 
defy its censure, saying, “ Physician, heal thyself,” or, “ Thou hypocrite, first cast 
out the beam from thine own eye.” 

In all matters of ecclesiastical polity, we have no higher individual authority on 
this side of the Atlantic than the venerated servant of God, Dr. Samuel Miller, who 
filled the chair of Professor of Church Government in the Theological Seminary at 
Princeton for some half a century, dating from its foundation. On this special point 
of deliberation and caution in proceeding with a case of discipline before the ses- 
sion, we can give no wiser maxims than in the following weighty words from his 
work on the “ Ruling Elder:” 

“ If the maintenance of discipline be all important to the interests of true religion, 
it is a matter of no less importance that it be conducted with mildness, prudence, and 
wisdom. Rashness, precipitancy, undue severity, malice, partiality, popular fury, 
and attempting to enforce rules which Christ never gave, are among the many evils 
which have too often marked the dispensation of authority in the Church, and not 
unfrequenlly defeated the great purpose of discipline. To conduct it aright is, un- 
doubtedly, one of the most delicate and arduous parts of ecclesiastical administra- 
tion ; requiring all the piety, judgment, patience, gentleness, maturity of counsel, 
and prayerfulness which can be brought to bear upon the subject.” 

3. Another practical suggestion which should commend itself to the attention of 
all pastors and sessions, as well as to their congregations, is, that far more stress 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 927 

should be laid than has hitherto been laid upon the exercise of what we have here 
I enomma.ed the general informal discipline, that is, the precautionary and preven- 
tive discipline of the church courts. It is easy to see how this, under the lead of an 
ac ive pastor and a wide-awake body of efficient Ruling Elders, all in hearty sym- 
pathy with the spirit of their high calling and their great work, might become so 
operative and so potential over every family and every member of a congregation as 

n time o render the further discipline of trial process a strange and uncdled-for 
thing. \V ho can say that this would not be the highest normal condition of a church 
of Jesus Christ? Would a church in a state of coniinued revival all the year round. 

e likely to rieed the discipline of actual process? Nowit is the privilege of a 
chinch, as it is of the individual Christian, to live in this revived stale; and there 

are some churches m the world which have been brought up to that verv 
condition. ^ * ' 

One can form some good idea of the practical working of this general supervision- 
over ‘'t l^rge congregation scattered through a great city, by reading such Ltreatise 
as that of Dr. David King, of Glasgow, on the “ Ruling Eldersliip of the Christian 
Chin ch. In this fine little work a plan is given, in detail, for the dislricling of the 
whole congregation, assigning to each member of a large session his iiariicular part 
lor visitation and oversight, with regular monthly meetings of the eldership for busi- 
ness, and another monthly meeting for devotional purposes, all presided over by the 
pastor. It IS easy to see what would be the salutary influence and results of a plan 
like this, faiihliilly carried out, from month to month and year after vear by an effi- 
cient eldership, under the eye of a faithful, active pastor. A disciiiluiniv auihoritv, 
as widespread and potential as it is watchful, would he perpetually goin<T out, and 
exerting its restraining influence over every visited family and every tenderly cared- 
for member of the body. The discipline, as loving as it E salutary, would be felt to 
fie no hardship, no usurpation. It would, in fact, be virtually transferred from 
the judgment seat of the church tribunal to the homes and hearts of the people. 

We might learn something on this point from the analogies of the family and* the 
school-room. The discipline of the church is indeed well illustrated in the disci- 
pline of a well-regulated school, and of a well-ordered Christian home. Everybody 
knows that in the school and the family the discipline is not the less perfect, but the 
more perfect, when there are but few if any displays of its badges of authority and 
its vigorous inflictions of punishment. Time was when it was otherwise, both in 
school-rooms and home circles; but we are now learning a better wav. There is an 
ancient saying, “ Spare the rod and spoil the child.” We apprehend that as many 
children have been spoiled with the rod as without it. Far be it from us to under- 
rate the wisdom of Solomon, or depart from any precept of the word of God. The 
rod has been, and it is to this day, a very proper symbol of authority, both for the 
family and the school. It would be unwise to repudiate it. But the question is, 
what is the true place of the rod — that is, the best place for it ? In former days it 
was thought to hold a very prominent place in all schools and families; and that 
discipline would be w'holly relaxed without it. Its proper place was in the hand of 
the parent, or on the desk of the schoolmaster, displayed before the eyes of all 
urchins, and on the backs of not a few. But we are coming to think now that the 
best place for the rod is to be left growing on the tree in the orchard, fresh and 
green, until it is needed. 

We have had somewhat the same idea as to the infliction of church censures, at 
least for the minor offences ; that is, in all those cases w'hich do not involve deep 
crirninality as transgressions of the law of God. As the best ordered Christian 
families and the best disciplined schools are those in which the law of love ami 
kindness predominates, rendering little or no punishment necessary, so every Chris- 
tian church ought to rise to this higher plane of individual self-government without 
the infliction of penalties. And it is the province of a wise superintending discipline 
to bring a whole body of God’s children to this high spiritual condition. 

As for offenders of the other class — those wilful and incorrigible transgressors of 
the law of Christ, who will not listen to the voice of expostulation, and w ho cannot 
be won by kindness and forbearance long-continued — upon their heads alone let the 


928 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

rod of church censure, and if need be of exclusion, fall. Every society has a right 
to protect itself against unworthy members. Christ and his apostles have clearly 
recocrnized that right in the Church, and have enjoined it as a duty to have no Tel- 
lowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather to reprove them. St. lau 
said to the Galatian Church, “ He shall bear his judgment that troubleth you, wh^o- 
soever he be. I would that they were even cut off which trouble you.” In his 
First Epistle to the Corinthians he enjoined upon the Church “to put away from 
them the wicked person who had been guilty of grievous sin, and to delivei such an 
one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh.” But even in these extreme cases, 
as we learn from the Second Epistle, he urged moderation and forbearance, and 
recommended to the Church to forgive and restore the repentant offender, lest “ he 
should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.” The necessity, howevei, of a 
rigid discij^line, as the last resort, after all milder methods have failed, ending in the 
eS:ommunication of the unworthy, is laid down in positive and explicit terms by St. 
Paul in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians : “ Now, we command you, breth- 
ren, in the name ot our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves fiom every 
brother that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition which he received 

of 1 1 u 

4. One more suggestion must be made. It is that more deliberation and less haste 
should be shown by the church session in the admission of communicants into the 
church. The safest way to avoid cases of judicial discipline is to guard the entrance 
to the Lord’s table, and to keep out the materials for such discipline. It is at the 
reception of members that the evil of an unconverted, inconsistent and worldly mem- 
bership begins. If our pastors and elders would have a pure and spiritual church, 
fully consecrated to the Lord’s work, and worthy of the Lord s table, they must ex- 
amine well the candidates for admission, and keep out the unworthy. II they would 
maintain the discipline of the bvody in all its high requirements, let them avoid 
lowering it by hasty admissions, or accommodating it to suit the demands of the 
wealthy and the worldly-minded. 

Here, precisely, is the baneful root of the evil. Too many people, especially in 
seasons of revival and high excitement, are brought into the Church on the most 
partial examination, and with little or no evidence of a saving work of grace. In 
the eagerness to multiply converts and to swell the communion roll, they have been 
hurried into the Church, without any test of character or any time for probation. 
The result is a worldly membership, needing constant watchful care, and liable at 
any moment to lapse into worldly sins. Too many people, again, come into the 
Church from the ranks of the wealthy and the worldly, as it were dictating their own 
terms and making something like a conscience compromise between the Church 
and the world. The result is not only a worldly but a most unmanageable 
membership. 

Now the early Church avoided this rock of danger. They made no half-way 
covenants, no compromises with the world, no concessions to the rich and the great. 
They guarded most sacredly the entrance to the Lord’s table. They preferred 
to have a small membership, pure, spiritual and consecrated to God, rather than 
to swell the ranks of the Church by large numbers of the unconverted. But in 
our limes, in the eager ambition to multiply numbers, our Preslwterian Churches 
are rapidly departing from the old standard of a pure and spiritual body, and 
virtually falling into the practice of the Methodist six months probationary member- 
ship. As to the policy of this new and hasty method of receiving members, we have 
nothing here to say. We leave it with those who like it, and who originated it. It 
is enough for us to say, that it is not Presbyterian, and that it is wholly inconsistent 
both with the theory and history of the Presbyterian Church. If, therefore, our 
cimrch sessions would conserve the highest interests of the Presbyterian Church, in 
the maintenance of a pure membership, a high spiritual discipline and a steady 
growth, unmarred by the drawback of unworthy members and judicial prosecutions, 
let them return to the old custom of carefully examining and cautiously receiving 
all applicants for membership. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 925 

The following is the paper (see p. 863) of Rev. Leonard Anet, of Brussels, on 
KOMANLSM AND THE SCHOOL QUESTION IN BELGIUM. 

I- — Prkliminary. 

The Politico- Religions Character of Romanism in Belgium. 

The revolution of 1830 was brought about by clergy and “ liberals” alike 

or cha^troVth"l.fgX^^^^^ remarkable constitution 

principles of liberty, which are the basis of every croofl social and 
I I t.cal organization, were inserted clearly in this charter, to wit /fi^edom of ^ 

olreiigio-rru'^eVf'Stri-iler,;^^^^^^^ 

mimsters of religion .are paid by the st.ate ; the necessary sum.s to' meet them are 
, tf^- y liie budget.” In consequence of this the Romish Church found 

)aTeler.rarrm'id I P''7''=2“ "’.'’‘=1' "o' grautetl to it elsewhere, the setu- 

ohcrtl f ^ ^ entirely independent of, the state. The state Has 

supeUofLT rOrmr''H ' "f.'"" o'o'g.v, "or in’, he relations l.twe™ 

■aipenor and inferior clergy, nor lu Ihetr relations with the Pope and the Roman 

no^lSor"'',"' giving them an ofhcial character, and yet having 

no kind of control over them, is a unique fact. ^ ^ 

whklr waT°esmhH hed“r!'''* ’’>',^'''2"'^ '^ 34 , destroyed the harmony 

7 h^ \ m between the liberals on the one hand, ami the clemy and 

sm ‘ Tim Tn s^pn'-ntion grew gradually into decided amagon- 

,wi.e "“•'’"'■"y °f .'h= h'.gh clergy m business affairs was enormous. Nobody 
the state eould remain in office without consenting to follow the suggestions on 
even the episcopate ortlers I But in 1847 Hie lil>eral party had the m.ajoritv in ’the 

l ine re'"'"'!'! that power almost uninlcrrnpteclly until 

June, 1870, when, w’eakened by divisions, it w-as beaten at the elections, and the 
c er I cal party resunied the reins of government. ILnvever submissive the state- 
was to the church, the latter could not make tlie country retrograde, nor repeal Uie 
reforms which the liberal party had passed during its long term of office 

But the proclamation of the dogma of papal infallibilitv gave (he ultramontane, 
paity unheard-of audacity. 1 heir newspapers, firgans of the bishops, demanded the 
gradual application of all the principles of the Syllabus, glorified the Inquisition and 
maintained that the church alone — i.e.,[he clergy— had a right to perfect bbertv 
the rest of humanity being free only to submit. God,.or Christ, having remitted-all 
authority to their infallible representative, who exercised this authority through sub- 
oidinates, it follows that to disobey the clergy means rebellion against God. This 
doctrine has been taught for some years with great success in the University of uini- 
vain by a most talented professor (Mons. Perin) who instils into his pupiLs the nrin- 
ciples of the Syllabus. ^ ^ 

People have been led to recognize as true Catholics those only who profess entire 
submission to the authority of the Church. 

Nevertheless, unity is not perfect ; the clerical party are divided into tw'o sections. 
One has at its head the most distinguished political men in the clerical ranks; they 
wi.sh for moderation ; they do not app,ear to indorse the complete application ,of the 
Syllabus; they .seem only to retain in some measure the principles of the Jurist < r 
tlie Middle Ages, viz., the independence of civil and political power on the one 
hand, and yet the absolute authority of the clergy in all that pertains to religion. 

Rut this section, which was so pow'erful before the publication of the Syllabus and 
the pioclamation of the Pope’s personal infallibilitv, has gradually, yet rapidly, been 
Nveakened. They are represented only by one Hewspapeiv Le Journal dc Brux- 
of which public disapprobaliou has I>ecii inore tha.n once expressed by» the 
bishops, and ultramontanism threatens to extinguish this party altogether. 

59 


930 THE^ PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 

The other section, that is to say, the great majority of the actual clerical party, is 
guided by ultramontane principles, and animated by the Jesuit’s spirit. 1 he soul is 
iar more precious than the l)ocly, heavenly interests are infinitely superioi to eatlhly 
ones, and the latter must he sacrificed to the former. 1 hese jniiiciples are abso- 
lutely true, hut behold the use to which they are pvit, according to the spirit of the 
papacy ! The clergy, from the highest to the lowest, are commissioned to guide be- 
lievers in the way of salvation, "^io do this they must have auihoiuy ovei bony as well 
as soul, over temporal as well as over spiritual interests, and this author. ty (they say) 
Ciod has given them in the most absolute manner. 1 he consequence is evident, 
the clergy, inspired by the pope, must direct individuals, families, the stale noth- 
ing, absolutely nothing, must escape their control. Such is the full application of the 
Syllabus under the power of the “ Deus in*terra,” and these are the docliines taught 
and defended by the newspapers of the bishops, and the University of Louvain for 
the last ten years. 

It is easy to understand what efforts the party had to make before they dared to 
proclaim their principles, — to have in their hands public teaching and the adminis- 
tration of the poor funds, to multiply convents of different orders for all classes and 
both sexes, to introduce into the judicial and administrative magistracy men imbued 
with their doctrines and spirits, — lastly, to have laws passed and to create institutions 
which would pave the way for Belgium to become altogether a “ Capuciniere.” 
But these efforts met only with partial success. 

II. — The School Question. 

When the liberty of teaching was inserted in the charter of the country by the 
national congress, every ])arty was satisfied. The ultramontane party, led by the 
Jesuits', well knew that the stale would have too great a task of organization to ])er- 
torm to be able to give sufficient attention to the elementary instruction. Therefore 
the Jesuits would have full opportunity to form the growing generation after their 
fashion. 

This actually happened. 

Nevertheless, in 1842 the houses seriously took up this question. They made a 
law which seemed to respect the liberty of conscience, but which in reality placed 
elementary education, and the teachers, under the direction of the clergy. We may 
even say, that it placed both the teaching and the teacher at the priesthood’s direc- 
tion everywhere except in the large towns, and even in the latter the priest’s influ- 
ence and authority were considerable. Besides, the clergy had their own schools 
and colleges, and these only prospered. 

This did not satisfy the clerical pretensions; they wished to abolish secular educa- 
tion altogether. 

The secular institutions could only exist by l)eing decidedly devoted to the clergy , 
of the parish. The instruction of young girls was entirely in the hands of the nuns. 
The teachers of a boarding-school, or even of a simple day-school, might try in vain 
to submit humbly to the priest, if the latter or the bishop had the means of establish- 
ing a school or a boarding-school directed by nuns; in that case the lay institution 
must disappear. 

In 1847, liberal party having returned to power, understood that one of the 

most important points of its programme was to develop primary education, and to 
withdraw it from the clergy’s influence. The ignorance of the masses was very great ; 
both in the country and in cities a large number could neither read nor write. 

In the public schools the teaching was ver)^ inferior, while in those of the clergy 
hardly any instruction was given ; religious formula, signs, and genuflections con) 
priseil about all that was taught. The liberal government gave a great impulse to 
popular instruction, by causing large school-buildings to be erected; by hel])- 
ing young men to be educated in normal schools. Instruction developed and ex- 
tended, people learned to read and to write ; schools of considerable importance 
were established for young girls in the large towns. 

' In the course of twenty-three years, from 1847 to 1870, great improvement was 


93 * 


SECOND GENERAL COUNG/L, 

and also over the sub ecN that we^e . f I ^ 

vaied. In 1870 the clerical nart ^ taught. This situation was further aggra- 
created a fund!" ['in ^Idt rLar:f^rSc:;r 

schools more particularly for vouiilt puIs of all if ^ ’ 1 •” ^^^‘‘‘’‘'^*1 ^’'ee 

generously out of their funds, TwTyl!rV’aio''"in"j8^^^^^ 

an astonishing victory at the elections ^a, d ’ 1 !u iiained 

resolved with perfect^unanimity to revis^the ^ ^0^ 18^’^"' If 
■ cation and normal schools from the direction of ^ " primary edu- 

from bondage,* clirection of the clergy, and free the teachers 

fo,l7‘re7iil7thl'ex7S7wTh"r'"'f/ “ P-'oject 

fortunes and the revolt of thr^un rv if Z lal ’ »^is- 

of this violent emUe^, ‘ ^ ^ consequences 

« r iff malheur,” and the public schools 

Godless schools, pretending that religion was to be excluded from all teachinf^ 
Tlie liberals protested, and they inserted in the law such clauses rrend^ hf^ 
accusation groundless. We do not say that a great number of the legislators cared 
for any ^sitive religion whatever, but, be that L it may, the law decreed ist Thai 
special hours should be set aside for religious instrucLi ; .2d £ rooms for th^ 
p rpose should be plac^ at the disposal of priests or ministers of all denomlnadons 
3fl, that parents have the right to decide to which minister, priest or rabbi thev 

wotkfb^rltefu/ Irsf h ^ veligious instructioipf In other countries the clergy 

would be grateful if such rights were granted to them, but in Belgium, what thev want 
s absolute poorer over public and private teaching. They did not dare to own tlds • 
f " contrary, that it was religion that was compromised and perse- 

least of^all ^ interests of religion troubled them 

Jncf r '• f ^ '^cy refused, when ordered by their chiefs, to give religious 

struction in the schools; secondly, teachers of all grades were forbidden under threat 
of excommunication to make their pupils repeat the parochial catechism ; thirdly all 
masters or teachers, male and female, who remained in the public schools m- in 
the municipalities service were excommunicated ipso facto; fourthly, the scholars 
of the normal schools Iheir parents, and the members of the scholastic commission 
were excommunicated Priests were authorized to refuse absolution to the parents 
of children attending the public schools, to the magistrates, and those who sumorted 
them. Most of the inhabitants of the kingdom were excommunicated. ^ 

It is impossible to find a vestige of religious interest in these or in any other of the 
means eniployed to excite opinion against the law, and to cause the downfall of the 
public schwls. All that was untrue and opposed to the spirit of the gospel was made 

hlf'i f newspapers were, and are still, most violent and it must 

be acknowledged that no language can be compared to that of the clergy and their 
supporters for acrimony, effrontery, defamation, and calumny. Thev certainly were 
not satisfied with these means, 1 he bishfips and hv leaders resolved to found cleri- 
cal schools in every parish, and to try every plan beside excommunication to draw 
masters and schohws to them. In certain instances staiiles and unhealthy cellars 
were transformed into schools, masters and mistresses appointed were persons who 


+ also important reforms in “ I’enseignement moyen." 

t A small subsidy is granted by the communes to the priests and ministers* ^ 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


never bad any instruction, and whose lives until now bad been passed in the most 
bumble occupations, which needed little learning and no intellectual development. 
No doubt there were some good teachers which went over to the clerical schools ; 
some went to obtain a good salary or to escape persecution, and surely, a few from 
sincere conviction. 

The government and the provincial authorities and municipalities which belong 
to the liberal party, displayed much activity, energy and perseverance. 

During a discussion in the house in which the two parties were reciprocally ac- 
cu'^ing one another of using unjust means to sup|X)rt their schools, the head of the 
clerical party was incautious enough to say that a parliamentary inquiry w'ould be 
desiraljle, so that properly-placed responsibility in this great contest should be staled. 
The liberal leaders seized the “ball in rebound,” and demanded that a jiarlia- 
meniary inquiry should be made. Then the clerical party were so afraid of it that 
they made every effort to prevent it, saying it would be despotism, tyranny, violation 
of personal liberty ; the commission wdiich would make the inquiry would commit 
every indiscretion and excess. Neveilheless, the inquiry was decided on. The 
committee were named. The most crafty, the most violent, and al.sp tlie most hon- 
orable adversaries’ of the law and of public schools, w'ere elected to it. But not one 
of them accepted, 'and they determined not a member of the clerical party should 
.sit in the commission. ’Fhe precaution can be understood ; but it must lie admitted 
that it was difficult for this party, which pretended to uphold religicm, to give a more 
•Striking proof of its culpability and bad faith. The Romish Church is founded on 
the most sacrilegious ot lies, and the w'^orst characterized hypocrisy, and she is 
forced to expose more and more those vices, wffiich lead to and >vill bring upon her 
the most terrilile catastrophes. 

We must wait a time, perhaps some years, to appreciate more completely the 
consequences of the struggle ; meantime we may slate the following important 
facts : 

1st. Last Decemlier the clerical schools had about one-third, and the public 
schools two-thirds of the scholars under primary teaching. Since that lime the cleri- 
cal schools have lost many of their pupils. And the superior public schools for 
girls have in general a marked success. 

2d. There are few persons on either side who do not now recognize that the cam- 
paign undertaken by the clerical party against the new law and the public schools, 
has been hurtful to the cause of Romanism from both a religious and political point 
of view. 

T he late elections, which, according to the clericals, ought to have given a severe 
verdict against the new law, showed, on the contrary, that the liberals had gained 
considerable ground in every district save that of Antwerp; the clericals diminished 
in number; the majority in the Chamber grew up from ten to sixteen voles. 

3d, It is evident that tlie necessary expenses for the foundation and support of the 
'clerical schools exceed the resources of the party, great though they are. Moreover, 
the body of teachers is to a great extent incapable. The public schools are gen- 
erally much better managed, and they are consequently gaining ground on their 
opponents. The issue of this conflict, which has agitated and still agitates the 
whole country, the most insignificant as well as the most important city or village, 
will be most injurious to Romanism.* ^ 


♦An event which ou?ht to be mentioned here is, the break of the diplomatic relations between the 
•Papal Court and the Belgian government. It is the school question which has led to this rupture. 
K ,1 his rupture took place in June, 1880. The Pope’s Nuncio received his passport at the end of the 
jiuh.J When the liberals came into power, two years ago, they found themselves morally bound 
♦>y their former promises to suppress the Belgian embassy at the Court of Leo XITI. 

f. l*'" President of the Ministry, Mons. I*rcre Orban, hesitated ; the law of 1842 upon primary cdu- 
c.ition was to be revised ; ev'erj' one knew that the clergy and the political party that supported 
them would put at work every means either to prevent the withdrawal of primary teaching teaching 
from the clergy s authority, or to neutralize the execution of the law, should a law be passed to free 
the teacher and the school. 

The infallible Pope could give orders or exercise an important influence on the bishops to prevent 
them making violent opposition to the proposals of the houses and government. 

To obtain the intervention of L.co XI II., concessions had to be made, our representative was to 


933 


SECOND GENERAL COUN^CIL. 

4'!'. The masters n„,I mistresses the pupils of the noraiAl schools the maffislrat« 

am many patents, who had been excomnninicalcd, seem not to mind bein'?ciit off 
Ironj tlie comimimou of their church Nifnnllv 

Uar tiasa .ss-irao. 1 1 . i\sttuially (Ijc t' X c o ui HI u 111 Cs^ 1 1 o 11 auncheh 

hy the priest has been the subject of many conversations ami tiiscussions A Tatw 
uimbtr of peisons who had never im|iiired about the clergy’s ri.dn to use iWs 
kev T’ soug t oi light, and have come to the conclusion that the power of the 

With regaid to the teachers, the painful position of those who still have faith in 
he value o excommunication, and are thus placed between their conscience and 
the necessity of gaming daily bread for their families, has licen coSred A 
member of oui Chinch, the C/irtstian AJissjomiry Church," addressed a nam 
.phlet to them (they number 7,000 to 8,000), the aim of which was to show liy'the 
teaching of the gospel the vaiv.ty of priestly excommunication, and the abundance 
of Cod s meicy towaids those who approached him through Jesus Christ This 
earnest pamphlet has been well received. At the same lime, New Testaments have 
been ^sent to many thousands of them, and we will strive to do the same tr the 

In all that coiTcerns general evangelization we may look for go<fd results 
Lut we must not deceive ourselves; unbelief for often open unbelief takes the 
place of the Papal and R.iman faith. From a moral and Christian point of view is 
this a loss? It is doubtful, to say the least! But the number inaeases of those 
who see the time coming when they will be obliged to renounce entirely Romish 

What other religion can they adopt? 

The attention ol those who have not decidedly given themselves over to infidelity 
IS strongly dire^ed to the gosjiel, and to those writings which prcK^laim the message 
of salvation. Doors open wider and wider to preaching, and the missionary work 
we cany on shows solid progress. Conversions bearing ihe seal of the Holy Spirit 
are more numerous than hiiherto. ^ ^ 

The field whitens more and more, but we are like the Macedonian that appeared 
to St. Paul in ‘'^vision. \\ e say to our brethren in foreign parts: “Come over and 
help us.” . . . Paul hastened to answer the call!* 


Ihe head of the Cabinet insisted on this, though In 


remain at Rome, the Nuncio to remain here, 
so doing he displeased nearly a!! his party. 

maintaining of these diplomatic relations with the Holy Chair meant that the Pone was to 
interpose his authority to prevent a violent conflict. The Pope agreed to do this ■ but in 
repeated promises one does not see that he has had any influence 011 his Belgian suffragerr " Those 
who really know the spirit of the Papal Court were perfectly convinced it was olavUiJ ; At.ku 
pme. Light gradually came, and it broke forth from every side through divers^doaiments ■ the 

correspondence of bishops, of diplomatists, etc., etc. Leo Xlil his Stcrenrv r>r cite f.. 1 

Nina, the Papal Nuncio at Brussels, the Cardinal Archbishop of Mechlin, Primate of Belgiuni*^hTve 
the Spirit of Jesuitism the art of deceiving with a cynicism rarely found save in 
papal diplomacy. Pius IX. was a foolish fanatic, but was sincere; Leo XIII. is a diplomatist 
Tur drys^iffs’^difilre^r successful, owing to the terrifying authority of the Roman Court; in 

mention an incident which has greatly aggravated the situation of the superior eJer^v 
and the papal authorities. Bishop Dumont, of Tournay, an ardent ultramontane and true disciple 

nor stoop to the deceits of the Nuncio and Pope • he 
was declared mad and the administration of his important diocese was taken from him. After a 

h'shop wrote letters to liberal newspapers, in which he spoke 
principal officers as false servants of Christ, animated by a wicked 
K- P^'^hshed his corresponden^ce with the Bishops of Liege and Namur, which showed that 
t^hese bishops had much esteem and affection for him ; that they did not believe him mad, but that 

JerSvL R^me and h="r “1™" ’' “ 

The revelations of the Bishop of ^urnay are overwhelming, and all the more so because what he ■ 
has written lately shows signs of healthy reasoning, though not quite exempt from eccentricitv 
The result of all this affair seems to be, on one hand, that our Minister of Foreign Affairs has aetJd 
with perf^t sincerity and noble independence; and, on the other hand, that the Nuncio Vannutdli 
Cardinal Nina and Leo XIII. have played the part of dupe-makers ’ 

* The work pursued by the Missionary Christian Church, organised according to the Presbvte- 
rian principle, is done entirely among Romanism, and all her congregations are converts from Rome • 
and, by the mercy of the Lord, and in consequence of the vivifying action of the Holy Ghost thev 
are very earnest for the advancement of the kingdom of God ^ 


934 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


IL 

THE GERMAN MEETING. 

The Rev. Nicholas Gehr, D. D., a delegate to the Council from the Reformed 
Church in the United States, has furnished the following report of the meeting, and 
made the translation ol the papers: 

After a German union service bad l>een held on Sunday evening in Zion’s Re- 
formed Church, Sixth street, above Girard avenue, a German business meeting 
was also arranged for the following Tuesday evening in Association Hall, fifteenth 
and Chestnut streets. The meeting took place at the appointed time. 'I he audi- 
ence was quite respectable, and listened attentively to the reports of several German 
delegates from the continent. About fifteen ministers of various denominations 
occupied the platform. Dr. Schaff presidefl, and called on Rev. J. Richelsen to 
invoke God’s blessing; after which a German hymn was sung by the whole audi- 
ence from a printed programme, specially jirovided for the occasion. After a 
prayer by the Rev. Mr. Oerter, of New York, the presiding officer made a few 
introductory remarks, referring to ihe grcfat blessings which the iiflroduction of the 
printing press and the Reformation of the sixteenth century has conferred on man- 
kind in general, and the German nation in particular; and exhorting the Germans 
in America to act in harmony with their English fellow-Chrislians in all religious 
as well as secular affairs. 

Professor Pfleiderer, of Kornthal, Wurtcmiierg, then read an interesting “ Report 
on the Slate of Religion in Germany,” which was listened to with marked attention. 
A translation of the report will be found in this volume. 

After the singing of another hymn, Dr. Schaff presented a paper from Professor 
Krafft, of Bonn, Germany, on “ The Conflict of the German Empire with the J’ope.” 
In the absence of its author, who w'as detained on account of sickness in his family, 
only the principal points, according to a rule of Council, were stated. It will, 
however, be found among the other essays. 

Rev. O. Erdman, of Elberfeld, Germany, delivered a free address on “ Christian 
Training.” He spoke with considerable animation and good effect, j^oiniing out 
the proper mode, means and objects of Christian training, interspersed wdlh many 
practical hints. The address, as written out by himself, will be found in its proper 
place. 

The next speaker was Rev. Fritz Fliedner, of Spain, who scarcely had time 
enough left to relate a few incidents connected with his evangelizing work among a 
superstitious yet redeemable jjeople. 

Dr. Seybert, from Bloomfield, N. J., added a short address of hearty welcome to 
the foreign delegates, and closed with prayer. The audience joined in singing the 
doxology, and w'as dismissed. 

LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GODET TO DR. SCHAFF. 

Neufchatel, September 2 ^ d , 1880. 

Dear Friend: — At the very moment in which I am writing these lines, the 
opening of the Council — the celebration of the ^tAabe'/jpta takes place, and their 
united prayers and praises ascend to the throne of our glorified Redeemer. Those 
brethren of the European continent who were unable to travel to the Western world, 
are, however, with you in spirit. How happy I should feel if I were found among 
the former instead of among the latter. It could not be; it was impossible. Your 
affectionate letter made a deep impression on my mind. Again and again the 
question recurred to me. How about the possibility? It followed me even to the 
mountains of the “Oberland,” where your letter reached me. But the answer was 
always the same. Therefore, I have to attend your Assembly at Philadelphia in 
Neufchatel. For one thing I have to ask your pardon forthwith, namely, for not 
replying sooner, thus leaving you, perhaps, in doubt as to my intention. I now 
feel how' w'rong it was on my part, as it may have been important for you to know 
whether I would come or not. I entreat you most earnestly to forgive this very 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


935 


inexcusable neglect. It was a peculiar time with me, various matters claiming my 
undivided attention. Only after the return of rest did I fully realize how unkind 
and ungrateful I have acted by this delay toward this supreme invitation, and a 
faithful inviting friend. 

If brotherly love has received in Philadelphia a new impulse, then sufficient oppor- 
tunity is here afforded you to practise the same on a large scale ( Matthew xviii, 21, 22). 

And now, dear friend, my sincerest thanks for rdl the kindness bestowed on me 
since we fust met in Berlin. I he Lord who luought us together in our school-days, 
also gather us into his upper sanctuary. I feel more deeply than ever the need of 
his help and constant presence. I realize more fully now than at any former period 
the weakness of my faith, the coldness of my love, the deadness of my hope, and the 
unfaithfulness of my faithfulness. It often seems to me as if I were suspended by a 
single cord over the abyss. And so it is in reality. But this cord is the love and 
mercy of my God. He, who is fiithful, will never forsake me. If it were other- 
wise, why w'ould he so graciously have sought me? 

\ ou have probably received Vol. II, of my “Commentary on the Epistle to the 
Romans. ’ I have now to prepare a new edition of my St. John; and then, should 
God grant further grace, i Corinthians'will follow. I submit it to his own good 
pleasure. We are servants, and have no choice. . , . 

THE CONFLICT OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE WITH THE POPE, 

By Dr. William Krafft., Professor of Church History in Bonn. 

The principle, that the Church over against the State should be independent, has 
been, since the accession of Frederick William IV., King of Prussia, to the throne, 
in the year 1840, as consistently carried out in reference to the two pul)lic!y recog- 
nized ecclesiastical communions, the Evangelical- Protestant and the Roman Catholic, 
as in the case of the free ecclesiastical associations. 

In reference to the Evangelical Protestant Church, the king declared that he 
longed to see the time when he will be able to restore the government of the Church 
transmitted to him by his ancestors, to the proper hands. With this object in view' 
were, since 1843, the different Provincial Synods anti then the General Synod of the 
country convened, which, after the example of the aposcles, should lay the founda- 
tion fur a genuine Cliurch government, through the organization of congregations and 
then of presliyleries, from wdiich the different grarles of church aulh<*i ities, namely, 
Provincial Synods and a General Synod for the whole country, should hereafter pro- 
ceed. 

In like manner a series of measures was adopted in reference to th.e Roman Cath- 
olic Church, all of which looked to the abrogation of the ancient control of the State 
over the Church Free intercourse of the clergy with Rome was allowed, and 
througli the annulling of the important placetum regium, liberty to publish the papal 
as w’ell as the episcopal decrees without hindrance, was granted. The school affairs 
were transferred to the Catholic clergy, by which means the mass of the Catholic 
population came gradually under the authority of the Church. 

These measures, so favorable to the Church, were adopted at a lime when t!<e 
Romish Church authorities, already under the pontificate of Gregory XYL, had 
yielded more and more to the influence of the Jisuits. The higher clergy, instead 
of confining themselves to ecclesiastical matters as heretofore, had already made seri- 
ous encroachments u|X)n the rights of the State, especially in regard to contracting 
mixed marriages. The ecclesiastical controversy in reference thereto, which arose 
in Cologne in 1838, xvas still fresh in memory. Although Frederick William IV. 
!iad, in a most noble manner, immediately restored peace ivith the Romish Church 
authorities in 1840, in that he extended pardon to Clemens Augustus, who had l)een 
forcibly removed from ins archiepiscopal see at Cologne, yet, a close observer could 
not fail to notice that tite Jesuits’ party had made it one of the principal objects of 
their aim to combat and subjugate Protestant Prussia. For the accomplishment of 
this end they relied upon the vigorous support of the ultramontane party, which has 
been organized since llie ecclesiastical controversy at Cologne, and whose adherents 


93 * 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


have become more and more numerous in the Prussian Rhine provinces acquired in 
1815, in which the Catholic religion predominates. The measures adopted by Fred- 
erick William IV, were looked upon only as necessary concessions, and the old, long- 
forgotten, and obsolete edicts of the Church in reference to her supremacy over the 
Stale, for opposing and suppressing of heretical parties, were again made available for 
Prussia also. The Syllabus adopted by the Jesuits in 1864, under the pontificate of 
Pius IX,, was to codify those edicts of the Church anew for the future. 

When the State of Prussia, in which Protestantism predominates, under the leader- 
ship of Bismarck, took the first steps in its victorious career for the unification of Ger- 
many, with the excluMon of Catholic Austria, in 1866, the hostility of the Romish 
Church authorities against Prussia increased only the more. The noble ecclesiastical 
liberties which it had granted to its Roman Catholic subjects were now, in base in- 
gratitude, designated only as an obligatory restoration of the inalienable rights belong- 
ing to the Ca holic Church, The political organs of Europe in the service of Rome 
were called upon to employ all their powers in opposition to Prussia, When the 
Jesuit party, which had already become omnipotent, had eventually reached the end it 
had been striving to gain for years, and the Vatican Council, in the year 1870, issued 
the dogmatical definition of the infallibility of the pope and the proclamation of the 
papal universal-episcopates, then broke out simultaneously (July, 1870) the terrible 
war between Prance and Germany, the object of which was to humiliate Prussia, 
which a short lime before had assumed the leadership of Germany. The great vie* 
lory of Prussia and Germany, achieved under the merciful favor and protection of 
God, led now to the full restoration of one only powerful Germany, under the leader- 
ship of the king of Prussia as German Emperor. 

When, after great victories had been acliieved, he who was proclaimed at Ver- 
sailles German Emperor (King William I.) had returned to Berlin, with the aid of 
his great statesman Bismarck, the internal arrangements for uniteil Germany had to 
be entered upon. At home a party had already been formed, which, under the a>- 
sumed title of “ The Centre,” was determined that all political questions should be 
solved solely from a “ churchly,” that is, a strictly Roman Catholic point of view. 
The name “ Ultramontane,” that is, people whose native country lies beyond the 
mountains, and whose head and ruler, in the first place, is the Pope of Rome, was 
no longer obnoxious to them, as before. They adopted it themselves, as an honor- 
able title. All the demands of the ecclesiastical authorities upon the Prussian gov- 
ernment must be prosecuted in the newly created political bodies, the Prussian ^As- 
sembly and the German Diet, through the energetic intervention of this party. In a 
short time it exerted considerable influence. When the energetic revived German 

national feeling protested decidedly against these demands, llien the “Centre” in 

reality the extreme left — rose up in pronounced opposition to everything which the 
Prussian and German national government from time to time proposed for the con- 
solidation of the empire. This party endeavored more and more to thrust itself for- 
ward as the representative of the whole Catholic population, and their lying inven- 
tions, their exaggerations and perversions of the truth were scattered anumg the 
Catholic people through the larger organs of the press and the smaller publications 
everywhere springing up, the so-called “ Hetzcaplane.” 

Towards such a systematic hostility of the “Centre,” the Slate authorities dare no 
longer remain passive. It became the imperative duty of the Prussian government, 
by way of self-preservation, to re-establish the former legally authorized supervision 
of the .State over the Church, although they must expect thereby to encounter the 
most decided opposition of a population who had already been fanaticised in favor 
of the pretended claims of the Roman Catholic Church. In these circumstances, 
however, the most advisable course for the government to pursue in effecting the pro- 
posed restoration was to restrict itself to the most simple and most essentiaf jioints. 

This course was observed in regard to the most of the so-called May-laws of 1873 
and 1874. In the Jesuit law, these disturbers of the religious peace, who are in no 
wise adapted to a state of equal rights, were exiled. Further, in the law for the 
supervision of the schools, which reinstated the inherent right of the State in regard 
to training and educating its future citizens. Then, again, the civil marriage law, 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


937 


which ceclares a civil marriage contract to he legally valid. The convent law, which 
regulates matters relating to religious orders. The old Catholic law, which secures 
to the old Catholics equal rights with the adherents of the Vatican ; and Hnally, the 
law in regard to the management of Church property. 

1 he laws w hich restore the right of the State to exercise supervision in cases vvheic 
self-preservation seems to require it, have, it is true, called forth a local dissatislac- 
lion here and there; the mass of the people, however, manifested no opposition to 
them. 


A different judgment from that given in regard to these laws, must he rendered in 
reference to some others of the May-laws which relate to the education and appoint- 
ment of the Catholic clergy, and the control of the vacant dioceses. (May iith i' 6 l\ 
and May 20th, 1874.) '' ’ 

The candidates for orders, before receiving their appointment, were to submit to 
an examination according to a new regulation, so that those intellectually disqualitieci, 
and appearing to the State to be unserviceable, might be kept aloof from the office! 
He who looks more closely into the regulation for this so-called examination, will 
see that a mass of historical notes, a more intimate acquaintance with German liter.a- 
ture and history of philosophy, may be stored in the memory, without a taste for 
science or a national sentiment having been thereby awakened and promoted. That, 
in this law, which only can be effective, is the prohibition of boys’ seminaries and the 
academic convents established by the bishops, by means of which the preparatory 
studies and further education of the future Catholic priesthood might again be brou"hr 
into connection w. ith the State institutions and thus placed in a more liberal pos.iion. 

The other law relating to the control of the vacant dioceses, by means of which 
evil-minded persons dangerous to the State shall be kept from the priestly office, 
must, in view of the object thereby contemplated, likewise be regarded as a failure. 
The manager of a diocese must take an oath lately introduced. The bishop must 
report to the chief president of his province in advance every nomination to an 
ecclesiastical office for confirmation. The worthlessness of promissory oaths, in the 
political as well as in the ecclesiastical s|)here, is a fact so manifest from the expe- 
rience of earlier times that they should have been discontinued. The duty to report 
imposed on the bishop, how’ever justified it might appear to the defenders of the 
Church policy of the Cultus-Minister Talk at the time the law' was enacted, yet it 
failed to reach the particular object contemplated by the State. That w hich is most 
important for the State is the right of protest, and this it could have secured, as is 
the case in the legislation of other States, by the simple declaration that no cleri>y- 
man can hold an ecclesiastical office without the concurrence of the State, and, so 
long as this concurrence has not been obtained, the State claims the right to declare 
the clergyman in such case disqualified. The State could then judge of each ap- 
pointment separately, and quietly admit w'ell-quaiified men, even w hen concurrence 
on the part of the bishop has not been obtained, and, in flagrant cases, furnish a 
warning example. The bishops would then, as is the case in the Southern German 
States, also have avoided such appointments in future in the absence of the duty to 
report. This law is also a failure, because it made the disposition of the future des- 
tinies of the clergy, as well as of the parishes, dependent exclusively upon the con- 
duct of the bishop of the diocese, namely, on the fulfilment of the duty to report, 
which, the government might have certainly know'n beforehand, would never be 
complied with. Accordingly, the punishment for the violation of this duty on the 
part of the bishops fell not upcwi them but upon the clergy and the annually increas- 
ing number of vacant parishes. Among the candidates for the many vacant par- 
ishes are a large number of peaceable, law'-abiding, and pa riotic-minded men; but 
these qualities were to them of no avail, because their bishop neglected the duty of 
notification, and they w-ere left without a field of labor and without stqiport. 

These law's afforded the opposing Church authorities the desired opportunity 
absolutely to interdict the performance of those functions which the State had en- 
joined upon them, and to oiganize an opposition to them, either active or passive, 
throughout the land. The State was thereby brought into a very unfavorable posi- 
tion, in that it w'as obliged to engage in continuous prosecutions for the neglect of 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 



duty in order to maintain its authority, w hilst it was occupied with fruitless efforts 
to eniorce obedience. The cessation of worship and [pastoral w’ork in so many par- 
isher, ))ecame more and more detrimental to the interests of the Stale throughout 
the country. The deposition of eight bishops and the consequent vacating of their 
dioceses, and of about fourteen hundred parishes, awakened among the many mib 
lion of Catholic sulijects much bitterness against the Prussian government. In the 
meantime, the Romish Church authorities looked upon the interruption and cessa- 
tion of worship and the pastoral w'ork — an interdict in modern form — and the rude- 
ness and lawlessness among the people ari.'.ing therefrom wdth indifference; as in 
former years such a state of things had repeatedly involved Germany in protracted, 
bloody, and devastating civil wars in order to maintain its supremacy over the 
country. 

From this wdiolly objective view of the former May-law'S, and the bitter conflict 
thereby occasioned, w'e see in the new' May-law of the present year (1880) not even a 
first step only towards Canossa. On the contrary, it furnishes rather evidence of the 
justice of the position of the Slate over against the Church. The serious conse- 
quences of the conflict to the State, growdng out of the discontinuance of w'orship 
and pastoral work, w'hich indirectly more and more manifested themselves, must be 
averted and a remedy for them provided. This remedy is the specific object of the 
new' May-law', and it would betray entire ignorance of the relations of the Catholic 
Church in Prussia were w'e to form any other conclusion in regard to the matter. 

The Romish ecclesiastical authorities themselves, through a brief of the 24th of 
February of the present year, addressed by Leo XIII. to the former Archbishop 
Melchers of Cologne, have already suggested the substance of this new law. The 
German press, influenced by the “Centre” parly, felt itself unpleasantly affected 
by the pope’s letter, and endeavored to show that the concession of the pope in 
regard to notification was made only conditionally, and under the supposition that 
still greater concessions would be made on the part of the State. In the al>setice 
of such concessions, the carrying of the measure into effect would be practically im- 
possible, as the number of candidates at present in Prussia not disqualified by the 
law of iith of May, 1873, insufficient for the purptise. There was also a want 
of officials qualified to give the notification and make the appointments, d'he press 
friendly to the government replied that there were at least still four dioceses in 
Prussia w'ith authorized incumbents, and that in these dioceses there are enough of 
regularly appointed chaplains and assistant clergymen who have long expected to 
be jiromoted to larger parushes. A commencement at carrying out the papal* con- 
cession miglit, therefore, be made w'ithout delay. As soon as this actual beginning 
shall be made, the Slate legislature will also cheerfully undertake a revision of the 
former May-laws, so far as it can be done without infringing upon the inalienable 
rights of the Slate. As such a revision abvays requires lime, the State offered to 
meet the concession in the papal brief of February 24th, 1880, in advance, for the 
removal of the difficulties in the way of carrying it into effect, on which the oppo- 
nents laid great stress. It was also expressly stated, that, “dispensations as far as 
needed,” from seme of the May-laws, w'ould be granted, especially in reference to 
the appointment of clergymen, and the new' oath of allegiance required of bishops 
and their substitutes. 

This attitude of the press friendly to the government fully corresponded w'ith a 
resolution of the Prussian State ministerium of the 17th of May, 1880. The 
Romish Church authorities, instead of meeting these advances favorably, allowed 
themselves to be influenced by the irreconcilable attitude of the “Centre” parly and 
its agitation ; construed the brief of the 24th of February, in the sense attached to it 
by its press, and maintained that tlie proposition was only hypothetically approved, 
and that on the impracticable condition, that the essential points in the former May- 
laws, such as the reinforcement of the right of the State to exercise Supervision over 
the Church, should be surrendered, and that the State on its part should entirely 
subject itself to all the principles of those canonical rights which the pope had 
declared could never be surrendered. 

To the great satisfaction of the whole German nation. Chancellor Bismarck then 


939 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 

published the despatches he had exchanged with the German Ambassador in Vienna, 
I rince Reuss, in reference to the matters in hand, who liad previously negotiated 

with llie papal Nuncio. The tenor of these despatches was : “ We are not goins 
to Canossa ! ” b & 

^le publication of the more important despatches did not follow until after the 
draft of the May-law had been laid before the diet. 

Ihe views now became divergent. Some considered it necessary that the State 
should recall the new May-law, in the sense of the resolution of the State Minis- 
^rium of May 17th, in order to avoid even the appearance of yielding to the 
Chuich authorities. Others, with deeper insight, coincided with the view of the 
government, that the exercise of paternal feelings towards those Catholic subjects, 
who were spiritually destitute, made it necessary to overlook the fickleness and 
overbearing attitude of the Roman Church authorities. The clergy, however, were 
assured that the government deeply sympathized with them in their deplorable con- 
dition, and is firmly resolved to remove the evil consequences of the former May- 
laws, let the pope say what he will in regard to the matter. 

The State government was to proceed of its own accord to carry out uncondition- 
ally those concessions, to which it had on the 17th of March, under certain proposed 
conditions, agreed. _ The chancellor of the empire, however, was enabled by the 
new May-law, with its far-reaching concessions, to contradict the oft-repeated and 
bitter reproaches of irreconcilableness, coming from the “Centre” party, and to 
evince most clearly his peaceable disposition. The Prussian Diet also was then 
referred to, which can amend or reject any objectionable paragraph of the projected 
law. And finally, as to what concerns the attitude of the Church authorities, the 
pope, ever vacillating from weakness or insincerity, might renew again under dif- 
ferent circumstances the concession in his brief in regard to the duty of notification 
which he had recalled. ^ 

Acting under these considerations the draft of the new May-law was repeatedly 
read, well matured by committees, and thoroughly discu'ssed in the Prussian Diet, 
the Chamber of Deputies, and the House of Lords. Paragraphs of doubtful expe- 
diency, especially those relating to the possibility of the return of the deposed 
bishops, were carefully considered and removed. If the State goveniment con- 
sidered their return possible, only on the condition of the entire submission of the 
bishops to the law’s of the State, the Diet itself w'as no less anxious to avoid even 
the appearance of having taken a single step towards Canossa. 


REPORT ON THE PRESENT STATE OF RELIGION IN GERMANY. 

By Professor f. G. PJleiderer, late Principal of the Institute at Kornthal 

Wurtemberg. 

Venerable Council, Fathers and Brethren: — In complying with the re- 
quest of your honorable Council, to speak on the state of religion in Germany, I beg 
leave, first of all, to define my theme more closely. It is utterly impossible to do 
full justice to such a comprehensive subject within the short space of thirty minutes. 
I w'ould, therefore, rather designate it: Some light and dark phases of the present 
state of religion in Germany. And even this is too much. Germany, as you know, 
has become extensive, reaching from the Lake of Constance to the North and the 
Baltic Seas, from Lorraine to the borders of Poland. Plow’ can any individual 
pretend to know and to judge correctly the state of religion of such a vast empire 
from personal observation ? Coming to you from South Germany, and being more 
familiar with its condition, I shall, first of all, briefly describe the state of religion 
of South-Germany ; and, coming from Kornthal, the only P'ree Church of Wurtem- 
berg, based on the principle of self-maintenance and self-government, I may, per- 
haps, be able to view ecclesiastical affairs with less bias than might be expected 
from a man of the State-Church. 

The present state of religion can be understood only from the totality of religious 


940 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


and moral ideas which at present are agitating the nations of Europe. What is the 
character of our time in .general? 

The great majority ol Christians in Soulh-Germany have an idea tlint we have 
crossed the zenitli ol history long ago; yea, that the wlioie human race is drifting 
toward (he eiul of its development. Now, as in the progress ol liic development 
of the individual man, the end approaches the Ijeginning, and the aged reiurns to 
the reminiscences of his childhood, thus, to our mind, humanity is returning to the 
beginning of its history. 

Af.er the attempt of the most ancient of tlie human race, to bring about a false 
and premature union for godless purposes, liad been frustrated liv God the Lord 
througli the conlusion of tongues, and through the inclination to separate and con- 
stitute individual nationalities, so that each nation, isolated as it were, might develop 
the peculiar gilts which God had granted it and fulHl its mission ; ami, after this 
disunion of nations had existed thrcnigh many centuries, now the disposuiiin mani- 
fests itself every where to gather the fragments of nations, and again to unite discon- 
nected members; yea, it seems as if God had destinated this great and glorious 
country. North America, which you call your Fatherland, again to unite the She- 
mites, ilamites and Japhetites, and among these tlie Indo-Germanic races; the 
Romans of France, Spain and Italy; the Celtics of Ireland, Wales and Switzerland; 
the Germans of tlie Anglo-Saxon race, and those of Germany, Austria and Holland; 
the Slavonics in Bohemia, Poland and Russia, to consolidate them, together with 
the Mungols of China and the Negroes of Africa, into one great family of nations, 
under the starry banner of liberty. Politically tliis is asserting itself with us as a 
national principle: the Germanic, Romanic and Slavonic races are becoming con- 
scious of their common origin, and instinctively perceive that the lime has come to 
join hands with each other. In the sphere of religion the signature of the present 
time is union — alliance. Not only does the Vatican Church draw the cords that 
encircle the Roman Oz// 7 ^ wider and lighter, ^Iso the Anglican Church some years 
ago attempted at Bonn on the Rhine to enter into a union with the Greek-Russian 
Church, after a theological warfare of thirty years. Old and New School of the 
Presbyterian Church of the United Stales were successfully united in 1S69, and 
have become the main body of the Presbyterian churches in the land; yea, all Pres- 
byterian churches of the whole world are this day assembled in their representatives, 
in this City of Brotherly Love, as a General Presbyterian Council. Tims also with 
us in Germany, there is manifested a growing consciousness for a closer union and 
communion of nil the believers of every evangelical denomination, and a much more 
pleasant relation of the Lutheran to the Reformed Church is one of the bright 
phases within the panorama of the Evangelical Church of our Fatherland. No 
less giatifymg is the cessation of the contention Iretween confessional Lutheranism 
and the positive believing of the union, as it has clearly shown itself at the Prussian 
Generil Synods held within the last five years. Moreover, those of you, dear 
brethren, who had the pleasure and blessing to attend the meeting of the AUiance 
held at Basel in autumn of the past year, will bear me testimony as to the sincere 
irenic.l spirit that here animated Lutherans and Unionists, Episcooalians and Pres- 
byterians, Methodists and Baptists, Calvinists and Zw'inglians, adherents of the Es- 
tablished Church and those of the Independent; and how we were united into blessed 
oneness at the Lord’s Supper held at the venerable cathedral there, and how our 
hearts gave vent to the energetic determination and holy vow: “ We will all firmly 
unite and he one as brothers, and be loyal to our glorious Head, our eternal King 
and High- Priest Jesus Christ.” But whence, now more than ever, this longing for 
union ? It is the instinctive sense, yea, the firm conviction, that a decisive struggle 
is at hand; and this is (he second characteristic of the signs of our time. *^Po- 
litically even this is a time of decision. Long-pending, unsolved questions, as the 
German (Schleswig-Holstein, Alsace-Lorraine), the Italian, the Turkish Oriental, 
have Iteen, or are just now being solved. Much more are we approaching a decision 
in the religious sphere. ** 

^ We Christians in Germany, dear brethren, meet quite differently from yo\i Chris- 
tians in the United States the question : To be or not to be, to conquer or to be 


941 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

ChrisUnnity or heathenism, ancient faith or modern infidelilv, eternnl 

tui the Sn.r I" other words, has the gospd a future .n (ie.many? 

wd the hiate contmue to be a Christian State? or, is decreed that Cl.u.ch and 

Christianity, so long of mutual blessing to each other 
shall be .hvoiced ? It ,s true that this is an old conflict, as old as th"u hetrieen the 

hetlvelnThe Smr head; between Christ and Belial; 

acr-dnst die Sm i‘r ‘he flesh and the flesh that ever contends 

the strateuv ( f 'the ^ change has taken place during the last decades in 

SaPn iv 1 old enemy, and the order of battle is a different one. Whilst 

Watl tlmcr' n r / ^ whin'ingly writhed 

life eiL< nliv r K Cod-man— who through his spotless deeds during his whole 

moraTo Vf V '’V’T ^"‘^hled to maintain to the last his 
shall a!- ‘h^’^'ore, by his well-doing in a positive sense, the evil which 

oeriL "" ^vonderful decree expend itself, he has attempted to save 

perchance some fragments— to disturb, to caricature and to alterate the stability of 

InrJir'' n‘ uselessly tried his diabolical power and fierce 

enmity, especially m the persecutions of the Christians in the first three centuries, 
he sought to distort and .rum Christianity in the garb of an angel of light. If he 

ad succeeded m transforming the New Testament Ecclesia into a State Church 
under Constantine the Great, so that henceforth one could become a Christian 
without even conversion, so that easily and quickly a church for the masses arose 
upon the soil of the natural heart of man, which through outward display and sen- 
suous attraction decidedly gave assent to the new doctrine, he forthwith, through his 
own instrumentality, intermixed the divine, spiritual character of the newly-founded 
Kingdom of Jesus Christ with the natural worldly in shrewd homage, which worldly 
culture and the innate powers of the world, both spiritual and political, brought to 
the new religion by way of accommodation. In the next centuries followed a mix- 
ture of magnitude, namely, the antique-Germanic heathenism with true Christianity, 
whereby the places of Germanic gods were consecrated to the God of Chri>tians, the 
heathen festivals^ transformed into Christian feast and holy days, myth turned into 
• legends of the saints, and Christianity was almost lost amid the rubbish of bigotry and 
mysterious Pomp of Cultus, till at last the conscience-bound monk of Wittenberg 
rent his monastic garb, burst the chains of papacy and the fetters of his con- 
science, and again caused the light of the pure gospel to shine forth unto the world. 
But scarcely had this new life shed abroad its influence throughout Germany, when 
he again knew how to disfigure and caricature the new w'ork. 

Now come.s a recent and last stratagem, one of the most subtle, and again one of 
the grossest “ wdles of the devil,” as St. Paul declares (Eph. vi. ii); a new and 
powerful ally, with great mental acuteness, with immense material resources, held 
in reserve for nearly two centuries, aroused by a remarkable destiny from a state of 
non-existence (Apoc. xvii.), allowed to enter the portals of the citadel of Christi- 
anity, and placed on the arena, full of the most bitter enmity against Christianity 
and diabolical arrogance to be the saving Messiah for the ills of mankind, in a religious, 
financial and social respect— Judaism ; not the orthodox, which has respectable 
representatives, and shall, according to God’s word, be reassembled, before the final 
end, in the land of their forefathers; but that modern, secularized reform-Judaism, 
the pantheistic of Spinoza, and the atheistic of Heine, Lindau, Lassalle and others! 
And this is the third characteristic of our time. 

They pursue their object with a tenacity peculiar to the Shemitic race. With 
their money they govern the world. By the golden sceptre of their wealth they con- 
trol also the political situation. When the treaty of peace between the German 
Emperor and the President of the French Republic was concluded, Rothschild was 
present as a third party. They have almost the entire press, at least the most im- 
portant journals in Germany, Austria and Hungary, mean death to all genuine 
Christian life, or through the principal comic journals of Berlin bedaub every one 
who takes a decided stand for Christ the crucified, especially now’ Court-preacher 
Stoecker, at Berlin, who had the courage, like the celebrated Treidschke, Professor 


942 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


of Church History, to call attention to the threatening danger in this direction. 
They have their best orators in the German diet (for instance, Lasker, Bamberger 
and others), in our laws, principally by their aid hurriedly manufactured, in the 
mammonism of the day a sympathetic ally, in science prominent representatives, in 
art, especially music (Meyerbeer, Offenbach), novel writing (Auerbach, Lindau), and 
celebrated heroes in the theatre, in the Publicistik exceedingly versatile and in- 
genious authors in Lassalle, Marx and others, some of the most dangerous leaders 
of social democracy as well as Nihilism (for instance, Weymar), They have pub- 
licly declared, in their vaunted pride, ‘■'•Israel is the priestly people of the earth, 
appointed to bring s ilvation to the 7 vorld. The time is coming when the cross shall 
fall and the heathens {i. e., Christians) become indiffere}it to 7 uard their idols. ’ 

You see, dear brethren, here is no longer that lukewarm indifference of Laodicean 
Christians; here is positive hatred against Christ; here is no hmger an intermixture 
of Christianity and the world; here is a clear and nude antichristianily, with a steady 
and fixed aim at the person of Christ, and the assertion now publicly expressed [^e.g.^ 
by the chief Rabbi Abrh. Geiger, of Frankfurt), that the ethics even of Christianity 
hitherto should be a patchwork copied from the Jew Hillel. No wonder that 
“Strauss’ Life of Christ, edited for the people,” and his “Ancient and Modern 
Belief,” and Edward V. Hartmaii’s “Philosophy of the Unknown” and “Self- 
Disintegration of Christianity ” are nowhere hailed with greater rejoicing than in 
this camp. Lastly, no wonder that we find here, too, the end returning to the be- 
ginning of the circuit; for, as the Jews have been the first antagonists of Christi- 
anity, .so they will be the last; yea, we think it probable that the saying of Dr. 
Godet, the venerable Swiss theologian, that this Jewish hatred of Christ will culmi- 
nate in antichristianity. 

Now allow me, on this background, to sketch the light and shadow of the religious 
condition of Germany, In doing this, I do not represent the one or other party, but 
simply on the watch-tower of the word of God, which is to us all as the right light 
on the pathway of life, so our only correct and valid rule and judge. 

In considering the religious life of a people, the Church is foremost. Germany 
has, as is known, an established church, more correctly speaking. Slate Churches, 
with all the advantages and disadvantages of this system. Speaking of advantages 
of the State Church, I of course don't fare well in this land of freedom, but fear not 
that one laboring thirty-three years in the free congregation of Kornthal will unduly 
laud the praises of the same. It so happened that in the period of reformation we 
became an establishment; the existing state of things made it, perhaps, a necessity 
that each government should organize its own church, and in our monarchial rela- 
tions it may have been the best form of organization. At any rate, we believe, had 
it not been of blessing to us, God would not have permitted it. The Holy Spirit is 
not dependent on form or constitutions; he moves whithersoever he listeth, and 
doubtless you also have perceived his effectual operations in our German churches. 
What noble monuments of testimony to evangelical truth have proceeded from them 
during the last three centuries, in confessions and sermons, in hymns and prayers, in 
science and pastoral labor! 

Nevertheless, I could not honestly maintain that the goodness of the tree is mani- 
fested by all its fruits; in regard to many of these, I must confess that they have 
emanated from the State Church, not on account, but in spile of it. 

The condition in Wurtemberg, whence a host of good and noble men have emi- 
grated to America, is on the whole tolerable, yea iio|)eful. There is a consistory 
which has all along embraced the most able and pious men; of the deceased we 
may mention Prelate Kapff, and of those living Prelate Gerok, the Swabian poet. 
In the capital of the land, Stuttgart, there are truly pious preachers; there we have 
mostly crowded, partly overcrowded, churches, and within the last five years three 
new churches and four chapels have been built ; there is published the “ Evangelische 
Sonntagsblalt,” 115,000 subscribers, the “ Christenbote,” 30,000; there about 
one hundred and fifty clergymen semi-annually convene in conference, to promote 
the gospel and consider the wants of the church ; there are flourishing, besides, 
many other institutions, supported by the city or State, for domestic missions, a .pros- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


943 

perous Bible and tract society, a society for evangelization, which during this sum- 
nier celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, a “Deaconess” institution, young men’s 
Christian association hall and lodging-house for journeymen ; in fine, every branch 
of the work of domestic missions is here represented. The flourishing “ Gustave- 
Adoll ” Union is located there. The twenty-first meeting of the German Congress 
of Domestic Missions was held there last year, and one of the principal representa- 
tives from Northern Germany gave public testimony that “a spirit of joyous faith, 
fraternal communion and love to the evangelical church, rlid pervade all its deliber- 
ations; ” yea, the Senior of Domestic Missions, Dr. Wichern,of Hamburg, declared 
thirty years ago that “ in no part of Germany is the cause of domestic missions so 
well fostered as in Wurtemberg and its caj)ital.” In fact, notwithstanding frivolity 
and ungodliness among a large portion of the population, there exists, nevertheless, 
true piety, Christian order and discipline, although since the new era of Germany 
these i.ave become much relaxed. The word of God is preached from most pulpits 
by orthodox, partly pious, at least, well-educated ministers, familiar with philology, 
philosophy and theology. The professorships of our national university at Tubingen 
are occupied by professors more or less pious. 

I'inally, I dare not omit to state that, besides the annual collections for the benefit 
of the Bible Society and the Gustave- Adolj)h Union, a considerable amount is also 
contributed for our orphans’ homes and houses of refuge for neglected children, for 
institutions ot the blind, deaf and dumb, for epileptics and feeble-minded, for a 
Magdaleneum, but especially for the Mission Institutes at Basel, Chrischona, and 
that of the Moravians; also for the Leipzig Mission, which contributions are en- 
hanced by the consideration that the 1,250,000 evangelical'inhabitants of our country 
are rather poor, and consist of miles of the poor people. 

Destined by the history of the Reformation to be a means of transition between 
Lulheranism pressing from the north, and the reformed doctrines extending along the 
southern borders, and to modify both types, Wurtemberg was happily in a position to 
edify itself beyond the shadow of strict confessionalism. Moreover, it still subsists 
on the intellectual capital of its ecclesiastical fathers, and the blessed heritage from 
former as well as recent richly-endowed servants of God : a Brenz, the author of our 
catechism, Ilieber, author of our book for catechumens ; but, above all, John Albright 
Bengel, the great commentator, Oettinger, the iheosophist; also Steinhofer, Charles 
Henry Rieger, Conrad Rieger, Burk, Hiller, Michael Hahn, Philip M. Hahn, 
Flattich, Dann, the two Hofackers, the two Hoffmans, one the founder of the church 
Kornthal, the other a son, at one time inspector of the Basel mission house. Dr. 
Barth, of Calw, Zeller, of Beuggen, Kolb from Dagersheim, the Professors, Dr. 
Schmid, Dr. Oehler and Dr. Beck; finally, Knapp, Kapff, Blumhard, of Boll, and 
others. 

The country people are as the soil which God has given them to till, more tena- 
cious and ponderous, than light and volatile; more intense than superficial; more 
industrious and frugal, than pleasure-seeking. Our so-called “communities” (about 
60,000 members), yiartly the old pietistic, followers of Spener. Bengel and Hiller, 
partly the Michaelean, whose origin dates from the mystical Michael Hahn, whilst 
iSoth tendencies find their unity and central point at Kornthal, still prove a salt to 
our Church, although they much need a thorough revival. Of this Kornthal, 
which, with its Presbyterian constitution, and independent of the royal consistory 
and deanship, stands most in sympathy with this council, much more might be said; 
but I forbear, expressing all in one word: Its Church is an apology of Christianity 
in fact. 

The state of the Lutheran Church in Bavaria is princijially conditioned by its 
parity, being placed in the midst of a ])rcpcnderating Roman Catholic population. 
Just for this reason they are pressed to more rigid confessionalism, rigid form of 
doctrine, cultus and church government, a tendency which has found its highest and 
most successful exponent in the godly Loehe, who, by sending many young minis- 
ters to the United States, has materially advanced the growth of the Lutheran 
Church in this country; a tendency which, however, has been greatly modified in an 
evangelical-biblical sense by men like Harless, who was an eminent leader for many 


944 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


years, throuj^h teachers like Thomasius and Hoffman. In freneral, the testimony 
for the Liuheran Church of Bavaria cannot be withheld, that a mild, conservative 
spirit, great fidelity to its creed, stirring scientific efforts, and a firm attitude over 
against the there reigning, very significant Romish tendencies, makes jierseif promi- 
nent, and that in the contest against rationalism she forms a noble and important 
link in the line of the champions of the Church in southern Germany. 

The reformed element of Bavaria is ably represented in theology by Dr. Ebrard, 
the celebrated commentator and writer on apologetics and dogmatics, and by Dr. 
Herzog, the meritorious publisher of the “ Real Encyclopaedia” which I have seen 
in the libraries of many of you. Yet the evil effects of State-Church are much more 
apparent in Bavaria than in Wurtemberg. The ministers, nearly all orthodox 
Lutherans, lay too much stress on the act of ordination and the real power of the 
sacramen's, whilst the people, relying on the outward means of grace, appear to be 
less concerned about the working out of their salvation. The large cities, especially 
where the population is prevailingly Protestant, in their religious views and mode 
of life, are mostly governed by modern liberalism, which, on religious questions, is 
wholly rationalistic, yea, manifests itself either in secret or in outspoken enmity 
against Christianity. It will be of interest to the Council to hear something also of 
the Reformed Church in Bavaria. In Rhenish Bavaria, on the east side of the 
Rhine, exist seven churches which had been gathered from former refugees (since 
1688), from persecuted natives of the Palatinate (since 1693), from Wallons, Zwing- 
lians, and followers of Pappenheim, and, since 1872, united on the basis of the 
Heidelberg Catechism. All these churches have presbyteries which are supple- 
mented partly by co-optation, partly by the votes of heads of families. Their cultus, 
corresponding to the Palatinate liturgy, is very simple. Some use the hymn-book 
of Zurich, some that of Erlangen. In regard to church property, they have no 
freedom of disposition, being under the supervision of the .State. Also in reference 
to discijdine and external affairs of the Church, they are all subject to the direction 
of the Royal- Bavarian Lutheran Church authorities. The religious life is, except 
in a few city churches, not in a thriving, yet not in quite a forlorn, condition. At 
the week-day service in the country churches each family is represented by at least 
one of its members. The state of morality exceeds that of the surrounding Roman 
Catholic and Lutheran Churches, where the average number of illegitimate births 
is as three to one, yet it is depraved and its elevation difficult. Their liberality, 
however, contributing for objects of God’s kingdom, church necessities, and for the 
relief of the poor is, considering their means, commendable. ’ 

In left Rhenish- Bavaria, the so-called Palatinate, the distinct character of the 
Reformed Church no longer exists. The union, under control of vulgar rationalism, 
has absorbed all consciousness of the Reformed and Lutheran confession. The 
long (1818) existing church conflict as to the basis of the union was so far decided 
in 1853, that the Augsburg confession of 1540 should be adopted, because it con- 
tained that which is common to both. Although this confession legitimately con- 
stitutes the basis, there exists heterodoxy, and the extremists of the “ Protestant 
Union ” proclaim their own wisdom, as do also the hyper-orthodox Lutherans, with- 
out regard to any confession. Ministers who on Easter Sunday deny from the pulpit 
the fact of the resurrection of Christ remain in office just as well as the orthodox, 
provided “ the parishes prefer no charges against them.” The forms of cultus of the 
Palatinate Church are essentially reformed. The attempts to introduce liturgical 
service were hooted as Romanizing. The constitution is consistorial-presbyterial- 
synodic. Ministers and laity are equally represented in their synods ; the negative 
element, however, is generally in the majority. The church-government is, in the 
main, bureaucratic; the members of the consistory, which have been subject to the 
ministerium since 1849, shad be proposed according to rule and concurrence of 
Gjneral .Synod and appointed by the king. Rut, the fact is. General Synod never 
was consulted. The religious cliurch-life of the Palatinate is greatly disintegrated 
by the “ Protestant Union,” which lately still counted 18,000 members. Religious 
interest is at a low ebb on the positive as well as on the negative side. The organ 
of the negative party, called The Union, has less than 500 subscribers; that of the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


945 


po5itiye Der KirchenboU, a few more. Church atlendauce .mid taking part in the 
wo^ of home and foretgn missions are very different. Most of the dimchcs are 

" die "rr’ "oMv ak reformatory institutes the sicalled 

na 1 ef Akim, L f ‘ f Oustave- Adolph Union is supported by both 

I . ite, . Although idigtous Itfe has been suppressed in every manner for centuries 

;;;?r?iench "" ' " Protestan? pri 2 s: 

. ^ Fiench oppressors during the revolution, yet there are still found secluded 

communities, transplanted from the lower Rhine, cherished by 

^.d who" a;Ta 7 J^'^.S^lling, hated and calumniated by r.alionalists! 

ad u ho are a light and salt to their vicinity. Here, too, God has his 7,000 who 
will^ not bow their knees before Baal. ' 

j? of our recovered brethren in Alsace-Lorraine is, like their 

Ihis short sketch! t'-unsition ; it may, therefore, be justifiable to pass it by i,i 

Concerning Baden, Hessia and Nassau, it may be said in general that, without a 
tiaditional piety inherited of their ancestors, they are quite* contented as to their 
le igious wants, more superficial than profoundly constituied, and easily satisfied on 
.ccount of their shallow knowledge and partial culture; influenced at (he same 
time by ministers who received their instruction from those rationalistic professors 
nGio, alas fi led the theological chairs of Heidelberg, Giessen, and Jena too long! 
It IS a notable fact that, whilst the theological faculty of Heidelberg for a long time 
had as many students as professors, many theological students of Baden sought 
healthier food from pious professors at Tubingen, Bonn, Ilalle, and Leipzig. Nor 
can It be denied that it is due, partly to the influence of pious teachers, partly to the 
efif^ectual work of the noble convert Henhoefer, minister of Spoeck, that amona the 
350 Protestant ministers of Baden not only 120 are avowedly positive Chrisdans 
but also a union was founded among the laity, which, for a long time superintended 
)y Director Stern, sends about twenty-five evangelists through the country who visit 
and strengthen the faith of the adigious communities. Several asylums for neg- 
the oldest institute for educating children’s nurses, founded by 
yl other Jolberg, a noble Jewish proselyte, are the quiet working monuments of 
this spirit of faith. ^ 


What shall I say of North-Germany ? I wish very much a more conversant rep- 
resentative would supplement my report on church affairs of the larger German 
I kingdom of Saxony and its principalities, Hanover, Brunswick 
Mecklenburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and the rest of the petty States of Germany. I 
will give it in the light in which we in South-Germany view them. 

Here the evil effects of State-Churchism appear still more absolute than in South- 
Germany. Within the last ten years the State omnipotence, perhaps without the 
will of ns leaders, has done much to encourage all infidel and semi-inficlel move- 
mcnt.s, and to suppress positive Christian enterprise. It is a constitutional privile<Te 
that the District, Provincial, and General Synods freely discuss their own affairs, and 
propose new laws; but the whole synodical fabric, as regards real church autonomy 
is more nominal than real both in North and South-Germany. Whilst the churches 
in England and America, which have presbyteries and synods, govern themselves, 
and appoint their own committees without any intervention of the State, which pre- 
side over the church, the consistorial and presbyterial elements in Pru.ssia are not 
organically united, but autocratically appointed by the chief church officers of the 
king, so that one cannot say the Church really governs itself. Nor can the synods 
of North or South-Germany enforce any new law without the consent of the kincr, 
the ministei of worship, and the chief consistory. The consistories are called 
church officers, it is tiue, but are de facto rather State officers, as the synods cannot 
influence their appointments. But then no law^ of the Church can come into effect, 
yea, not even reach the king as suvmtis episcoptis of the Church, if, for political pur- 
poses, the minister of worship vetoes it. No more right has the Church to exercise 
any decisive influence in the important matter of appointing theological professors. 
1 he chief consistory has the right of sanction, the synod claims it, but has not yet 
obtained the same. 


60 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


946 

Therewith a second evil is connected. As much as we acknowledge that it is 
the earnest widi c f well-disposed church authorities, that the religious life of the 
Church shoi.ld be led in channels regulated by law and all agitation and excesses 
prevented, yet we dare not deny that, in view of the constitution of human nature 
and power*«;f habit, the governing of everything according to prescribed laws im- 
]KTceplibly leads to bureaucratichm, and the old customary officiating of the clergy 
culminates in mechanism and indifference. The natural consequence of this is that 
all real Christian life diminishes. Boasters of mediocracy and opportunity are 
reared that care more for the world than for the kingdom of God, and instead of 
being fearless witnesses for Christ, to all considerations in regard to salary, the 
favor of superiors, a comfortable parish, and the dignity of the pastoral office have 
the preponderance. Nor can it be denied that even in the positive tendency of 
Christians, where stress is laid on creeds and confessions, and undue reliance in the 
power of princes and the world, an externalizing, perhaps even a Romanizing, more 
frequently a legal tendency, which in church and theology is devoid of freedom may 
easily find access; to say nothing of the fact that many follow the prevailing posi- 
tive current, indifferent to consequence and stability of character, “Tolerance 
only,” tolerance toward Catholics, even though they mock us ; toward the Jews, 
although they attack our religion ; toward positive infidels even, only so that their 
poison is offered under the guise of science — this is the watchword which many 
princes repeatedly proclaim by their subordinate church authorities. “Only no 
revivals” that would be Methodistic, seems to be the watchword of church authori- 
ties. It seems very desirable to them that the stagnant waters should remain un- 
disturbed. 

There is a third point connected with this, viz.: the want of voluntary giving that 
springs from a fresh pulsating life. The willingness to bring sacrifices of personal 
effort, of time and means to the Church, as it manifests itself so astoundingly in 
England and in America, is yet little developed among us, especially in North, Ea5-t, 
and South-Germany. A noticeable exception — thanks to the preshyterial-synodic de- 
velopment of the German provinces during three hundred centuries — is the western 
part of Germany, the Rhinelands and Westphalia. You will, no doubt, be glad to 
liear, dear brethren, that there the majority of pastors are elected by representatives 
of the Churches, and in a great measure supported by their own congregations. In 
other respects things are different. Whilst with you voluntaryism opens the purse 
for church purposes, the establishment closes it, being long accustomed to receive 
its entire support from the government as it did formerly from their funded church 
estates. In Prussia a Mission and Bible Society may be restricted and harmed by 
the will of the chief president, who frequently is a Roman Catholic, and without 
whose consent no provincial collections can be raised. Now, if such a one is averse 
to the Mission and Bible cause, or on political ground is afraid that funds necessary 
for the relief of the poor in his own land might be diverted, he can if he chooses 
prevent a provincial collection and thus hinder the Mission and Bible Societies in 
their operations. The proper standard of giving in proportion to our ability we have 
not lost, because we never had it. Compared with the great liberality of the Eng- 
lish, Scotch, and Americans, all that the State Church of Germany is doing for the 
Bible and Mission cause is a minimum. 

It is, indeed, said that you are rich and we are poor, but we too readily forget the 
words of our Lord Jesus, “ It is more blessed to give than to receive; ” and, again, 
“ Whatsoever ye have done to the least of these, ye have done it unto me.” The 
regular and systematic collection of many, even small contributions from persons 
of more limited means, practised elsewhere, with so much energy, is yet too little 
known among us; nor even the wholesome self-discipline of voluntary, systematic 
laying by a certain percentage of all income, for benevolent objects, in which chiefly 
consists, as Dr. Christlieb, in his valuable “ Review of Mission,” has well re- 
marked, the secret of the great liberality of those lands in which the English lan- 
guage is spoken. 

Surely, Germany will yet come to consciousness, that religion thrives best in the 
pure atmosphere of liberty, and that the Church has both power and ability to 


947 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

maintain itself much better than civil power or oolice force can u 

and 4e\ua^d mhdl^Trs ir^roclu^es’ ;;;;gefic 
creating a personal interest in the welfTr« ^ tl! responsibility besides 

sakl. n® L, concerns ^hu ch u e , ‘I' 

^very opportunity 

iSPf!“:;n«SSSili 

Chnstianuy, the substance of our faith, dissolves under thei? hands- ^ 

FiWlled 'to 'dish vm Sr''"' ^oly Scripture, consider themselves 

wants about our students with their eccentric notions of honor, their duels and 
their bacchanalian revelries, and how, with many, the poesy of their youth is en 
gulfed by the prose of bread-and-butter science; and how, in a few years many be 

r language, lawyers, and physicians; godlis ha^vina 

los their God in the gymnasium, and learned to scoff him in the university thev 
feel no religious needs, are seldom seen at church, more frequently, however^at the 
alarv theologians, which has its reasons^not on^ the ~ 
^lary but geneially in the materialism eudaemonism, especially in the unbelief V 

many teachers of the gymnasii, and the distracted condition of Lr theol^ aLut 
he gymnasii and the public schools, in which the Falk system, contrary tX^ inten 

Prn^Jh rT 'V"" the free-thinking liliralism of the 

Prussian Chamber of Deputies, aided materially to unfetter and encourage all anti 
chi istian tendencies among the professors, down to the seminaries for teachers and 

a manner as to bring them in a most glaring contrast 
with t^he spirit of faith, which, for nearly half a century, the regulations of the pub- 
lic schools tried to inculcate, and enhanced the repression of religious instrL^bn 
dffikulT*'^''' render education in the faith and to the faith more 

s^'^^concerning the state of religion as it pertains to 
the family public and social life; how scarce has become family worship, and how 
neglected the Lord s table; how Christian family life is made impracticable, through 
he habitual lounging of the fathers at the taverns; how, in many homes, not only 
the Bible has become a neglected book, but also many good German classics are 
banished by other light and ephemeral stuff, such as may be found in the “ Garten - 
laube and in the “ Kladderadatch,” and in obscene novels, in the all-prevailing 
Jewish press, and m popularized expositions of so-called sciences, especially natural 
scienccb, wherein half truths or false hypotheses are presented to the people as un- 
deniable facts ; yea how even the reports of the stage continually lament the alarm- 
the theatres when classic dramas, of such authors as Goethe and 
Schiller, are produced; whilst they are crowded during the performance of trivial 
blench Oprettas. No wonder, then, that the very foundations of our Christian civil 
be, the oath, the family, reverential fear of God, his name, his day, and his book 
the faith m eternity, retribution and eternal judgment, reverence to parents, teachers’ 
and mobsters, submission to those in aulliority, even to the king and emperor, and 
lastly the dread of harming the person and the property of their fellow-men, fidelity, 


94 ^ 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


chastity, and decency, are more and more hecomin^^ a rarity, and that indifference 
toward vital Christianity, mamrnonism, and materialism, pervade every strata of so- 
ciety and that enthusiasm for the fine arts is paralyzed, whilst it is increasing for 
the coarser naturalistic painting. No wonder that the conception of civil virtue 
and true manliness is enervated, and that in the national conventions Christian 
minorities are suppressed, and that the rapidly manufactured laws of our national 
legislature are based upon false humanitarianism and liberalism, instead of positive 

' The consequences of this antichristian system crystallize themselves, at present, in 
three forms, their point of unity being negation ; in the religious aspect the conse- 
quence is the “ Protestanten-Verein,” in the ecclesiastic-political, the so-called 
“ Cultur-kampf,” and in a social aspect the consequence is the social democracy. 

The rationalism of the last century is revived in a new revised, but more danger- 
ous form in the “ Protestanten-Verein.” Its essence is freedom from faith, instead 
of freedom in the faith; its tendency is by absolute liberty in teaching to press for- 
ward to the analyzation of the last basis, and to a spiritualistic volalization, of even 
the last inalienable principles, to obtain for their new faith, i. e., infidelity, equal 
rights with the old faith of Christianity, and to make the testimony of truth depend- 
ent upon an accidental majority of the community. 

The “Cultur-kampf” is in fact only a continuation of the ancient contention be- 
tween the two swords, sacerdotalism and imperialism. The truth is, that Prussia 
demanded that only, which long since was conceded by the Pope as a state right to 
Wurtemberg, and many other smaller States of Germany. But after the declaia- 
tion of the*papal infallibility — greatly alarming, as is well known, the noblest and 
most intelligent non-Jesuitic minded bishops of Germany — brought about by the pre- 
ponderance*’ of Jesuitical policy, had crowned the Pope’s pretended omnipotence, a 
collision with the stale, also striving for omnipotence, became a question of time only. 
Bismarck, the great Chancellor, ventured this great battle against ultramontanism 
and Jesuitism, but that this warfare turned out so hurtful to the Evangelical Church, 
without his will and foresight, circumstanced by the fact, that the chief champion of 
the same in the Prussian camp was the irreligious liberalism. In consequence of 
this it has become, instead of a justified, yet untimely struggle against the arrogations 
of the Vatican Church, a struggle against Christianity in general, and has done 
much toward making it ineffectual in its true Biblical nature. Therefore, not only 
is the Roman Catholic Church affected, whose system is still inviolate, whilst the 
religious life of the people has been awfully wounded, but also the Evangelical 
Church, especially through the civil marriage law's, which view'ed from a political 
point of view, may be justified, as it is seen to exist wdth you in North America, 
without harming religion, because of the religious consciousness which is so general 
and deep-rooted in the national life of your people; yet, with a people in w'hich 
Christianity has ceased to be the substance of its spiritual life, as it does with us, it 
has mightily aided, in the present period, the existing inclination to circumvent 


Christianity.* . ' 

The inevitable conclusion of atheism having condensed itself into materialism, 
after having previously found its scientific substructure in Earw'inism, is socjcil 
democracy."^ Here unite all powers of Hell, even to the very attempt to overthrow 
the foundations of society, religion, state, education, property and family, thus en- 
dangering the very existence of the state, and necessitating exceptional laws to cover 
the yawning abyss. 

I shall close, however, dear brethren, having already outdone your patience. But 
I close not with the pessimistic despondency that throws itself headlong into bot- 
tomless Nirw'ana; but with the manly courage of a Christian, with the helmet of 
hope upon his head, and in his heart the indestructible faith that God still reigns, 
that Jesus Christ, who hitherto has chosen our German nation as a pillar of his 


* It is, moreover, but proper to mention that the Prussian Cultus-minister Falk was willing to 
allow ministers the civil official status, but the confessionals, and the so-called positive Unionmen in 
the province of Saxony, raised an agitation against it- 


SECOJVD GENSI^AL COUNCIL. 

, 949 

h,",' Hnc, s“u , '"'"’"'“'"J “"'I unforbidclen, refr^hing 

ev.4eliS toC in h s levence ^God ThK T ,'•" 

S'SH.::4‘Lt;pi-t" si st.- :;r. jsz; -, »“ rs -!; 

!ta r .'’;T 'T\ consequence of changed circum- 

hph^^ K o^,lheoIogy IS increasing; the simultaneousness of iL schools 

ehind which infidelity tried to strengthen its position, is prohibited, and the Chris- 
lan character of public schools preliminarily rescued. The Protestant Union has 
lost some of its credit and power, and was obliged recently lo acknowledge t^he 
necessity of a defined doctrinal basis; for it mJst be conceded that some of its 
members are aUo earnest religious people— inquiring souls, who still move in the 
common religious element. The Culture contest has^for the present been brought 
to a stand-still, ami those laws which are detrimental are eliminated.’ The con^r- 
ence of last year held at Beni, has essentially aided the sanctification of the Sabbath 
• add to these the undisturbed and blessed meeting of the Alliance at Basel 

in the month of September of last year, in which an unusual number of divines and 
l.ninen were in attendance for the first time, hard-stamped Lutherans; and further- 
more, the absolutely positive attitude of the General Synod in Berlin last October 

Hih? ‘TlTth 40). o" nucsiions that made it important to maintain the standpoint of 
B le faith, and to be hrm on the foundation of Bible confessions. The growing 
especially in Rhineland and Westphalia, concerning the nece^ity of 
g eatei church mdependence in all internal questions, over against the guardianship 
the s ate : the interest in foreign missions, encouraged by the address of Dr, 
Christheb at the Basel Alliance which has already been translated into the English, 
lench, ^^wedish and Holland language, the declaration of the General Synod that ’ 
hencefoi th there should be held, at least once a year, one mission sermon and a col- 
lection in behalf of foreign missions in every evangelical church in Prussia; the 
scientific treatment of mission questions, even at some German universities; the 
flourishing introduction of mission literature, especially the ‘‘mission periodical” 
of Warneck, Christheb, Grundemann, and others, and the oldest magazine of Basel • 
the sprouting of new blossoms and fruits upon the tree of home mission ; the grow- 
ing work of free-will evangelization; the great effort and activity of Bible houses 
01 which we have twenty five in Germany, the receipts of which were, in the pre- 
vious year, 125,000 marks: since its organization distributed 17,902,627 Bibles* 
further, the Christian Tract Societies, the Gustave-Adolph Society; the growing 
inierest in Sunday schools, which came to us from your country ; the flourishino- of 
free-will teacher institutes in Beuggen, Tempelhof, Lichtenstein, and many in 
Piussia; further the more veiled appearance of infidelity in the pulpits: sometimes 
neveitheless, only tlie old formulas of faith are apologetically retained; finally a 
number of conversions in Rhineland and Westphalia, especially in the Sieaener 
land— all these and many other things which prosper quietly, as, for instance, the 
work of Rev. Blumhardi in Boll, are they not glorious signs that, as the dominion 
of .Sjtan, so also the kingdom of Christ are being perfected to full bloom, and the 
decision of both spheres are be ng concluded in hitherto unexpected dimensions? 

If we lemember that the Lord God, also through your assistance, dear American 
brethren, has opened Africa, and that the missionaries follow immediately the foot- 
stei s of the explorers; how in our days the news of salvation in ChiLt is carried to 
the remotest nations— lift up your heads, for your redemption drawelh nigh— .soon, 
we hope, he who sat on a white horse, will come in all his glory and majesty with 
lii> laiiits and angels (Rev. xix. 11-16), the faithful and true, whose eyes were as a 


950 the PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

flame of fire, on whose head were many crowns— the crown of the 
that of the king, and the crown of the victor— clothed in a f ^ / 

to smite the nations with the sharp sword of his mouth, and ^ 

heathenized Christianity, and with the iron sceptre of He 

last enemy— the anti-Christian captain, the embodied arch-fiend of his paiish. H 
hath on his vesture a name written ; “A7«^ of Kings, and Lord of Lords. He is 
our Faith, our Love, and our Hope. 


ADDRESS ON THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN IN THE FAMILY. 

Ry Pastor O. Erdmann, of Elberfeld, Inspector of the EvangHical Society for 
• Germany. 

Theologians, philosophers and political socialists are unanimous in recognizing 
the family as the oldest and largest institute of God, and as the religion out ot 
which human society grows. Fidelity, love, devotion, obedience are the most pow- 
erful and indestructible fundamentals of all human w'elfare. That iiation is the 
happiest whose families are the oldest imitation of the Scriptural ideal of the vigor 
and soundness of the home-life. With the most excellent men, in the hearts of 
whom God would prepare a rich treasure, the love of a father and a mother has 
awakened and preserved the noble germ. Rome under the consuls had il ustrious 
women and heroic citizens because of her vigorous and well-ordered family-life; the 
decrenerated Rome under the emperors knew neither patriotism nor morality because 
of The profanation of her homes by unlimited divorces and by the desolate polygamy. 

The purity and vitality of the old German homes and the high place which was 
assigned in them to women greatly struck and terrified the licentious Romans, and 
filled a Tacitus with admiration. The Roman Catholic Church is inclined t^o under- 
rate the family-lite, so that you often see on the cupola pictures of Italian Churches 
before the throne of God— monks and hermits, but never a family, a «mn, a wife or 
children ; whereas, the old evangelical painters transfer the scenes of the life ot the 
Saviour and of his disciples to the midst of the German home. But the inheritance 
of the forefathers and the Reformation, the pure, Christian family, has come with 
many to the low level of selfishness and worldliness, and is in great danger to lose 
its beneficial influence upon the moral and religious character of the nations. Our 
subject. The Training of Children in the Family, is, therefore, of the greatest impor- 
tance for all parents and all friends of their people. I propose to show that, and 
how^ children are to be trained for real happiness, for obedience for love. 

1. Children are one of the most precious pledges of God’s love, and a source of 
happiness for the parents. Brenz, the Reformer of the Church in Wurtemberg 
exclaims ; “ To move in the midst of children is to be in the midst of angels, which 
teachers in their schools and mothers in the nursery will, I am sure, not aKvays 
accept. Novalis says, “Where there are children, there is the golden age;” and 
John Moultree sings of his little son ; 

“A playfellow' is he to all; and yet. 

With cheerful tone. 

He’ll sing his little song of love. 

When left to sport alone. 

His presence is like sunshine sent 
To gladden home and hearth ; 

To comfort us in all our griefs. 

And sweeten all our mirth.” 

Because children are a source of joy, the proverb is true : “ Keep sus pares 
from any man who does not like music and children ; ” and the old German legend 
can be explained, that women who desired to get no children, got hundred at 

once. r 1 • 

Children have their sorrows, and their tears flow often very freely; but in some 

w'ay it can be said of them what is spoken of the happiness of truly believing Chris- 
tians : 


/ 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


951 


“There are in this loud and stunning tide 
or human care and crime, 

With whom the melodies abide 
Of the everlasting chime; 

Wlio carry music in their heart, 

Thro’ dusky lane and wrangling mart. 

Plying their daily task with busier feet, 

Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.” 

Children can easily afford to sing, to spring, to laugh, to play and to rejoice. 
Woe to us if we stunt or poison by our sins th-is well of mirth in their hearts. From 
our younger children we must keep aloof our sorrows, not to disturb their happiness. 
Something of the joy of the paradise clings to them still; but, nevertheless, they 
must be trained for real and lasting happiness. Our children are not angels, l)ul 
our flesh and our bone, and heirs of our sinful nature. Wilfulness, envy, disobedi- 
ence defile the fountain of their happiness, and the afflictions and the disillusions of life 
threaten to dry it up. The joy and the play of children have their time. Parents 
hinder their children from becoming truly happy by fulfilling all their vvishe.s, by 
overloading them with playthings and presents, by not restraining them from doubt- 
ful joys, and by leading them themselves into worldly pleasures. By the restriction 
is known the master. Not many joys, l)ut much joy we ipust procure for our^chil- 
dren. We must accustom them to find pleasure in earnest work, and to enjoy a 
sound recreation after the day’s labor. 

'I'o keep them hack from doubtful friends and dangerous pleasures outside the 
house, we must make for them our home as attractive as possible, and must use them 
lo noble, soul-elevating enjoyments. In a really happy family children learn to 
remain happy and to become truly happy. They bask daily in the love of the father, 
and particularly of the mother. The peaceful humor a«'d laughter of a mind atone 
with God makes the arduous task light. In the evening the reading of good books, 
or a cheerful, confidential conversation, binds together the members of the family. 
Grandfather and grandmother open the treasures of their interesting experiences, 
and noble family music refreshes the mind and gives it an ideal turn. On Sundays 
the little children sit on their mothers’ knees, listen with open mouth to the Bible- 
stories which she tells them, and pore over the picture-books which help to set In 
full play to the beauteous charm of the Bible, In the walks the children learn lo 
admire the wonderful works of the Lord. In the living streams of the word of God 
all find, even in the hottest days of affliction, a new' strength, and in the roughest, 
storm-stricken sea the haven of peace is never lost sight of. Self-will and egbtis'm 
get subdued in the strength of the Lord. The love of the father and the mother is sanc- 
tified by their common love to the Saviour ; peace is the atmosphere of the house, 
and one serves the other. Daily prayer unites all before God’s throne; for. his daily 
help he is praised by all. In birthdays and on the festival days of the year, par- 
ticularly on the happy Christmas day, love casts its ruddiest hue over old and young. 
The presence of God is often realized, and his grace is the never-ebbing sea which 
supports parents and children. All that is noble, pure, beautiful, lovely and true i.s 
cultivated. 

It is no wonder that such a family is a school of ha]>piness for the children. 
Christian faith and Christian love make youth fresh, sunny, hoj-ieful, really happy. 
A Christian household is with Shakespeare a pattern of celestial peace, and of it is 
perfectly true what Keble sings : 

“ Sw'eet is the smile of home, the mutual look, 

When hearts are of each other sure ; 

Sweet all the joys that crowd the household nook, 

The haunt of all affections pure.” 

Who wants to see his children really happy must lead them early to Christ and 
lo the treasury of his word. 

II, The Christian family trains children for real happiness, and, we add, to stn- 


952 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


tere obedience. What A. Vinet said forty years ago, “ Obedience does not find a 
place m the programme of our time,” is perfectly true in our generation. 

In the higher classes as well as in the lower strata of the nations, the spirit of re- 
action against human and divine institutions has gained much ground. In Germany 
the number of young convicts has increased at a very rapid rate, and the many for- 
bidden associations, which have lately been discovered in our higher schools, have 
shown what a bad spirit has taken hold of many pupils of the upper classes of our 
gymnasii and similar institutions. 

Without the discipline in the family, the result of which is obedience, we scarcely 
can expect any essential improvement in this respect. Perfect and immediate obedi- 
ence IS a corner-stone in the house. It loses its strength; it totters, and is in 
some danger to fall down, if the weakness or vanity of parents, and especially of the 
mother, the dissension between father and mother, the indifference of the father who 
leaves a 1 the education of the children on the shoulders of the mother, and the ab- 
surd belief that the children will do well if let alone, make a Christian discipline, 
and consequently the full and prompt obedience of the children, impossible. 

_ hie who has had some opportunity of observing children can quickly see that the 
inchnauon lo do wrong is deeply rooted in the hearts of children, and not alone 
implanted by bad outside influences. 

** ^‘'ilhers who excuse themselves from educating their children by the pretext 

P.ofessor Riehl, of Munich, in his ve^y interesting 
book on ‘Ihe Family,” “he who from the beginning declares he has^no time fo? 
educating his children should be forbidden to marry.” Through the ainhority of 

^ authority shines into ihe chil- 

dien s heai , and in the measure God’s word corroborates the commandments of 
parents, and the unanimous will of father and mother is strengthened by firm rerm- 
la ions and customs of the house; children will readily submit themselves to I’hc 
^vIshes of their parents and will be thankful to them for having taught them to 

ili’cTparenll'^fhe w!u"c? Gor 

Riehl is therefore right in asserting that fathers who give up daily prayer and 
datly bcrtpture readtng in the family services abandon voluntarily^C of 
proudest attributes of their position in the house, because more honor, rank, and slv- 
ercignty is lodged in it than in a rich collection of titles and orders 

.b;Vol.t “T l<> Ihe children their duty not always with 

b -lb I ,l'’i'ii**^'ili'‘lf itf Stern commands and terrifying threatenings 
bu with the kindly encouraging look of promise antl hope.’^ To show ol.; 
children the iv.ay ol duly as the sure path to a noble and blessed life' makes not 
women"** pundhanimoiis but cheerful children and strong and high-minded men and 

,t.i‘ jf i’o* '■o'-hid and to punish too much, and to circumscribe 

the child's ,«th oil every ,.art. It leaves the conscience undeveloped" S^err h^ 

ne character, and causes young people as soon as they have left the paternal home 
to plunge headlong, without discriminaiioH and moderation into fhrvte d-y.y 
pleasuies. which they had learnt to despise, if more te^^ if rotion within*'a cT 
iecoum m^rreltumbo' the exercise of temperance and self-controi had 

Hut earnest discipline can with no child be spared ; many desires must be denied 
many ways rnust be shut up. and even with the best child the rod cannot be at all 
ppt out of sight. From bad associates they must be restrained therreadinn rf 

.11“ lesT'C mT^fntre^rthdr ^ 

anJtcome""serd''lthe:ond ™ hearts, 

.urn It, ‘'“her of blessings or of corruption. Every age must have suit 

able books ivhich. read m time, leaves a great impression. ^ ® 

rhe best English novelists, from Robinson Crusoe down to Mr Trollnn. 
sound morals, and in Germany we have many authors and authoress Js JhtSe bSks 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

ci.iM^eZrb^SLS"^ ;tr': rs-" <>- 

iliStstiSlilli 

\\hat pious parents have done is not easily foruotten In God’s tim^ it ,« • 

”ryt:ir%r ctnw"™' ■'''" 

^.iiiy uuu. 1 ne cniidren s conscience awakes* thev (ViP.vr • j r*^i 

ra'rdon"‘“s"^h'p‘’“' "f >'’-■■ heart, ’and long for consolatio " love' Ind 

tnto the nature of sin, to teacf'then, to flee C ft Is'from a s rp“entrd to'rfek 
protection and forgiveneSsS with Christ. serpent, ana to seek 

Children who have learnt obedience become conscientious pupils, good laborers 
tiue friends, loyal citizens, consistent characters, humble disciples of Christ cour’ 
ageous confessors of their faith-if needs he, martyrs anti occasional heroes tln^rre 
ts a blesstng, not only for thousantl generations of their own family but ’for their 

r:roireve“*'‘“™“' •■'e world and o^f ‘iS ‘ ^cVuTch 

Our time wants fuil-grown, really manly men who cannot he deceived by human 
who and human honors, but obey the word of God and try to honor him • 

who stand Ijoldly for their convictions and for their faith, and cannot be forced 
away from the way of duty and true honor. Our time wants loving, self-denying 
jmen, who do not aspire to exerci.se political rights and to move the larae 'Xels 
of the outside world, but who, without expecting praise and much recoemUion with 
much patience and with the sacrifice of many natural and reasonable desires’ have 
et their heart upon .silently serving in the home, upon keeping the flame of love 
and piety burning on the altar of the family, and upon making others happy Such 
men and vvomen are born and educated in the school of earnest Christiaii discipline 
obedience to the parents on earth and to their Fathir in 

indispen.sable ever this is to produce obedience by the discipline of 
^e law; to awake love by iove is still a higher aim for the training in the family 
What IS impossible to the law love can do. The love of the parents and the love 
of God can really overcome the self-will of the children, make them truly joyful 
and create some enthusiasm for the true, the good, the noble and the divine In 
the school oHove they learn to love the parents, the afflicted, God and the Saviour 
and to feel in such love something of heavenly bliss. In the State justice, in the 
family love, the all-moving and all-preserving power. 

1 here are fathers, and some mothers, who carry outside the roses and inside the 
thorns, and who leave amiability outside at the threshold of their own house* 
they spread like icebergs the atmosphere of the winter, and the children’s liberty’ 
joy and laughter, seem to freeze to death in their presence. For the whole life it 'is 
a great loss if children cannot rejsice in their fathers’ and mothers’ love and if 

each stirring germ of confidence and reverence is stifled by an icy chill from their 
own parents. ^ 

The Rev. Baldwin Brown, Pf London, in his fine book, “The Home Life in its 
Divine Idea, is right in saying: “Love is their sunlight; they ask for nothing 


954 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


than to l)ask in it. There is no glow for ihetn when that sun in the home is un- 
veiled. The only patent of precedence you can get them to recognize is the mark 
of goodness, gentleness and nobleness, which (jod’s elect ones bear, and which none 
see so swiftly as a child.’* Mr. John Stuart Mill’s autobiography shows that one- 
sided intellectual education has bad consequences for the character, ihe lite and its 
efficiency, in leaving undeveloped the aspirations of the heart which longs for love 
and for God. In the merciless, intellectual forcing he was subjected to, love was 
not merely ignored — it was repressed. His cheerless boyhood had no friends; his 
mother is not once named ; his father appears as a restless, an inexorable, a grim 
machine for stimulating thought or for enforcing discipline. Above all, he who 
is the one object of love (he who made the human heart, and who has, alone, the 
key to its most intimate secrets, he) is ignored, of set purpose, as an hypothetical 
being of some sort, whose existence could not be scientifically verified, and therefore 
lay outside the range of practical considerations. 

It is perhaps one of the characteristics of our time, at least it is so in Germany, 
that intellectual education is too much valued and too exclufsively aimed at in the 
higher schools. For this deficiency the family has to make up in fostering the 
moral and religious training of the heart by love and for awakening love. The love 
of a father is indispensable. He supports and shelters the family; he gives the 
children, by his discipline, an impression of the sanctity of the will of God; he 
rlaily ministers to his home by Scripture-reading and praying; he is a counsellor of 
the elder sons, helps them to avoid the dangers of the world and to have a good 
start in life. With many people, especially with many men, the love of their lathers 
is forever imprinted in their heart, character and life. Yet Madame de Siael is 
right in asserting, “ Love is only a by-action in the life of men ; but it is the whole 
full history of the life of women.” In all nations niany authors could be named 
who praise with enthusiasm and thankfulness the love of mothers. I niention 
only Riehl, the historian, Charles Raumer, Boquenil Goltz, in his lovely book 
cif childhood, Count Agenor de Gasparin, in his book, “ C. Famille, ses Devoirs; 
ses Joies et ses Douleurs,” Naville, of French Switzerland, in his small but at- 
tractive book, “ Duty, two lectures for women.” They all agree in attributing, under 
God, to mothers the best part of their education, the best influence on their charac- 
ters and the happiest recollections of their young years. James Montgomery, in the 
poem, “A Mother’s Love,” sings: 

“ That mother’s love, how sweet the name I 
What w'as that mother’s love ? 

The noblest, purest, tenderest flame, 

That kindles from aliove ; 

Within a heart of earthly mould. 

As much of heaven as heart can hold, 

Nor through eternity grows cold, ■* 

This was that mother’s love.” 

William Cowper glorifies his mother ; 

“ — the record fair 
That mem’ry keeps of all thy kindness there 
Still outlives many a storm, that has effac’d 
A thousand other storms less deeply trac’d.” 

And your owm Beecher says, in one of his genial sermons : “ I think that the most 
wonderful book ih tt could be written would be a book in which an angel should 
wdite all the thoughts that pass through a faithful mother’s mind from the time that 
she first hears the cry of her child, and knows that it is born into the world, and 
rejoices in the midst of her grief — from the moment of her absorption, or annihila- 
tion, pouring herself into the child. Her wonderful gladness of fatigue, her unwil- 
lingness to divide her care with any, her heroic sacrifice of all that is brightest and 
best in life, with no prospect of remuneration except the satisfaction which she feels 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


955 


In serving that little mute and helpless child — ^these are past description. Behold 
her in a little cottage, with no great wealth, with, it may be, only a moderate com- 
petency, w'iih no witness, with none to praise, and, for the most of the hours of the 
day, w'ith no companionship hut a little babe, and a babe that cannot sing to her, 
but can only cry to worry her — that cannot even look at her and know" her. No 
sound of music greets her ear. There is nothing to relieve the tedium of her life 
except this little one. It is her joy to take her babe, sick or well, night and day, 
and bear it in motherly arms.” 

In inquiring how' the love of parents, the love of a mother, can awake love to 
God, to themselves and to the afflicted, in the hearts of the children, w'e have to 
lake the veil from the holy of holiest of family life. No Christian father should 
forego the privilege to lead daily, as the rightful domestic chaplain, the prayers of 
his family, and to show the members of his household daily, and especially on Sun- 
days, the pearls of the Scriptures. This labor of love pays best. Such minutes can- 
not be forgotten by the children, whose pious father, in all sincerity and with the 
accent of love and earnestness, after his day-work or on Sunday, gathered his chil- 
dren around him and explained to them the mysteries of divine love. The Sunday, 
the day of the united family and of w^armer love, affords the best opportunity of opening 
that delightful spiritual picture book, the Bible, to the understanding of the children. 
By doing that, and by using the Sabbath not for exciting and often enervating pleas- 
ure, but for spiritual recreation, for the edification and sanctification of the soul in 
the presence of God, for the deepening and glorification of the family, w’e accustom 
our children to the blessings of the Sunday, contribute much to the right observance 
of the Lord’s day, and help to avert from our nation the dangers which result from 
an unscriptural keeping of the Sabbath day. Take care, you fathers, lest you with- 
draw' yourselves too much from the duties of educating your children in expecting 
too much from the school and in laying too much on the shoulders of the mothers! 
It is an irreparable loss if the father does not help and supplement the training-work 
of the mother. . 

It cannot be denied that the mother, by her being in the still home safer from the 
spirit of the age than the father on the noisy market of the w'orld, and by her being 
nearer to the line of faith and prayer, is the most excellent teacher of piety, if she 
knows the Lord, and, we must add, of godlessness, if she is alienated from God. 
The rule is that we learn to pray from our mothers. There is, you know perhaps, 
the excellent picture, Dante and Beatrice, by Ary Scheffer. Beatrice looks heaven- 
ward, w'hereas the eyes of Dante are fixed on her, and follow her to higher regions. 
That is an emblem of the ennobling influence of all pure love; that is, above all, a 
symbol of a praying mother, who, l)y prayerfully looking to the upper sanctuary, 
directs the eyes of their child lo the living fountain of all love and all light. Oh, 
mothers, mothers, don’t neglect the privilege to pray for and with your children ! 

From the prayers of their mothers, children get the first notions and impressions 
of God’s love; these are deepened and strengthened by their gradual introduction 
into the word of God. The narrative of the biblical stories has here to take the first 
place. They have the greatest attraction for the mind of a child. In the most in- 
tuitive form they contain a treasure of the profoundest truth and the most important 
moral principles of education; they sharpen the conscience, show the disobedience 
to God to be the source of perdition, and inculcate on the hearts of children deeply 
the thought of the love of God to all penitent and afflicted. The purest morality 
and the fullest truth, while set in rules and forms, w'ould tire and leave untouched 
the children’s mind, are taught by glorious examples, and, as it were, by living 
pictures, which leave in the life of the child and the man an imperishable trail of 
light, if a mother’s love has illustrated by simple words these most instructive and 
most attractive children’s stories. Here passes the child through a school of truth, 
in which he learns to hate lying, perhaps the most dangerous sin of the young, and 
finds and knows to love a truthful guide through the labyrinth of life. For the 
M'hole life much is gained, if our children begin to find in the Holy Scriptures foun- 
tains of life, light and love, and if they begin to see that they can draw and refresh 
themselves from them, and that they can find in them counsel, consolation and com- 
fort in all conditions of life. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Baldwin Brown guards in his book, “ The Home Life,” against making the Bible d 
weary task-book, which is cut up into portions and labelled with morals. “Chil- 
dren would read it gladly,” he says, “ and suck in its lessons as the glow of a sum- 
mer noon, if we would leave them alone to pore over it as a history. If we would 
but let our little ones bring their fresh young af;pelite3 to bear thus upon it, they 
would have that lodged within them v.’hich would unlock for them the inner mean- 
ing of all the histories which they may be called upon to study — the key, in a word, 
to the universal history of men. Oh ! we of little faith,” he exclaims, “ why cannot 
we trust his book to his own method, and let the light and the life with which he 
has freeiy charged it, glow and quicken through the world ! What the Bihle su- 
premely wants is freedom. The Bible is God’s book to the child, precisely in the 
manner in which his sympathy is drawn forth to it, as presenting some outward 
image of his inner life. If he finds the key there which unlocks the waials of his 
experience ; if he finds the truth there which casts a flood of light on the dark, and 
a dew of comfort on the sad passages of his life, the Bible has found the child, not 
the child the Bible, and that finding never fails. If you can connect the outer world 
in the hook with the inner word in the life, and teach your child to seek it, not for 
formal lessons, not for knowledge of sacred things only, not for Sunday-reading, but 
for real light in real darkness, real comfort in real sorrow, real help in real need, 
you have made the Bible the man of his counsel until death. You have rendered 
his bcdief of the Bible absolutely proof against every effort of the adversary to under- 
mine it. A thousand orators may assail its most sacred passages, it troubles him 
not; for him its light shines on, because it is God’s light, unshorn of a single 
i)eam.” 

The living centre and the heart of the Bible is Christ. The more we find, even 
in the Old Testament everywhere, way-marks and teachers to Christ an d light 
traces from his light, the belter we tmderstand the Holy Scriptures. The commu- 
nion of the child with Christ, the God-man, the only perfect revealer of the glorious 
love-nature of God and the Saviour of young and old, must always be the highest 
aim of our training in the family. The children have some natural qualities which 
render them willing and fit to enter the kingdom of heaven. Because something 
of the light of paradise sticks to them, they feel attracted by the light which is re- 
vealed in Christ, and it is a general experience, where Sunday-schools are oj^ened 
and Sunday-school teachers in a kindly way tell something of Jesus, neither in town 
nor in the country children fail to come, and they are fond of coming and listening 
to the gospel of Christ. Children discover, by instinctive feeling, real love to them, 
and nobody can love them more than Christ. Children born in the midst of 
Christendom are very early touched by the light of Christ, which lighteth in some 
way every man that cometh into the world; they live even in dark places in a more 
luminous atmosphere than the children of the heathen. In the first stirring of the 
conscience, in the first struggling against sin and in the first longing for the good 
and for love, this light reveals itself and offers us an efficient help in our training- 
work.^ To this is to be added that the Lord has entered into a closer communion 
with the little ones dedicated to him by baptism, and that he is therefore willing to 
impart to them the germ of faith and of the new life of regeneration. Though 
Count Zinzendorf testifies that the representation of the love of Christ is more 
powerful with the baptized than with unbaptized children, only in a truly Christian 
family can the blessing of Implism be developed in the real life of personal faith 
and scriptural regeneration. It is a great consolation for Christian parents that 
Christ has loved and blessed the little ones and that St. Paul calls the children of 
only one believing parent holy. Personal faith and Christian life cannot be trans- 
mitted from parents to children by birth. Even the children of believing parents 
must learn to believe and must be converted; but some germs of light, life and 
.sanctification get transferred, not only by the educ.ation and the example of the 
parents, but by birth, and the children of such parerts have a great advantage over 
tho.se who unhappily have no Christian parents. Oh ! that we could render Christ’s 
name the loveliest for our children, that we could teach them to accept and expect 
all good things from his hands, and to consider him as the best and always true 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

friend. It is of the greatest consequence to impress the imatre of Christ as their 
nearest and dearest relative on the heart of the young. Ealdwfn Brow^crHs u" 

fheT'"? the consciousness iLt Christ is with and in the dnld'' 

the fundamental principle of a Christian education. ’ 

the training, which wisely and patiently surrounds the children with 

Wnrt f ^heir hearts by internal in- 

fhe ^or and Th?f and^-elatives. to 
Gcd’s kinadlm^ ^dTi """r* instruments for promoting 

of he ^ Ood uses the training of chikhen as one 

atinr. educating the parents. Perhaps nothing is so humili- 

ating and forces us so often to seek God’s help on our knees as the experience 
ha not only all our love, but God’s love, seems to be lost on our childrei/ Never-’ 

fir t nl Churehes, that the most Christians owe their faith, under God, in the 
first place to their parents ; that in revival times, as I have found it repeatedly in 
he home-mission fields of the Evangelical Society for Germany, whose Inspector 

.nTfi ^ particularly children of believing people, seek 

and find the Lord, and after much aimless wandering in the world per- 
haps on the last sick-bed or on the death-bed, lay hold of Christ as thek only 
letuge. It IS much to be complained that children, and especially sons of Chris- 
tian patents, so often do not follow the footsteps of their fathers and mother?. Per- 
haps we have worked too much out of door and not enouuh within our family, too 

own children, too much for their success in the 
world and not sufficiently for their eternal welfare, have endeavored to hoard treas- 
ures tor them and have too much neglected their education into the imaire of Christ. 

1 he highest duty which we have to fulfil, besides the salvation of our own soul is 
the education of our children, the nurslings of Christ. To employ for this duty all 
oui powers ihe highest patriotism. Let us not lose in such a work of love our 
patience and hope, let us continue in bringing our children before the Lord and ex- 
pecting success from him in training them lor happiness, obedience and love, and 
the fruit shall not fail. We encourage each other with Alfred Vaughan’s wo’ % 

“ Let us toil on ; the work we leave behind us, 

Though incomplete, God’s hand will yet embalm, 

And use it some way; and the news will find us 
In heaven above, and sweeten endless calm ! ” 


LETTER FROM THE HUNGARIAN CHURCH. 

Salutatory address to the Second General Council of the Presbyterian Alliance at 
Philadelphia : 

Honored and Dear Brethren: 

I he “General Convent ” of the five superintendencies of the Hungarian Re- 
formed Church, convened at Budagrest for the work of a national synod, sends, 
through this letter, its^ fraternal fervent salutation to you, being hindered by 
many difficulties to fulfil its ardent desire to send its delegates, who should testify 
personally the reality of the common feeling with you. ^ 

We feel ourselves very touched on thinking of the great historical fact, that the 
Reformed Churches on both sides of the ocean, maintaining the Presbyterian gov- 
ernment foim, are able to come together by the means of their representatives, and 
hold conferences upon topics regarding vital principles and important day-questions ; 
and at the same time to make visible, that, notwithstanding the language, the na- 
'* onal and geographical severing walls, separating us externally, we are one, 
agreeing internally according to the life-giving elements of the g.^spel and evan- 
gelical liberty. 

Let the brethren in faith and principles, assembled in the ancient and esteemed 
centie of the Free States accept fraternity, when the Hungarian followers of the 
Reformation originated from the free land of the Helvetic algres, who during three 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


058 

centuries and their tempests have been weakened but not put down, show and ex- 
press their sympathy with you, their faithfulness to the gospel and their saintly will 
of progressing upon the Eternal Rock. 

May the abundant blessings of the grace of God follow your meetings and works 
aiming to extend and build the kingdom of heaven ! 

Budagrest, September i6th, 1880. Count Emetic Degenfeld, Chief Curator of 
the Superintendency beyond Tisza as President of the General Convent, 

Paul ToRoK, Superintendens. 

LETTER FROM TIIE PERTH CONFERENCE. 


To the Pan-Presbyterian Council, Philadelphia: 

Perth, September i 6 tk, 1880. 


Dear Brethren in the Lord : 

Christians in various parts of Scotland, England, and Ireland, who are accus- 
tomed annually to meet here in conference for waiting on the Lord in prayer and 
meditation on the Scriptures, have heard that you are about to assemble in Philadel- 
phia, We join in special supplication that the Lord Jesus, the great Head of the 
CTurch, may be amongst you in all your meetings and till you with his Holy Spirit, 
and enable you to glorify his great name. We also send you our cordial greetings. 

By order of the Conference. 

W. E. Malcolm, Chairman. 

Jas. Gibson, M. A. J Joint 

James Madee. j Secretaries 


NOTE TO DR. BOMBERGER’S PAPER. 

The Rev. Dr. Bomberger appended the following note to the proof of his paper 
(p. 553), which he revised. As, however, the plates were cast and the pages fol- 
lowing made up before it was received, it could not be inserted. It is therefore 
given here : 

Supplementary Note. — In support of the position taken in this paper against bap- 
tismal regeneration, both in the Romish and modern pantheistic sense, the following 
citations are appended as decisive : 

“ From what has now been said, we may readily see how vain is the exposition 
of those who make the communion of saints to consist in subsistence of Christ’s 
body in and with our bodies. This opinion is refuted by the oft-repeated compari- 
son of the head and the members, which, although they are united in the closest 
manner, nevertheless, subsist without any mixture or confusion.” ( Urstnus, Comm, 
on Heidelb. Catech., Ques. 55.) 

“ The human nature of Christ is subsistent, incommunicable, individual, intelli- 
gent.” [Ursinzis, Eng, trans., p. 130,) 

God “ does not exhibit or confirm anything by the sacraments different from what 
he promises in his word. Whoever, therefore, seeks anything in the sacraments 
which God has not promised in his word, idolizes them.” (Ibid., p. 352.) 

“ The chief end of baptism is the confirmation of our faith, or a solemn declara- 
tion by which Christ testifies that he washes us with his blood and Spirit, and con- 
fers upon us remission of sins and the Holy Ghost, who regenerates and sanctifies 
us unto eternal life.” “ To be washed by the Spirit of Christ is to be regenerated 
by the Holy Spirit, which consists in a change of evil inclinations into those which 
are good, etc.” (Ibid., pp. 358, 360. To the same effect see whet Olevianus says 
in his De .Subst. Foed, p. 321, etc., and the quotations in Heppe, pp, 329-342, etc.) 

“ Credimus veram hanc fidem per auditum verbi Dei et Spiritus Sancti opera- 
tionem in nobis productam nos regenerare ac veluti novos homines afficere ut quos 
ad novam vitam vivendam excitet et a peccati servitute liberos reddat.” (Conf. 
Belgica, Art. XXIV.) 

See also Ckarnock on Regen., ed. published by the Presbyterian Board, pp. 103- 
125; Oiven (the Leighton publications’ ed., Philadelphia, 1862), vol. HI., pp. 207- 
317, etc. ; and Schaff's Lange on John, pp. 67-69, and pp. 123-136. 


959 


S£ C OND GENERAL CO UNCIL. 


III. 

STATISTICAL REPORTS. 

(These returns are in some cases only proximate.) 

DIVISION I.— THE CONTINENT OF EUROPE. 

Austria. 

Evangelical Reformed Church in Bohemia :'^ — 4 presbyteries or classes fllie 
moderator is called “senior”); i Provincial Synod (the moderator is called 
superintendent); 47 charges entitled to have ministers; 6 separate congrewalions 
connected with these; 7 stations sup])Iied by preachers or otherwise ; 55 mmisters 
on the roll of the church; 55 in actual service; 593 ruling elders ; 46,078 com- 
mumcants; 67,192 persons to whom the church ministers; 1 iheolowical colIe<^e or 
school; only i professor is a member of our church, all the others are Lutherans; 
6 students ; 15 Sunday-schools (we have 44 public schools connected with the church’ 
and supported by the same with 48 teachers). ’ 

Imperial Royal Consistory of the Helvetic Confession, Reformed Church of 
Moravia 2 presliyteries or seniorati ; 22 charges entitled to have ministers; 4 
separate congregations connected with these; 24 ministers on the roll of the church; 
23 in actual servi<..e; 4^ deacons or officials having charge of temporalities; 26,530 
communicants; 41,120 persons to whom the church ministers; 3 students of divinity 
6 Sunday-schools ; 7 Bible or senior classes ; 20 teachers. ’ 

National Synod of the Reformed and Evangelical Church of the Helvetic Con- 
fession of Hungary presbyteries (called seniorati) ; 5 provincial synods (called 

siiperintendential assemblies) ; composed of ministers and elders in equal num- 
beis; 1,992 chaiges entitled to have ministers; 1,992 separate congregations con- 
nected with these ; r ,300 stations supplied liy preachers or otherwise (filial churches) ; 
2,049 niinisters on the roll of the church; 2,049 actual service; 19,920 rulim»’ 
elders (about) ; 3,984 deacons or officials having charge of temporalities; 291 pro^ 
bationers or licentiates; 1,913,032 persons to whom the church ministers; ’5 colleges 
or schools; 18 professors of divinity; 25 lecturers or other teachers; 320 students of 
divinity. Each congregation has a day-school which serves also as a Sunday- 
school. ^ 

Belgium. 

Union of Evangelical Congregations. Synod of the Missionary Christian 
Church : — 3 presbyteries or classes; composed of ministers, an elder from each con- 
gregation and the memliers of the Managing Committee; 20 charges entitled to have 
ministers; 3 separate congregations connected with these; 5 stations supplied by 
preachers or otherwise; 18 ministers on the roll of the church; 18 in actual service; 
99 ruling elders; 125 deacons or officials having charge of temporalities; 50,000 
persons to whom- the church ministers; 32 Sunday-schools ; 136 teachers. 


France. 

Synod of the Union of Evangelical Congregations : 


-5 conferences or classes; 51 


*The Supreme Court is called officially “The Imperial and Royal Evangelical Ecclesiastical 
Councilor the Augustine and Helvetic Confession in Vienna.” The president is a layman ; this 
Council is subordinate to the State Department of Religion and Education, and though having’great 
power in the Church, the Church has no voice in the appointment of its members, all of whom are 
appointed by the Emperor. 

t Congregations locally connected iorm Senioraitis or Tractus (Presbytery), under the .super- 
vision of a senior, with whom is associated a curator or business agent, and the older of the minis- 
ters. The Supcrintendential Assembly or Provincial Synod consists of the superintendent, the busi- 
ness agent, the deputy superintendent, the seniors and business agents, and 4 delegates, 2’ministers 
and 2 deacons from the seniorati within its bounds. This meets every third year and is presided 
over by the superintendents. The German-Austrian Reformed Church, and the Informed Church 
in Bohemia and Moravia form one General Assembly meeting every sixth year in Vienna, along 
with which the perpetual office-holders form the Imperial Consistory. Ordinances and laws pa.s.sed 
by the Provincial or General Synod are not binding until they have been submitted to the monarchy 
and received the royal approbation. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


960 

ministers on the roll of the church ; 280 elders and deacons; 6 probationers or licen- 
tiates; 3>700 communicants; 60 Sunday-schools. 

Germany. 

Old Reformed Chtirch of Beiitkeim and East Friesland : — i presbytery; com- 
posed of I minister and i elder from each congregation, meeting twice each year; 
9 congregations; 4 ordained ministers; 36 eiders; 24 deacons; i theological teacher, 
and 4 divinity students. 

Free Evangelical Church of Germany : — i presbytery; 3 congregations, 2 in 
vSilesia and i m Bohemia; 7 stations; 3 ministers in charge; ii elders; 7 deacons; 
350 communicants; 6 Sunday-schools, and 38 teachers. 

Italy. 

Synod of the Waldensian Church: — 8 presbyteries or classes; composed of all 
the ministers of the church and 2 deputies freely chosen by each of the congrega- 
tions of the Valleys; 17 charges entitled to have ministers ; 39 separate congrega- 
tions connected with the mission field ; 32 stations supplied by preachers or other- 
wise; 58 ministers on the roll of the church ; 178 ruling elders; 148 deacons or 
officials having charge of temporalities; 12 probationers or licentiates; 14,771 com- 
municants; I college or school; 3 professors of divinity; 19 students of divinity in 
Florence and 3 abroad; 107 Sunday-schools; 67 Bible or senior classes; 400 
teachers. 

General Assembly of the Free Church of Italy : — No presbyteries or classes; no 
provincial synods; from i to 3 deputies from each church; 33 charges entitled to 
have ministers; 30 stations supplied by preachers or otherwise; 25 ministers on the 
roll of the church; 25111 actvial service ; 40 ruling elders; 65 deacons or officials 
having charge of temporalities; no probationers or licentiates; 1,800 communicants; 
probably about 10,000 persons to ^’hom the church ministers; no missionaries labor- 
ing abroad; i college or school; 2 professors of divinity; 5 lecturers or otner 
teachers; 18 students of divinity ; 20 .Sunday->schools, with 600 to 700 children ; 28 
teachers. ’ 

Netherlands. 

Synod of the Reformed Church of Holland — 44 presbyteries or .classes; 10 
provincial synods; composed of 24 members, elected liy the provincial courts, and 13 
ministers and 6 elders, representing the provinces, elected for three years; 1,347 
congregations ; l,6lo ministers on the roll of the church ; 2,123,679 persons to whom 
the church ministers; the church appoints 2 theological professors in each of the 3 
national universities; 120 students of divinity; Sunday-schools are not directly con- 
nected with church. 

General Synod of the Christian Reformed {Free) Church of Holland :—c^o 
presbyteries or classes ; lo provincial synods; composed of 20 ministers and 20 elders, 
every provincial synod naming 2 ministers and 2 elders; 275 charges entitled to 
have ministers; 20 .separate congregations connected with these; 25 stations supplied 
liy preachers or otherwise; 275 ministers on the roll of the cliurch, beside 9 
emeriti; 275 in actual service ; 800 ruling elders ; i, 100 deacons or officials having 
charge of temporalities; 23 probationers or licentiates ; 25,000 communicants ; 120,000 
persons to whom the church ministers; 2 missionaries laboring in Batavia, with 
helpers; i theological college; 4 professors of divinity; 2 lecturers or other teachers 
(one of these is also professor of divinity or ordained minister) ; 86 students of 
divinity; number of Sunday-schools not officially known; Bible or senior classes are 
well acknowledged and directed by ministers, with 1,000 members; the teachers are 
students of the theological school. 

Switzerland. 

National Evangelical Reformed Church in the Canton de Faud 200 ministers 
on the roll of the Church; 154 in actual service; 936 ruling elders; no probation- 
ers or licentiates; i college or school ; 5 professors of divinity; 17 students of 
divinity. 

Synod of the Free Church of the Canton de Faud: — Synod consists of pastors in 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 961 

and delegates from congregations, either elders or ministers, with the theo- 

gical professors of 39 charges ; 9 stations supplied by preachers or otherwise* lu 
mmisters on the roll of the church; 46 in actual service,?^ 161 ruling elde^ 5 Hcen- 
tiates 3,840 conmiumcants ; 2 missionaries laboring abroad; i college or school • 

5 professors of divinity ; 4 lecturers or other teachers ; 45 students of divinity * 107 
Sunday-schools ; 6,050 scholars. ^ uivinuy , 107 

"I Evangelical Church of Neuchaiel, independent of the State 
Ll of°thP^rh^ lay members appointed by churches; 42 ministers on the 

rLw or srhonl’ ^'3 ruling elders; 3,297 communicants; 

Lnts o1 divin^^^^^^ 4 professors of divinity; 3 lecturers or other teachers; 20 stu- 

DIVISION II.— THE UNITED KINGDOM. 

The Synod of the Presbyterian Church of England 10 presbyteries* com- 
posed of the nynisters of all sanctioned charges, the professors of ^theology the 
ministeiial missionaries, an elder from each session, and the generJil secretarv^^eing 
a minister; 266 charges entitled to have ministers; 10 stations supplied by preachers 

cons, 1,987 managers; 54,135 communicants; 12 missionaries laboring in China* 

’ 3 professors of divinity ; i lecturer or other teacher* 
20^s^udents of divinity; 256 Sunday-schools; 5,768 teachers [these statistics are fo? 

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland: 36 presbyteries and 
I Indian presbytery ; 5 provincial synods ; assembly composed of all the ministers 
and assistant ministers of congregations, assembly’s professors, being ministers, and 
ordained missionaries and chaplains in the service of the Church ; 5 58 charges entitled 
to have mmisters ; 11^6 stations supplied by preachers or otherwise; 632 ministers on 
the roll of the church ; 598 in actual service (ministers and professors) ; 2,097 rulincr 
elders; 6,983 deawns or officers having charge of temporalities (excludingelders who 
are members of Diaconate) ; 32 probationers and 9 licentiates ; 104,769 communi- 
cants; 79,214 families, or over 396,070 persons to whom the Church ministers* i:; 
missionaries sent to colonies during the last five years; 2 theological colleges or 
schools; 9 professors of divinity; 6 lecturers or other teachers; 52 students of di- 
vinity; 1,052 Sunday-schools; usually i Bible or senior class to each congregation* 
8,440 teachors. ^ ^ ’ 

The Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Ireland presbyteries* 

I synod, composed of all ordained ministers in regular standing, with a ruling elder 
from each session; 33 charges entitled to have ministers; 7 stations supplied by 
preachers or otherwise; 31 ministers on the roll of the church; 29 in actual service * 
190 ruling elders ; 262 deacons or officers having charge of temporalities; 2 proba- 
tioners or licentiates ; 4,438 communicants ; 9,000 persons to whom the church min- 
isteis; 4 missionaries laboring abroad; i theological college or school; 2 professors 
of divinity; 7 students of divinity; 30 Sunday-schools; 163 Bible or senior classes* 
241 teachers. ’ 

The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland: — 84 presbyteries; 16 provincial 
synods; for regulations see foot-note*; charges entitled to have ministers (1,263 
parishes, 135 unendowed churches); about 1,420 congregations connected with 
these ; 134 stations supplied by preachers or otherwise; 1,530 ministers on the roll 
of the Church (of which 50 are government and army chaplains) ; 1,480 in actual 
service; in 1877 returns from 920 congregations gave 4,905 elders, 398 deacons* 
219 probationers or licentiates; 515,786 communicants; 1,800,000 persons to whom 

* The General Assembly consists of 247 ministers and 178 elders, and is composed as follows* 
Tresbytenes of fewer than 12 parishes send 2 ministers and i elder; presbyteries of fewer than 18 
parishes send 3 ministers and i elder; presbyteries of fewer than 24 parishes send 4 ministers and 2 
elders ; presbyteries of fewer than 30 parishes send 5 ministers and 2 elders ; presbyteries of fewer 
than 36 parishes send 6 ministers and 3 elders ; presbyteries of fewer than 42 parishes send 7 minis- 
ters and 3 elders ; presbyteries of fewer than 48 parishes send 8 ministers and 4 elders ; presbyteries 
T than 54 parishes send 9 ministers and 4 elders; and all above, lo ministers and 5 elders 

in addition to the above, an elder is sent from each Royal Burgh, elected by the Magistrates and 
1 own Council, and from each national university elected by the Senatus 

61 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


962 

the Church ministers (usual estimate) ; 66 missionaries laboring abroad (see foot- 
note*) ; 4 theological colleges or schools; 16 professors of divinity; about 190 stu- 
dents of divinity; 1,961 Sunday-schools; 185,796 scholars ; at least i Bible or senior 
class in each of 994 parishes ; 1,736 teachers. 

The General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland : — 78 presbyteries, of which 
3 are in India, i in Africa, and i in Italy ; 16 provincial synods ; i assembly composed 
of one-third of the ministers of the Church and an equal number of elders, who are 
elected annually by the presbyteries — the presbyteries of India and Africa send i 
minister and i elder each ; 1,005 charges entitled to have ministers; 38 stations sup- 
plied by preachers or otherwise; 1,060 ministers on the roll of the Church; i,ooi in 
actual service ; about 6,000 ruling elders ; about 6,000 deacons or officers having 
charge of temporalities; 44 probationers or licentiates; number of communicants 
estimated at 300,000; 36 missionaries laboring abroad; 3 theological colleges or 
schools; 15 professors of divinity; 3 lecturers or other teachers; 233 students of 
divinity; 1,950 Sunday-schools; 1,187 Bible or senior classes; 17,669 teachers. 

The Synod of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland : — 37 presbyteries,, 
of which 4 are in Jamaica, i in Caffraria, i in Old Calabar, and i in India; i synod 
composed of all ministers having charges, and i elder, from each church, 5 profes- 
sors and 2 secretaries ; 593 charges entitled to have ministers ; 600 ministers on the 
roll of the Church; 5,000 ruling elders; 61 probationers or licentiates ; 183,221 com- 
municants; 2 theological colleges or schools; 6 professors of divinity; i lecturer or 
other teacher; 108 students of divinity; 880 IBible or senior classes; 11,243 teachers,. 
90,000 scholars, ’22,787 Bible-class students. 

The Synod of the Reforf 7 ied Presbyterian Church of Scotland : — 2 presbyteries 
synod composed of all the ministers and a representative elder from each congre- 
gation ; 9 charges entitled to have ministers ; 4 stations supplied by preachers or 
otherwise ; 8 ministers on the roll of the Church ; 8 in actual service ; 70 ruling 
elders; 100 deacons or officers having charge of temporalities; no probationers or 
licentiates at present; 1,197 communicants; 2,760 persons to whom the Church 
ministers; I missionary laboring abroad; 6 Sunday-schools; lo Bible or senior 
classes ; 66 teachers. 

The Synod of the United Original Secession Church : — 6 presbyteries ; i synod 
composed of a minister and elder from each session; 38 charges entitled to have 
ministers ; 2 stations supplied by preachers or otherwise ; 32 ministers on the roll of 
the Church; 32 in actual service; 2 probationers or licentiates; about 5,450 com- 
municants; about 15,000 persons to whom the Church ministers; i missionary labor- 
ing abroad ; i theological college or school ; 2 professors of divinity ; 4 students of 
divinity. 

The General Assetnbly of the Calvinistic Methodist Church in England and' 
Wales : — 24 presbyteries ; i assembly composed of delegates from presbyteries or 
monthly meetings, as usually called in this Church, 2 ministers and 2 deacons form- 
ing the delegation from the Welsh presbyteries, and i minister and i deacon from 
the English; 591 ministers on the roll of the Church; 591 in actual service; 4,113 
ruling elders (both offices are held by the same person in the Church) ; 329 proba- 
tioners or licentiates; 118,036 communicants; 275,282 persons to whom the church, 
ministers ; 8 missionaries laboring abroad ; 2 theological colleges or schools ; 2 pro- 
fessors of divinity; 3 lecturers or other teachers; 76 students of divinity; 1,319 Sun- 
day-schools; Bible or senior classes not known ; 21,605 teachers; 115,159 scholars 
on register. 

DIVISION III.— UNITED STATES. 

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America :■ 
—177 presbyteries; 38 provincial synods; 5,489 charges entitled to have ministers; 
5,044 ministers on the roll of the Church; 294 probationers, or licentiates; 578,671 
communicants; 12 theo’o^ical colleges; about 45 professors; 631,952 Sabbath- 
school pupils. 


* Foreign fields, 13 ; colonies, 47; Jewish, 6; in addition to which many have gone to Australia. 
"N^ew Zealand, Canada, etc. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 96 ^ 

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Chtirch in the United States :—66 
presbyteries; 12 provincial synods; composed of an equal number of ministers and 
ruling e ders, chosen by the presbyteries, every presbytery is entitled to i minister 
and I elder, and if the presbytery consist of more than 20 ministers it is entitled 
to send 4 dele^tes; 1,892 charges entitled to have ministers; 1,019 ministers on, 
the roll of the Church; 5,901 ruling elders; 3,770 deacons or officers having charge 
0 ternporalities; 103 probationers or licentiates; 116,755 communicants; 23 mis-' 
Monaries laboring abroad ; 2 theological colleges or schools ; 10 professors of divinity *, 
92 students of divinity; 1,044 Sunday-schools ; Bible or senior classes not reported 
separately ; 9,392 teachers. 

The General Synod of the Reformed Church in America : — 33 classes or presby- 
teries; 4 particular synods; i general synod, composed of 3 ministers and 3 elders 
from each classis, nominated by the classes and appointed by the particular synods;, 
510 charges entitled to have ministers; 530 ministers on the roll of the church;' 
5 CW in actual service ; 2,000 ruling elders ; usually the same number of deacons as 
elders ; only 5 probationers or licentiates ; 80,208 communicants ; cannot tell number 
of persons to vi^hom the church ministers ; 24 missionaries laboring abroad ; 2 theo- 
logical colleges or schools ; 4 professors of divinity ; 34 students of divinity ; 645. 
Sunday-schools ; cannot tell the number of teachers, Bible or senior classes. 

The Reformed Church in the United States : — No report. 

The General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church of North America : 59 

presbyteries; 655 charges entitled to have ministers; 694 ministers on the roll of 
the church; 50 licentiates; 82,119 communicants; 760 Sabbath-schools; 8,327- 
teachers; 83,126 scholars ; 2 theological seminaries. 

The General Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America: — 5 pres- 
byteries; I General Synod, composed of an equal number of ministers and' 
ruling elders, delegated by the presbyteries according to a certain ratio; 48 charges, 
entitled to have ministers; 31 ministers on the roll of the church; 30 in actual; 
service; about 240 ruling elders; about 300 deacons or officials having charge- 
of temporalities ; 5 Probationers or licentiates ; 6,500 communicants ; 8,000 persons 
to whom the church ministers; i theological college or school; 2 professors of 
divinity ; 2 teachers of elocution ; 7 students of divinity ; 47 Sunday-schools ; about 
90 Bible or senior classes ; from 500 to 600 teachers. 

The Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America : — 10 presbyteries;, 
III ministers; 1 16 congregations ; 533 elders; 324 deacons; 10,473 communicants;^ 
1,087 Sabbath -school teachers; 10,097 scholars; i theological seminary; 2 profes- 
sors; 21 students. 

Associate Reformed Synod of the South : — 10 presbyteries; i synod; all ordained! 
ministers are entitled to a seat, each ministerial charge is entitled to i ruling elder;. 
85 ministers on the roll of the church; nearly all in actual service; 6 probationers 
or licentiates; 6,741 communicants; i missionary laboring abroad ; i theological, 
college or school; 3 professors of divinity; 8 students of divinity; 377 teachers 
and 3,197 scholars. 

The General Assembly of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist [or Presbyterian) Church 
in America : — 16 presbyteries; 5 provincial synods; 137 charges entitled to have 
ministers; 100 ministers on the roll of the church; 21 licentiates; 412 elders and 
deacons; 11,000 communicants; 11,676 Sunday-school scholars. 

DIVISION IV.— BRITISH COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES. 

Africa. 

Dutch Reformed Church of the Orange Free State. — 4 presbyteries or classes; 23, 
charges entitled to have ministers; 17 ministers on the roll of the church; 17 in ac- 
tual service; 91 ruling elders; 182 deacons or officials having charge of temporali- 
ties; 17,898 communicants; 46,067 persons to whom the church ministers; i mis- 
sionary laboring abroad ; i professor of divinity. 

Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa : — No report. 

America — North. 

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada : — 35 presbyteries;; 


964 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


4 provincial synods and i presbytery with synodical powers; assembly composed 
of a fourth of the whole number of ministers on the rolls of the several presbyteries 
with an equal number of acting elders ; 740 charges entitled to have ministers ; 1,350 
separate congregations connected with these; 213 separate mission fields, including 
538 preaching stations, supplied by preachers or otherwise ; 704 ministers on the roll 
of the church; 659 in actual service; about 5,000 ruling elders; probably 7,000 dea- 
cons or officials having charge of temporalities ; 50 probationers or licentiates ; 

125.000 communicants ; 14 missionaries laboring abroad ; 6 theological colleges or 
schools and an arts college; ii professors of divinity; 1 19 students of divinity; 

90.000 scholars in Sunday-schools and Bible classes ; 9,000 teachers. 

Asia. 

Presbytery of Ceylon:^\ presbytery ; composed of ministers and a representa- 
tive elder from each kirk session, under General Assembly act anent colonial 
churches; 9 charges entitled to have ministers; 21 separate congregations connected 
with these; 2 stations supplied by preachers or otherwise; 6 ministers on the roll of 
the church; 6 in actual service; 22 ruling elders; 17 deacons or officials having 
charge of temporalities; 1, 120 communicants; 3,100 persons to whom the church 
ministers; 9 Sunday-schools; 4 Bible or senior classes; 41 teachers. 

Australasia. 

Synod of Easter 7 i Australia : — No report. 

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New South Wales : — 7 pres 
byteries ; assembly composed of all ministers holding settled charges or theological 
professorships, together with one elder from each session ; 68 charges entitled to 
have ministers; 63 ministers on the roll of the church (9 without charges at present) ; 
63 in actual service ; 159 ruling elders; 576 deacons or officials having charge of 
temporalities; 3 probationers or licentiates; 4,300 communicants; 11,000 persons to 
whom the church ministers ; 3 professors of divinity who are ministers in charges ; 
100 Sunday-schools; 621 Bible or senior classes; 778 teachers and 6,802 children. 

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland : — 3 presbyte- 
ries ; assembly composed of all ministers in a settled charge and an elder from each 
session ; 26 charges entitled to have ministers ; 30 separate congregations connected 
with these ; 9 stations supplied by preachers or otherwise ; 23 ministers on the roll 
of the church; 21 in actual service; 86 ruling elders; 100 deacons or officials having 
charge of temporalities ; 1,800 communicants ; 8,000 persons to whorri the church 
ministers ; i theological college or school and 2 professors of divinity (relation to 
the church under consideration) ; 8 students of divinity ; 28 Sunday-schools; about 
6 Bible or senior classes ; 208 teachers. 

The General Assejnbly of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria: — II presbyteries; 
I assembly composed of all ministers who are pastors of congregations, of ej 7 ieriti 
ministers and of ruling elders — i from each session; 155 charges entitled to have 
ministers; 264 separate congregations connected with these; 25 stations supplied 
by preachers or otherwise; 130 ministers on the roll of the church; 156 in actual 
service ; 420 ruling elders ; for number of deacons or officials see foot-note* ; 2 pro- 
bationers or licentiates; 16,000 communicants; 5 missionaries and 3 catechists 
laboring abroad (see notef ) ; i theological college or school; 4 professors of divinity 
acting provisionally ; 10 students of divinity; 284 Sunday-schools ; about 50 Bible 
or senior classes; 2,400 teachers; 26,000 children. 

New Zealand. 

The Presbyterian Church of Otago and Southland : — No report. 

The Presbyterian Church of New Zealand : — No report. 

New Hebrides. 

New Hebrides Missio 7 i : — No report. 

* Management of congregations is committed to a Board consisting of ministers, elders, and a 
committee elected by the congregation. 

1 2 ordained and i lay missionary in the New Hebrides ; i working among the Aborigines and i 
among the Chinese in Victoria. 


965 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

IV.— THE CREEDS.* 

REPORT of the Scottish Sub- Committee on Creeds and Formulas 
OF Subscription to the General Presbyterian Council, to be 
held at Philadelphia in 1880. 


On4lh July, 1877, the First General Presbyterian Conncil, held at Edinhumh, 
appointed a Commtttee to prepare a Report for the next Council in 1880, showfne 
111 point of fact — ^ 


1st. What are the existing Creeds or Confessions of Churches composing this Alliance, 
and what have been their previous Creeds and Confessions, with any modifica- 
tions of these, and the dates and occasions of the same, from the Reformation 
to the present day. 

'id. What are the existing Formulas of Subscription, if any, and what have been 
the previous formulas of subscription used in these Churches in connection 
tvith their Creeds and Confessions. 

jd. How far has individual adherence to these Creeds by subscription, or otherwise, 
been required from ministers, elders, or other office-bearers respectively, and 
also from the private members of the same. 


And Council authorized the Committee to correspond with members of the 
several Churches throughout the world who may be able to give information, and 
they enjoined the Committee in submitting their report not to accompany it either 
with any comparative estimate of these Creeds and Regulations, or with any critical 
remarks upon their respective value, expediency, or efficiency. 

At the first meeting of the Committee, on 9th July, 1877, the following gentlemen 
were appointed a Sub-Committee to ascertain “ the facts called for in the Remit ” in 
so far as regards Scotland : . ’ 

The Rev. Professor Mitchell, St. Convener. 

The Rev. Professor Candlish, Glasgow. 

The Rev. Professor Calderwood, Edinburgh. 

James Mitchell, Esq., EL. D., Glasgow. 

Alexander Taylor Innes, Esq., Advocate, Edinburgh. 

David Laing, Esq., LL. D., Edinburgh. 


^ Mr. Laing’s death, on i8th October, 1878, deprived the Committee of the con- 
tinned assistance of one whose services during a long and laborious life, both as 
editor of the collected works of John Knox and of the Letters and Journals of 
Robert Baillie, and as adviser and helper in many other important literary under- 
takings, had been of the highest benefit to the whole Presbyterian Church, and the 
means of casting much fresh light on the most interesting periods of its history. It 
is a satisfaction to them, however, to be able to report that the text of the Answers 
furnished in regard to the Church to which he belonged had been drafted, and sub- 
mitted to, and approved of by him in the spring of 1878, and that some even of the 
notes are founded on contemporary pamphlets supplied by him. On 2d June, 1879, 
T. G. Murray, Esq., W. S., was, with consent of Dr. Schaff and the American Com- 
mittee, elected in room of Mr. Laing. 

The Sub-Committee have held at least eight meetings. At one of the first of 
these, the difficulty presented itself that while most of the Presbyterian Churches in 
Scotland look back generally to the same past history, and find in that history the 
same Creeds and other documents, they might be expected, according to their differ- 
ent stand-points, to take slightly different views of them, and of their relations to 
them. It was feared that any attempt on the part of the Scottish sub-committee 
summarily to harmonize these views might not, on the one hand, tend to the har- 
mony desired, while, on the other, it might withdraw from the view of the Council 
some of the materials for its conclusions. In view of this difficulty, it was resolved 


* See p. 261. 


g66 


THE PRESBV'I BRIAN ALLIANCE. 


that the members of the Sub-Committee connected with each of the three largest 
Presbyterian bodies — the Church of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland, and the 
United Presbyterian Church — should be asked to send in to the Convener separate 
papers in answer to the Queries proposed by the Council, in so far as relates to the 
■Churches to which they respectively belong. These papers have accordingly been 
prepared and printed, and are transmitted herewith as the main part of this report. 

The Sub-Committee also requested and have printed and transmitted herewith 
7\nswers to the Queries returned by the two other Presbyterian Churches, which 
vsent delegates to the Council, viz., the United Original Secession Church and the 
Reformed Presbyterian Church (other than that recently united with the Free 
•Church). The Answers of these Churches show no new Creed or modification of 
Creed, but they indicate variations in the formula or mode of adherence to the 
Creed on the part of the office-bearers, and of the ordinary members of the Church. 
The Sub-Committee have found it especially necessary in the case of Scotland to 
adhere to the distinction between doctrinal Creeds or Confessions (which is what 
the Remit by the Council appears to contemplate), and those explanations of the 
Creeds and applications of the doctrine which, in the case of all the Scottish Churches, 
have been made, sometimes in a judicial and sometimes in a declaratory form, and 
which, especially under the name of “ Testimonies,” extend far beyond the possi- 
ble limits of this return, as they are outside the scope of the Remit. 

It is only necessary further to state that the Answers to the Queries and the Ab- 
stracts thereof, do not claim any ecclesiastical authority or sanction ; that the mem- 
bers connected with each Church are alone responsible for the Answers and Ab- 
stracts made in regard to that Church ; and that no Church is to be held as acqui- 
escing in the accuracy of the historical statements and claims contained in the 
various Declaratory Acts and Testimonies of the Churches other than its own. 


ABSTRACT OF ANSWERS AS TO THE SEVERAL 
CHURCHES IN SCOTLAND. 

I.— CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 

Answer to Query First. 

a. Existing Creed : — The Westminster Confession of Faith. 

b. Previous Creeds : — I. Creeds having civil as well as ecclesiastical recognition : — i 

I. The Scottish Confession of 1560, the principal Confession of the Church 
till 1647. 2. The Second or subsidiary Confession of 1581, enlarged in 1638 

into the “ National Confession and Covenant.” H. Creeds having only eccle- 
siastical recognition : — i. The Apostles’ Creed; 2. Exposition of do. in Bap- 
tismal Service ; 3. Confession of the English Church at Geneva. 

<.c. Modifications of these Creeds : — None, in the proper sense of the term. 

• To Query Second. 

a. Existing Formulas of Subscription: — i. The Formula of 1694, at first appointed 

for Ministers and Preachers, and now subscribed by Elders. 2. The Formula 
of 1711 (with relative Questions), now subscribed by Ministers and Preachers. 
The Formula of 1707, appointed for Professors and Teachers, and still sub- 
scribed by Professors of Divinity. 

b. Previous Formulas of Subscription : — Simple Subscription to Confessions running 

in the direct form — Professio Fidei, “ Godly Bands,” and other local formulas 
before 1581 — The opening paragraph of the Second Confession or National 
Covenant, expressing adherence to the First Confession in all points, chief 
form of subscription to it from 1581 onwards — Profession of adherence to doc- 
trine, etc., of^ Church in Solemn League and Covenant, and local formulas of 
■Covenanting times — Simple Subscription to Westminster Confession in terms 
of Act vii. Assembly 1690. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


967 


To Query Third. 

•a. Individual adherence to the Creed appears to have been required from early times, 
not only of Ministers and Elders, but also of ordinary members, down to the 
Revolution, formally relaxed in 1711 to those from abroad coming to reside in 
Scotland, and gradually to others, though, in connection with Baptism, a refer- 
ence more or less general to the Confession long continued to be made ; more 
general forms of profession sent down by Assembly to all Ministers in 1871. 
b. General adherence or profession of faith in accordance with Church’s teaching 
all that is now required; no special form appointed, but certain great and fun- 
damental doctrines specified in Acts of Assembly. 

II.— FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 

Answer to Query First. 

a. Existing Creed: — The Westminster Confession of Faith, from the year 1647. 
Modifications of Existing Creed The Acts of Assembly of 1647 and 1846, 

confirmed in 1876, when the larger section of the Reformed Presbyterian 
Church united with the Free Church. 

b. Previous Creeds: — The Scottish Confession, from 1560 to 1647. 

Modifications of Previous Creeds : — 

In the Church of Scotland, none, in the proper sense of the term. 

In the Reformed Presbyterian Church, the Creed from 1690 to 1876 was the 
Westminster Confession and Catechisms, with modification of the Act 1647. 
and as received and approved in Testimonies, 1761 and 1837. 

To Query Second. 

a. Existing Formula:— For Ministers, Elders, and Deacons :— The Formula of 

1846, with relative questions. 

b. Previous Formulas : — 

[a.) P’or the Scottish Confession of 1560 — 

Simple subscription to the Confession itself, or adhering to the Covenant. 
[b.) For the Westminster Confession — 

In the Church of Scotland, simple subscription or adherence as before, 
and subsequently the formula of 1694 for Elders, and of 1711 for 
Ministers. 

In the Reformed Presbyterian Church, subscription to questions of 
formula till 1820, thence till 1876 only oral questions, which were 
modified in 1870. 


To Query Third. 


>a. At Present : — 

For Office-bearers, personal adherence to the whole doctrine of the Confession 
in terms of Subscription-Formula, etc., is required ;• but for private mem- 
bers a “ confession of faith in accordance with the Word of God and the 
Standards ” is enough. 

■b. In the Past : — 

In the Church of Scotland, personal adherence to all the doctrine of the Con- 
fession was required in the Covenanting times from all members of the 
Church ; but not apparently as a test or condition of entering it or be- 
coming members. 

In the Reformed Presbyterian Church, the acknowledgment of the Westmin- 
ster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, as founded on and agreeable to 
the Word of God, was required, not only of office-bearers, but of private 
members; but in 1872 Questions were sanctioned, referring applicants for 
admission to the Communion to the Westminster Shorter Catechism. 


968 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


III.— UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 

Answer to Query First. 

a. Existing Creeds : — The Westminster Confession and the Larger and Shorter Cat- 

echisms. ' 

b. Modifications of Existing Creed : — The United Presbyterian Church in her Basis 

of Union allowed exception to be taken to the Subordinate Standards on one 
important subject, by declaring that she did not approve of anything in these doc- 
uments which teaches, or maybe supposed to teach, compulsory or persecuting- 
and intolerant principles in religion ; and by Declaratory Act passed in May 
last has given forth an authorized explanation in regard to other subjects in the 
said Standards, respecting which it has been found desirable to set forth more 
clearly and fully the view which the Synod takes of the teaching of Holy Scrip- 
ture. See “ Declaratory Act, adopted May, 1879.” 

c. Previous Creeds: — The Westminster Confession and Larger and Shorter Cat- 

echisms have been, from the origin of the Secession Church, the accepted Creed 
but in 1 797 the Associate ( Burgher) Synod adopted a Preamble to the Formula tO' 
the following effect : — “ Whereas some parts of the Standard books have been in- 
terpreted as favoring compulsory measures in religion, the Synod hereby declare 
that they do not require an approbation of any such principle from any candidate 
for licence or ordination.” This declaration was in substance accepted, on 
occasion of subsequent unions, by all the divisions of the Secession so uniting. 

d. Modifications of Previous Creeds : — The Relief Church, in an early part of its 

history, used the formula of 1711, as in use in the Established Church, but in 
1823 adopted a formula professing the doctrine of the Westminster Confession,, 
with an exception as to the power of the Civil Magistrate. 

To Query Second. 

Existing Formulas : — For Preachers, Ministers, Missionaries, and Elders, the ap- 
propriate formula is given (the Answer and Promise of Subscription being 
minuted). The form of Question 2 of the formula is now, under the Declara- 
tory Act, to be that given at the close of the Declaratory Act. 

Previous Formulas : — The previous formulas of this Church, and of each of the 
bodies composing it, in connection with their Creeds, are contained in the 
Answers to the Second question of the several Formulas of Adherence which, 
are given at length. 


To Query Third. 

Office-bearers are admitted upon acceptance of, and promise of subscription to, the 
formula ; and private members are admitted upon “ a credible profession of the 
faith of Christ, as held by the Church,” with a corresponding character of 
deportment. A “ Summary of Principles” was issued in 1855, and is used as 
a help for those asking admission into membership, to which is appended a 
series of questions which may be proposed at admission. Previous Practice . — 
A “Summary of Principles” was agreed to by the United Associate Synod in 
1820 as a Directory in the admission of members. Earliest practice of Asso- 
ciate Synod is stated in “Re-exhibition of Testimony,” p. xv. note; that of 
Relief Church in Smith’s “ Historical Sketches.” 

IV.— SYNOD OF UNITED ORIGINAL SECEDERS. 

Answer to Query First. 

a. Existing Creeds :— Along with Testimony, the Westminster Standards, as received 
and ratified by Church of Scotland as standards of covenanted uniformity for 
the three kingdoms. 


969 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 

b. Previous Creeds Testimony of 1736 

" «* 

To Query Second. 

^e^a®erd™Testimo^w™“/^ V Questions fo,; Ministers, Elders, and Probation, 
ers at end ot lestimmiy, of which those relating to doctrine are eiven 
b. Previous Formulas The same as existing ones. ^ 

To Query Third. 

Assent to Testimony a term of fellowship, ministerial and Christian. Ministers 
Elders and Probationers, after answering questions in formula, declare they aro 
willing to subscribe Standards when called so to do. Private mernbers in si^ 
nifymg adherence to the Standards, are only required to do this in si fa? as 
they understand them. The original law and practice of the Secession is 
embodied m Act of Associate Presbytery given in Appendix. 

V.— REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 
Answer to Query First. 

«. Existing Creeds:— Westminster Confession and Catechisms, and the Testi- 
mony of the Church, published 1837-39 

b. Previous Creeds.-- Informatory Vindication” emitted in 1687: Testimony- 

emitted by the Reformed Presbytery in 1761. ^ 

c. Modifications of Creeds Merely in form, in the way of applying the recognized. 

principles of the Church to altered circumstances in the community. ** 

To Query Second. 

Exiting Forinulas Formula for applicants for Church membership, called 
Terms of Communion.’; Formulas of questions for ministers, probationers 
given contained in the Book of Discipline, the first ten of which are 

b. Previous Forrnulas ;-None ; but the present fourth term of communion, prior to- 
1822, included special reference to the renovation of the Covenants at Auchin- 
saugh in 1712, whereas the present fourth term includes the general state- 
ment, “ the duty of a minority adhering to these vows ii. e. the covenanlsV 
when the nation has cast them off.” ^ 

To Query Third, 

Members as well as office-bearers give their a.ssent to the Terms of Communion, 


Answers to ihe Queries of the General Presbyterian Council regarding 
Creeds and Confessions, in so far as relates to Scotland. 

No. I.— CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 

Query What are the existing Creeds or Confessions of this Church? and what 
have been its previous Creeds and Confessions, with any modifications of these, 
and the dates and occasions of the same from the Reformation to the present day t 

Answer. 

^ [a.) The existing Creed or Confession, of the Church of Scotland is that Confes- 
sion of Faith which, in the years 1645-6, was agreed upon by the Assembly of 
Divines at We.stminster, with the assistance of Commissioners from the Church of 
Scotland. This, on 27th August, 1647, was, with certain explanations, approved by 


•970 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


■'the General Assembly of the Church,* as being “ most agreeable to the Word ot 
•God, and in nothing contrary to the received doctrine of this Church,” and accepted 
■“ for their part ” as a common Confession of Faith for the three kingdoms, 
and along with the Assembly’s Act of Approbation was ratified in 1649 by the 
Estates of the Scottish Parliament, and ordained by them “ to be recorded, pub- 
lished, and practised.”! Notwithstanding the general Act rescissory of 1661, which 
swept away the legislative enactments of the Covenanting Parliament, a certain 
■degree of deference, according to Bishop Burnet and other trustworthy authorities, 
continued to be shown to the Westminster Confession under the restored Episco- 
'pacy ; J and editions of it, as well as of the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and of the 
new version of the Psalms, approved and adopted in 1650, were allowed to be 
printed in Scotland. On the restoration of Presbytery in 1690, the Westminster Con- 
fession was ratified anew by the Scottish Parliament “ as the public and avowed 
•confession of this Church, containing the sum and substance of the doctrine of the 
Reformed Churches,” § and by an Act of the General Assembly of the same year, it 
was appointed to be subscribed by “ all probationers licensed to preach, all intrants into 
the ministry, and all other ministers and elders received into communion ... in 
•Church government.” || The Act of Parliament of 1690 was ratified anew in 1693,^ 
again in 1701, ** and finally in i7o6,-|-f by the Act of Security, which was inserted in 
• the Act and Treaty uniting the kingdoms of England and Scotland, and declared to 
be an essential condition thereof. 

{d.) The following Creeds and Confessions may fairly claim to be comprehended 
under the second division of this Query : — 

I. Confessions which have had civil as well as ecclesiastical sanction. 

1. “ The Confession of the Faith and Doctrine beleved and professed by the Prot- 
•€stantis of the realme of Scotland, exhibited to the estatis of the same in Parliament, 
and by their public votes authorised as a doctrine founded upon the infallible Word 
•of God.” This is the Scottish Confession strictly so called, and unquestionably the 
principal Confession of the Reformed Church of Scotland from 1560 till 1647. It 
was drawn up at the request of the Parliament of 1560 by Knox, Spottiswoode, 
Douglas, Wynram, Rowe, and Willock, and was adopted by the same, before any 
General Assembly existed to give its formal sanction to it. It was translated into 
Latin by Patrick Adamson, and published at St. Andrews in 1572. Another Latin 
version of it was inserted in the Harmonia Confessionum. It was approved and rati- 
fied by Act of Parliament in 1560, and again in 1567, as also by various Acts of later 
Parliaments. From the fact that these acts stand unrepealed, as well as fr®m the 

5terms in which the Westminster Confession was adopted in 1647 by the General 
Assembly, the Scottish Confession is held by many not yet to have lost its author- 
ity, or to have been formally abrogated as one of the Church’s symbolical books. But 
from the use made of it in the notorious Test Act of 1681, it had possibly some- 
'what lost favor among Presbyterians at the time of the Revolution. 

2. “ The Second Confession of Faith,” commonly called the King’s Confession, 
also the Negative Confession, and finally, after certain explanations or additions 
made in 1638 and 1639? the National Covenant. |||| It was subscribed by the king 
and nobility in 1580-1 ; and the same year, in a proclamation issued by the king in 


* “ Peterkin’s Records of the Kirk,” p. 475. 

4 Act usually prefixed to Scotch editions of the Confession, along with Act of Assembly. 

^ See introduction to “ Minutes of Westminster Assembly, p. 419. 

V- Parfiament, 1690. | Act VII. Assembly, 1690. ^ Act XXII. Parliament, i6g^. 

**Act III. Parliament, 1701. ft Act VI. Parliament, 1706. ^ 

II Imprmted at Edinburgh by Robert Lekprevick, 1561. A very accurate text of this Confession is 
given by Mr. Laing, in his edition of Knox s History, * vol. ii. pp. 95“t2o. It corresponds in its 
genepl features with the other Confessions of the .Reformed Churches which had previously appeared • 
and in various important sentences it coincides almost verbally with one or other of the Confessions 
of the Genevan Church, or with the earlier editions (1536 and 1539) of the Institutes of Calvin See 
‘Brit, and For. Evan. Review” for January, 1872, pp. 92-96. 

Edward Irving’s testimony to this has of late been often quoted. That of the Marrowmen in 
the last century is hardly less notable. 

II II cause to us. It is almost sixty years old ; it is no less since this same Confession 

was [first] subscribed and sworn to. And it has been still in use yearly to be subscribed and sworn 
to in some parts among some in this land to this day. And I think it would have been so in all th« 
parts pi this land iT men had dreamt of wliat was coming upon us.**~** Henderson^s Sermons,** p. 2^ 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

•Council, it was ordered to be generally subscribed. By the first Assembly thereafter 
at was recognized as “ ane trew and Christian confession, to be agreit unto by such 
as irewly profess Christ and his trew religion, and the tenor thereof to be followitout 
as the samin is laid out in the said proclamation ; ” and by the next, ministers were 
enjoined without further delay, to carry out the tenor of the proclamation. It was 
subscribed generally and with great enthusiasm at that time, again in 1590, and again in 
I59°> '^ss generally in 1604, and again, and with still greater enthusiasm and uni- 
versality, in 1638, and subsequently in the Covenanting times, and it was, in fact, the 
charter of the second Reformation. It contained in gremio an express assent to the 
Positive Confession of 1560, and embodied or expanded forms of renouncing Popish 
^ror which had been in use since 1559, and from 1580-1 onwards it replaced them.* 
Ihus, as both Calderwood and Wodrow allow, “this Confession is an appendix to 
the first Confession, and comprehendeth it in a general clause in the beginning, and so 
•both are but one, and he that subscribeth the one subscribeth the other, and therefore 
our Confession is not wholly negative, but partly affirmative, partly negative.”! 

II. Creeds, expositions thereof, and Confessions inserted in the Book of Common 
Order, which, in the First Book of Discipline, is recognized as the Book of 
our Common Order, in 1562 and 1564 was more explicitly sanctioned by the 
General Assembly, and continued in authority till 1645. 

1. The creed commonly called the Apostles’ Creed held a recognized place in 
the services of the Church of Scotland, while these were regulated by the Book of 
Common Order. It held a place in the ordinary services as the confession of the 
faith of the assembled worshippers. It was introduced also in the form for the ad- 
ministration of baptism as the sum of that faith which the parent professed and 
•engaged to teach to his child. J 

2. From 1564, when the Book of Common Order was enlarged and formally 
sanctioned by the Assembly, an authoritative exposition of the Creed was inserted, 
to be read in the baptismal service by the minister. It was both in form and in 
reality a Confession of Faith, being an abridgment of the “ Professio Fidei Catho- 
licse” of Valerandus Pollanus.^ This had been signed not only by the minister 
doctor, and elders of the congregation of French Refugees at Frankfort, but also by 
the minister and representatives of the English and Scottish exiles there, with whom 
Knox was for a time associated, and from among whom the nucleus of his Genevan 
congregation was obtained. The abridgment of it continued to hold its place in 
subsequent authorized editions of the Book of Common Order. 

3. Another exposition of the Apostles’ Creed is, “ The Confession of our Faith 
which are assembled in the English congregation at Geneva.”|| It appeared in the 
earliest edition of the Book of Common Order along with the prayer used on the 
•occasion of the first assembly of that Church, and the adoption of its Confession and 
Church constitution. In the edition of 1564 it is said to have been “received and 
approved by the Church of Scotland.” After that date it continued to be printed in 
the various editions of the book, and to be appended, at least occasionally, to Bibles, 
Psalm-books, and even (strange to say) to English Prayer-books, with a few prayers 
from the same source, till after the Restoration of Charles II. 

In the edition of Knox’s book published at Geneva in 1561,^ and possibly in that 
printed in Scotland in 1562, there is also inserted an independent formulary, entitled, 
-“ The Forme of the Confession of Faith whereunto all [sucK] subscribe as are re- 
ceived to be Scholars in the University of Geneva, and it is very profitable for all 
towns, parishes, and congregations to discern the true Christians from Anabaptists, 


* As late as 1657. — Eccl. Rec. Aberdeen. 

t “ Calderwood,” vol. iii. pp. 502-505 ; vol. viii. p. 33 ; “ Wodrow’s Correspondence,” vol. iii. pp. 
78, 85, etc. 

X Though not now used in the worship of the Church, this Creed is still annexed to the Shorter 
Catechism “ as a brief sum of the Christian faith agreeable to the word of God and anciently re- 
ceived of the Churches of Christ.” The use of it in baptism also has of late been revived in the 
Church (p. 21). 

g Liturgia Sacra, seu Ritus Ministerii in Ecclesia Peregrinorum Francofordiae ad Moenum. Ad- 
•<lita est Summa Doctrinae, seu Fidei Professio ejusdem ecclesiae. 

B “ Knox’s Works,” Laing’s edition, vol. iv. pp. 169, 170, etc. 

y Ibid. vol. vi. p. 293. 


972 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

Libertines, Arians, Papists, and other heretics.” But this was not inserted in sub< 
sequent editions of the book, nor has it received a place in Dunlop’s or the other 
collections of Confessions, etc., of the Church of Scotland.* 

Besides these “forms of sound words,” the following also seem deserviner of no- 
tice in such a statement as this : ° 

, I- “The Confescion of the fayth of the Sweserlandes,” “translated out of laten 
oy George Wsherf, a Scotchman, who was burned in Scotland the year of our I.ord 
This is supposed to have been printed in London in 1548, possibly for the 
use of his followers in Scotland. It is the earlier Helvetic Confession, and con- 
tains the clauses at the end said to be wanting in all printed Latin and German edi- 
tions; “It IS not our mind to prescribe by these briefe chapters a certayne rule of 
the aythe to all churches and congregations, for we know no other rule of favth 
but the Holy Scripture,” etc. ^ 

Helvetic Confession of 1566, which, with the exception of the para- 
j to holidays, was approved in a special Convention or Assembly held 
at St. Andrews^ in the month of September in the same year, and confirmed by the- 
^gnatures of the members of that Assembly. It was translated from the Latin by 
Robert Pont, and in an Assembly held at Edinburgh in December, the trans- 

a 1011 was ordered to be published, with a note expressing the approbation of the 
Church and the limitation appended to it. Mr. Laing doubts if this order was ever 
actually carried out. Subscription to it was never afterwards given or required but 
It was occasionally appealed to in the controversies with the king as a confes’sion 
approved by the Church § An English translation of it was published in the “ Har- 
mony of Protestant Confessions ” in 1586 at Cambridge. 

Mr. John Hall and Mr. John Adamson in 1616, and' 
diiected by the Assembly (afterwards annulled) of that year to be revised by Cowper 
of Gallow^ Howie,of St. Mary’s College, St. Andrew’s, Forbes, of Corsl, cXe- 
Hay, and William Struthers | This probably was the shorter and simpler form ff 
confession which the Assembly of 1616 designed to be subscribed by students enter-, 
mg the University. But there is no evidence that it ever came in JgenerM use or 
vas ever punted till, m our own day, the larger form of Calderwood’s “History?" 
was published by the Wodrow Society. It is as thoroughly Calvinistic in its teach- 
ing as the Westminster Confession. ^ ^ 

(r.) There have been no modifications of these Creeds or Confessions in any proper 

7 a 1560 had an explanatory preface p^r^fixL 

and the Confession of 1647 has generally printed before it an adopting and^explan- 

atory Act of the Assembly of that year; but no clause has beei taken away nor 
added since it was adopted. ^ 

The Catechisms at various times sanctioned or allowed by the Church of Scotland' 
have been Calvin s Catechism,^ the Heidelberg or Palatinate Catechism, Craig’s- 


* It -was subscribed by those Scottish students who went to study at Geneva and tVnf nr.f 
as a mere matter of routine. The followine entrv nrefivpH in • c’ , always; 

detSstari tc fidei confessionem “auam ^ S- * '5)“* PUfiati repugnant, 

ScriptutU consentaneam p"ouUa'S„rin cat'^h Sacris 

t Wishart. Confession reprinted in vol. i. of the Miscellany of the Wodrow Sorietv 
evl we hreVee^sfanXS ■‘'-■'"y yP>ai"-=d what- 

Sodety. ^ the Zurich Letters of the Parker 

g CalderwooTs ‘‘ History,'' vol. iv. p. 237; Melville's “ Diary '' n 
U Calderwood’s “ H.stor^’’ Wodrow edition, vol. vii. p. 233-2;2. 

II Thermo IS appended The manner to examine children ” etc This in ;t<; firct T? v, r 

■■Su.„n,aL.eeh..i - of S^rp^on^^SA'he .KS'ci'elit 


SECOJVD GENERAL COUNCIL. 973 

Catechism and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms prepared by the Assembl, of 
Divines at Westminster, and adopted by the Church of Scotland in 1648 * * ^ 

Query yi--— What are the exisling formulas of subscriptim, if any andwhathane 


Answer. 

{a ) As already stated, the Scottish Parliament in'idoo ratified the Westminster 
r continued for hereafter a minister or preacher within the Church unless that he 

j^ioro^hS :^d1Sh"eln’:il!’e doWrin^t'Sn tntreV?ot t ^ 

e^- Commission into ministeriaf fonTmunSon (f a 

iL the Ssfry “expectants” or preachers admiited 

“I . . .do sincerely own and declare the above Confession of Faith, approven 

to^ST/ f by law in the yeaTiboo 

to be the confession of my faith, and that I own the doctrine therein contained to 

constantly adhere to: As likewise that I own and 
acknowledge Presbyterian church government of this Church, now settled by law 
by Kirk-sessions Presbyteries, Provincial Synods, and General Assemblies to be the 
■only government of this Church, and that I will submit thereto, concur therewith 
?h^t ^'r^^tly nor indirectly, the prejudice or subversion thereof, and 

that I shall observe uniformity of worship and of the administration of all public 
Church as the same are at present performed and allowed.” 
In 1700+ the General Assenibly appointed that all ministers and ruling elders be- 
longing to this National Church should subscribe the Confession of Faith as the con- 
fession of their faith according to the Act of Assembly, 1690, and the above formula 

vni appointed that all commissions W ministers and 

ruling elders from presbyteries, universities, and royal burghs to subsequent assem- 
blies should bear that they have subscribed the Confession of Faith accordina to the 
same formula.^ Riding elders continue to subscribe this formida, and mustinstruct 
.that they have done so before they can claim to sit and vote in the General Assembly 
e. ^7ji (when the Church became seriously alarmed about designs said to be en- 
tertamed for the subversion of her constitution) the General Assembly appointed 
the following somewhat stricter formula, to be signed by all probationers when 
licensed, and ministers when ordained or admitted : j| 

“I . . . do hereby declare that I do sincerely own and believe the whole doc- 
tnne contained in the Confession of Faith, approven by the General Assemblies of 
this National Church, and ratified by law in the year 1690, and frequently confirmed 
by diverse acts of Parliament since that time, to be the truths of God, and I do own 

of Act Assembly 1592 depends mainly on whether the true reading of the Act is lectors' or doctors' 

(z. common or grammar) schools. kji uociors 

* “ Records of the Kirk,” pp. 496, 498. 

t Act XI. Assembly, 1694. Probably it was in the interval between 1690 and 1694 that the formula 
originated that has sometimes been accepted by very lenient presbyteries in much'later times “ T 
;n ;nd^rr^" Confessio/of F^ith and SoctrL^fere^n contafnSd,^^^^^^^ 

^ Scriptures. Subscription to this formula has been accepted from 
o U * l'Tu '.t appears there was returned to the General 

gentleman who, though he had been a minister of the Church for thirty years, had no 
subscribed any formula. He was admitted to his seat on signing the formula of 1694 
X Act XI. Assembly, 1700. Act X of same Assembly required schoolmasters also, and chaplains 
governors, and pedagogues to subscribe the Confession. ’ i-uapiams, 

3 Act VI. A.ssembly, 1704. 

11 Act X. Assembly, 1711. 


• 4 


974 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


the same as the confession of my faith : As likewise I do own the purity of worship 
presently authorized and practised in this Church, and also the Presbyterian govern- 
ment and discipline now so happily established therein, which doctrine, worship,, 
and church-government, I am persuaded, are founded on the word of God, and 
agreeable thereto : And I promise that, through the grace of God, I shall firmly and 
constantly adhere to the same, and, to the utmost of my power, shall in my station 
assert, maintain, and defend the said doctrine, worship, discipline, and government 
of this Church by Kirk-sessions, Presbyteries, Provincial Synods^ and General As- 
semblies ; and that I shall, in my practice, conform myself to the said worship, and 
submit to the said discipline and government, and never endeavor, directly nor in- 
directly, the prejudice or subversion of the same; and I promise that I shall follow 
no divisive course from the present establishment in this Church : Renouncing all 
doctrines, tenets, and opinions whatsoever contrary to or inconsistent with the said# 
doctrine, worship, discipline, or government of this Church.”* 

By the Act of Security, which ratified anew the Confession of Faith and Presby- 
terian Government of the Church of Scotland, it was also provided that in all time 
coming “ no Professors, Principals, Regents, Masters, or others bearing office in any 
university, college, or school within the kingdom, be capable or be admitted or al- 
lowed to continue in the exercise of their said functions, but such as,” inter aliay. 
“ do and shall acknowledge and profess and shall subscribe to the aforesaid Con- 
fession of Faith as the confession of their faith, and that they will practise and 
conform themselves to the worship presently in use in this Church, and submit 
themselves to the government and discipline thereof, and never endeavor, directly 
or indirectly, the prejudice or subversion of the same.” This was repealed, in so* 
far as concerns the Professors of the Lay Chairs, in 1853, and in so far as concerns 
schoolmasters in 1861 ; but the following formula, in terms of the Act of Security,,, 
still [continues to be subscribed by the theological professors : “ I . . . do in- 
genuously profess and declare that I do own the foregoing Confession of Faith as the 
confession of my faith, and that I will practise and conform myself thereto, and to- 
the worship presently in use in this Church, as now established by law, .and submit 
myself to the government and discipline thereof, and never endeavor, directly or 
indirectly, the subversion or prejudice of the same; and in testimony of my sincerity 
in these premises, I have subscribed these presents judicially before the Presbytery 
of this day of .” 

{b.') The following formulas of subscription or adherence have been more or less 
used in early times in the Church, though some seem to have had only local and 
temporary sanction : 

I. Those plainly implied in the very form into which all the earlier Confessions- 
are cast : “ I believe and confess,” etc., “ We confess and acknowledge,” and such 
like expressions at the commencement, and also introducing all the more important 


* Satisfactory answers must also be given to the following amongst other questions : 

(a.) On the part of every one ordained or admitted a minister — “ I. Do you believe the Scriptures, 
of the Old and New Testaments to be the word of God, and the only rule of faith and manners? 
“ II. Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine contained in the Confession of Faith,^ 
approven by the General Assemblies of this Church, and ratified by law in the year 1690, to be 
founded upon the word of God ; and do you acknowledge the same as the confession of your faith ; 
and will you firmly and constantly adhere thereto, and to the utmost of your power assert, main- 
tain, and defend the same, and the purity of worship as presently practised in this National Church,” 
etc. ? “III. Do you disown all Popish, Arian, Socinian, Arminian, Bourignian, and other doctrines, 
tenets, and opinions contrary to and inconsistent with the aforesaid Confession of Faith? ” 

{h.') On the part of every probationer licensed to preach — “ I. Do you believe the Scriptures of the 
Old and New Testaments to be the word of God, and the only rule of faith and manners ? “II. Do 
you sincerely own-and believe the whole doctrine of the Confession of Faith, approven by the Gen- 
eral Assemblies of this National Church, and ratified by law in the year 1690, and frequently con- 
firmed by diverse Acts of Parliament since that time, to be the truths of God contained m the Scrip- 
tures of the Old and New Testaments, and do you own the whole doctrine therein contained as the 
confession of your faith?” 

(tr.) The question usually put to elders, in terms of the older formula required to be signed by 
them, is in the following form (approven in Act v. Assembly, 1863) : “ Do you sincerely own and de- 
clare the Confession of Faith, approven by former General Assemblies of this Church, and ratified 
by law in the year 1690, to be the confession of your faith ; and do you own the doctrine thereim 
contained to be the true doctrine which you will constantly adhere to? ” 


97 $^ 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


separate formula but simple acceptance or subscription was re- 
mnrf assent to them. Besides, in the case of the Scottish Confession of 
-f formula of adherence seems to be contained in the preface 

^ a' particularly m the following sentence of it : “ Seeing that^of the 
infini e goodness of our God we have obtained some rest and liberty, we could 
a and plain confession of such doctrine as is proponed unto 

tts,^d as we believe and profess, partly for satisfaction of our brethfenf . . . and 
partly fbr the stopping of the mouths of impudent blasphemers,- accompanied, how- 
ever, with the noble protestation, “that if any man will note in this our Confession 
any article or sentence repugning to God’s holy word, it would please him of his 
gentleness and for Christian charity’s sake to admonish us of the same in writing, 
^^^^itydo promise him satisfaction from the mouth of Gcxl 
(PSaat IS from^ his Holy Scriptures), or else reformation of that which he shall prove 
to be amiss. Nor can we be altogether certain that besides these a separate formula, 
of adherence cbd not come to be generally used in connection with this Confession, 
in 1569 we find the following proposed by the Regent Murray and the Superintend- 
ent of Angus to the Professors of King’s College, Aberdeen, of whose disobedience 
the Church had complained :* 

We whose nanies are underwritten do ratify and approve from our very hearts 
the Confession of Faith, together with all other Acts concerning our religion given 
forth the Parliaments holden at Edinburgh the 24th August, 1560, and the 15th 
day of December, 1567; and joyne ourselves as members to the true kirk of Christ, 
whose visible face is described in the said Acts, and shall in time coming be partici- 
pant of the sacraments now most faithfully and publicly ministered in the said kirk 
and submit us to the jurisdiction and discipline thereof.”-)- * 

2. That contained in the “ Professio Fidei ” of the Church of the Foreigners at 
Frankfort, and signed by certain representatives of Knox’s congregation there in. 
name of the whole, may claim to be mentioned, at least as showing the opinions and 
early practice of our great Reformer and his friends, though the formula, in the exact 
foim it then bore, did not come into use in Scotland. The first part applies to or- 
dinary members of the Church, and resembles the last sentence quoted from the 
Confession of 1581 on p. ii. It is as follows: — “ Haec fides est mea, in qua me 
cum ista ecclesia puto consentire et admitti postulo, tanquam membrum Christi, pol- 
licens omnem obedientiam erga universam ecclesiasticam disciplinam verbo Dei con- 
sonam, reliquamque doctrinam fidei ac religionis verae.” The rest of this formula 
will be found below, and closely coincides with forms of renouncing popery often, 
used in Scotland in early times. 

3. The “ godly bands,” covenants, or deeds of association under which the Re- 
formed party in Scotland as a whole, and the earliest congregations erected in con- 
nection with it, were incorporated, as the following, probably prepared under the 
direction of Knox himself, engrossed in the Session Records of St. Andrews in 
1559, and published in vol. iii. part ii. p. 21 1 of the Miscellany of the Maitland 
Club : — 


“ We quhais names are underwritten joines us in all thinges conforme to the gen- 
crall band maid betuix the Lordis and Baronis of Congregatioun at Edinburgh, the 
xiii day of Julii, anno, etc., 1559, to the Congregatioun and memberis to assist in 
mutuall support with the said Congregatioun, with our bodies, geir, and force, for 
maynteyning of the trew religion of Christe and downe putting of all super- 
stitioun and idolatrie, conforme to the said band, quherof the tennor followis and 
is this: — We quhais names are underwrittin, quhilkes hes subscrivit thir presenter 
with our handis, hafend respect to our dewties in setting fordwart the glorie of God,, 
and knawand alswa that we are commandit to joine ourselfis togiddir as memberis 
of ane bodie for the furtherance of the samyn, Dois in the name of Christe Jesus 
unite ourselfs, that we in ane mynde and ane spirit may endivour us with our haill 
power and diligence to walk fordwart in the ways of the Lord, laboring to destroy 
and put downe all idolatrie, abhominationes, superstitiones, and quhatsomever thing 


* Calderwood, vol. ii,, pp. 491, 492. 


f Akin to Burgess Oath of that day. 


976 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


•dois exalte the self against the majestic of our God, and maynteyn and set up the 
trew religion of Christe his word and sacramentis, and alswa assist and defend the 
Irew ministers thereof. And as we be sones of ane father, parttakeris of ane Spirite, 
and heyris of ane kingdome, swa sail we maist hartlie, faythfullie, and trewlie con- 
■cur togidder nocht only in the matteris of religioun, bot sail lykewise at our utter 
poweris, to the waring of our labouris, substance, and ly ves, assist, defend, and mayn- 
teyne every ane ane othir against quhatsomever that troubles, persewes, or invades 
us or ony ane of us in our lyves, landis, gudeis, heretageis, ofhcis, benefices, pensiones, 
or uthir thinges quhatsumever, presently in our possessiones, or quhilkis justlie we 
possessit at the beginning of thir present troublis for the religioun, or ony uther causis 
pretendit upon religioun, or persewit under pretence of the samyne. And for ob- 
serving of the premisses, we bind and oblis ourselfis in the presence of our God, 
and of his sone Jesus Christe, calling for the Holy Spirite to strength us to perform 
ithe samyne. At Edinburgh, the xiii of Julii, the yeir of God i^vc fiftye-nine yeirs. 
Quhilk band we approve in all pointtis, and adjoynis ourselfis for mutuall defence 
'to the haill adheraris thereto.” 

4. Those found in old ecclesiastical records published in whole or in part by the 
'iBannatyne, Maitland, Abbotsford, and Spalding Clubs, and chiefly required to be 
subscribed or assented to by persons coming over from the Popish to the Reformed 
'Church, and especially by those desiring to be admitted to the ministry, or to make 
such confession of the Reformed Faith and adherence to the Reformed Church as 
■would entitle them, though not acting as ministers, to retain their benefices, and to 
■claim the benefit of the proviso attached to the First Book of Discipline by the 
noblemen who subscribed it. One of the most detailed of these, probably read in 
the presence of Knox himself at St. Andrews, is given in Principal Lee’s “ Lectures 
on the History of the Church of Scotland,” vol. i. p. 107. A shorter one, also used 
at St. Andrews, is subjoined. Its close resemblance to that given alongside, from 
the closing sentences of the “ Professio Fidei ” of the Church of the Foreigners at 
Frankfort, will be at once apparent. 


Insuper Papae, tanquam Antichristo 
Romano, renuncio ac doctrinae ipsius et 
'religion! universae, nominatim de tran- 
substantiatione panis in Eucharistia, de 
Sanctorum invocatione, fiducia justiciae 
propriae operum seu alterius cujuscunque 
<iuam Christi, libero arbitrio, purgatorio 
ctsatisfactione ulla propeccatis alia prae- 
ter Christi sanguinem, ac denique de 
Omni cultura imaginum et caeteris ejus- 
modi inventis humanis, quaecunque ip- 
sius religione et doctrina continentur.” 


“ Item, we hartlie renunce the Pape, 
quhae is the verray Antichriste and sup- 
pressour of Godis glorie, with all dia- 
bolic inventioneis, as be IPurgatorie, the 
Mess, Invocatioun of Sanctis, and prayaris 
to them, worschipping of images, pray- 
eris in strange language, and multiplying 
of them to certain numer, and all cere- 
monies usit in papistrie, as be hallowing 
of candellis, watter, salt, and bread, with 
all their conjurations: And finalie, all 
authoritie as weil of the wicked Paip as 
utheris that supresis Goddis law and 
stoppis his word and planelie maynteynis 
Idolaters and Idolatrie, with all laws and 
traditiones, inventionis of men, made to 
bind and thrall mennis consciences ; and 
promiseis in tyme coming to assist in 
word and wark with unfenyeit mynde 
this congregatioune efter our powar, and 
never to contaminate ourselfis with the 
forsaidis idolatrie and superstitiones ne- 
ther for profit nor feer.” See “ Miscel- 
lany of Maitland Club,” vol. iii. p. 217. 


5. The following sentences of the Second Confession of Faith or National Cove- 
nant, so largely signed in 1581, 1590, 1596 and again in 1638, and onwards till 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. ' 

fhe Covenanting period, and which from 1581 appears* to have 

gaSed^s both^ TTT"- must be re- 

fession Zt a profession of faith and a formula of adherence to the larger Con- 
fession therein referred to, and they had the sanction of the Assembly. ^ 

US, . . . believe with our hearts, confess with our 
mouths subscrive with our hands, and constantlie affirme before God and the whole 

Zll; pleasing Gorand 

bringing salvation to man, which is now, by the mercie of God, revealed to the 

flnded^L blessed Evangell, and is receaved, beleeved, and de- 

^ notable kirks and realmes, but cheefelie by the Kirk 

Truthe nnd r’n^ V this realme, as God’s eternall 

ZlZ • ^ ^ more particularlie is expressed in the 

of our faith stablished and public t lie confirmed by sindrie Acts of Parlia- 

Ind whnf r;!'- ? u professed by the King’s Majestie 

and whole bodie of this realm, both in burgh and land. To the whicLonfessioun 

Ajrwj of reltgioun we wtlbnglie agree in our consciences IN ALL POINTS, unto 
Uod s undoubted truthe and veritie grounded onlie upon his written word. . . . this 
true reformed Kirk; to the which toe join ourselves willinglie in doctrine, faith, reli- 
gion^ discipline, and use of the holy sacraments, as lively members of the same 
promising and swearing by the great name of the Lord our GOD ‘that we shall con- 
tinue m the obedience of the doctrine and discipline of this Kirk, and shall defend 
the same . . . all the days of our lives.” 


This profession of faith and formula of adherence to the older Scottish Confession 
certainly continued to be used in the case of ministers and -elders, as well as of ordi- 
tuembers of the Church, th^pugh the whole of the Covenanting times. After 
1043 fhe Solemn League and Covenant was also subscribed, and, as it contained in 
gremio a resolution to aim at the nearest possible conjunction of the Churches of the 
three kingdoms in one Confession of Faith, etc., subscription to it, after that Con- 
fession was completed and accepted, may have been legitimately held, as Wodrow 
argues, to imply subscription to the new Confession. It is not unlikely, however 
that some special formula of adherence to the Westminster Confession of Faith’ 
besides that implied in subscription to the Solemn League and Covenant, would 
come into use after 1649, though, from the imperfect state of the Church records of 
that time, it may be very difficult now to trace it out. Students, who were only 
bound, by the same Acts, had to make subscriptions at graduation as well as at 
matriculalion. The following was regularly signed by the Masters of Arts in the 
University of St. Andrews from 1654 to 1660 inclusive (the clause enclosed in 
brackets being first inserted in 1656) : — 

“ Nos ingenui juvenes laurea (ut vocant) magisterii jam decorandi quorum nomina 
subsequuntur, ultro, ex aninio et sincere profitemur Christianam religionem reforma- 
tarn prout ea in Ecclesia Scoticana quoad doctrinam, cultum, regimen et disciplinam 
feliciter stabilita est [in utr*que foedere, confessione fidei, et catechesibus ecclesia- 
rum Britannicarum] sancteque promittimus, elevata ad Jehovam Deum celsissimum 
manu, nos in eadem religione, quamdiu vixerimus, Dei gratia perpetuo permansuros. 
Quodsi astutia et fraudibus Satanae, hominumve imposturis aut blanditiis aut ullis 
hostihm minis aut terriculamentis secus evenerit (quod omen Deus pro sua dementia 
-avertat) abjuratae fidei, detestabilis perfidiae, ac perjuriae execrabilis nolam indebilem 
non recusamus.” 

In 1642 the formula ran — “ Nos, etc., profitemur capita religionis Christianae quae 
continentur Confessione Fidei Scoticana adeoque in illam ipsam confessionem in 
nationali synodo Glascuensi anno 1638 explicatam; ” and in 1645 the further clause 
was added, “ Necnon in foedus solemne pro religione et pace in tribus regnis, Scotia, 
Anglia et Hibernia initum,” for which, in 1654) fhe formula above given was sub- 
stituted. Similar formulas were certainly used in the Universities of Glasgow and 


62 


* Calderwood’s “ History," vol. vi., pp. 522, 528. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


^78 

Aberdeen* According to the Westminster Directory for Ordination, a candidate 
presenting a. certificate that he had taken such subscriptions as the above would seem 
to have been admissible to the ministry without formal renewal of them ; but by Act 
XVIII. Parliament 1640, and Act of Assembly 1643, ministers at their admission 
were expressly required to swear and subscribe the Confession of Faith or National 
Covenant, and the presbytery records show that this practice was kept up at St. 
Andrews during the whole of the Covenanting period. Even officers in the army 
appear in 1650 to have been required to express by oath or subscription their adhe- 
rence to the doctrine, government, worship, and discipline of the Church. 

Query III. — How far has individual adherence to these Creeds, by subscription or. 
otherwise, been required from the Ministers, Elders, or other Ojfice-bearers 
respectively, and also from the private Members of the same ? 

Answer. 

The reply to this query has of necessity, to a considerable extent, been already 
anticipated in what has been said in reply to the second. The vaiuous formulas and 
extracts from Confessions there adduced appear to show that from the first the Re- 
formed Church of Scotland deemed herself warranted to require of her ministers 
and other office-bearers, and even of her ordinary members, adherence to her creed 
in more or less definite terms, either by subscription or express verbal assent, or at 
least by tacit acquiescence. With respect to ministers, the case is clear and indis- 
putable. The Scottish Parliaments of 1560 and 1567, which ratified the Confession 
of Faith (No, 3), declared “the ministeris of the blissede Euangel of Jesus Chryst,. 
quhome God of his mercie hes now raisit up amanges us, or heirefter sail raiss, agre- 
ing with thaim that now levis in doctrine and administratioun of the sacramentis,, 
and the people of this realme that professis Jesus Christ as he is now offerit in his 
Evangell, and do communicat with his haly sacramentis, as in the reformit kirkis of 
this realme [they] ar publictlie administrat, according to the Confessioun of the 
Faithe, to be the only trew and haly kirk of Jesus Christ within this realme.” And 
they decerned and declared “ that all and sindrie quha ather gaynesayis the word of 
the Evangell ressauit and apprevit as the heides of the Confessioun of the Faythe, 
professit in Parliament of befoir in the yeir 1560, ... or that refusis the participa- 
tioune of the haly sacramentis as they are now ministrat, to be na membris of the 
saide kirke . . . and trew religioune, sa lang as they keep thame selffis sa devydit 
from the societie of Christis body.” This declaration was re-affirmed in I579> 
again confirmed by the Acts 1581 and I592,f which are regarded as still ratifying 
the constitution and guaranteeing the liberties of the Church. 

In accordance with this, the First Book of Discipline | provides that each min- 
ister before his admission, shall be examined by the ministers and elders “ in all the 
chief points that now be in controversy between us and the Papists, Anabaptists, 
Arians, and other such enemies of the Christian religioun,” and if approved by 
them shall then be sent to the church where he is to serve, that there in open audi- 
ence of the flock, he may in diverse sermons “ give confession of his faith in the- 
article of justification, of the office of Christ Jesus, and of the number, effect, and 
use of the sacraments, and, finally, in the whole religion which heretofore hath been 
corrupted by the PapistsF In Assembly 1562, order was taken that unity of doc- 
trine be retained among ministers; and then was originated that system of annual 
or semi-annual trial — censure, as it was termed — of the doctrine and lives of the 
ministers, which continued in general use at least to the close of the seventeenth 
century. In 1565 the following article, with several others, was presented by the 
Assembly to the Queen: “That none be permitted to have charge of schools, 
colleges, or universities, or yet privately or publicly to instruct the youth, but such 
as shall be tried by the superintendents or visitors of the Church, sound and able in 

* “ Munimenta Universitatis Glascuensis,'' vol. ii., pp. 45, 456; “ Fasti Aberdonenses,” p. 501. 
The National Covenant at least was subscribed in Edinburgh. 

t These Acts are given at length in Peterkin's “ Booke of the Universall Kirk,” and have been, 
recently published in a collected form. 

I Chap. III. g 3, Appendix I. and II. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 97c, 

menU^ 'a “’“charges.” It was also presented to Parlia- 

should be reformed and And coHeges 

thereof in timp r ' ’ none permitted nor admitted to have charge and care 

thf^-:^ -fern: ? 

:• httlrer'leta^'Ihl’tZ' ne*' '1* f“« = 

..., p.ii '.pit, S£t“ *« 

A ^ ® time, and apparently also at the desire of the Thnrrti 

and 'he eause of God’s true religion' 

and his Highness authority are so joined that the hurt of the one is common to both’ 

that none shall be reputed as loyal and faithful subjects to the Vng 
who shall not give their confession and make their profession of the said truf 
religion ; and that all such as make profession thereof, and yet have made defec 
tion from their due obedience to our Sovereign Lord, shall L admonished bv the 

nicalecT-^r^d^LV'^^ 'herein, shall be excommu- 

nicated, and that always, before such as have made defection be received to our 

Sovereign Loin’s mercy they shall confession of their faith o 7 nL W 

promise to continue in the confession of the true religion in time Liing ” ’ 

The words of new ’ are important. They seem to show that sifch confession 
Ghn rV,^ 'he first time of those who belonged to the Reformed 

Church, and encourage the supposition that what, according to the English Ambas- 
sador, was done in 1561 in Edinburgh on occasion of the dispensation^of the com 
munion, was at that time not an unusual practice. “The communion was mynes- 

> I assure your honour with great decencie andverie 
good order There were none admitted but suche as made open protestation 
of their belief examined and admitted by the mynesteres and deacons to- 
the number of xiiic and odd.”^ This was but a natural result of the practice 
originated by the signature of the “godly bands” already referred to: and it is 
enjoined by the directions of the First Book of Discipline that, once a year at least 
every master and mistress of a household come themselves and their family, so niany' 
of maturity, before the minister and the elders, and give coL 
of their faith. The meetings, which, in accordance with this injunction 
appear to have been pretty regularly held before the administration of the com- 
munion even down to the Covenanting times, were not for examination as to mere 
knowledge but also for profession|| of faith, so far at least as the chief articles of the 
R^fomed doctrine were concerned,^ whether express acknowledgment of the Con- 

* It was under it also that Ninian Dalziell was deprived of his office as tnastpr nf r 

of Dumfries by the General Assembly of 1579— Peterkin’s “ Booke of the Uffiversall^Kirk^* 
^■4. ^''on under the Act of 1560 recusant teachers had been deprived ’ 

t“ Booke of the Umversall Kirk,” p. 84. 

Aot.IV. Pari. 1572; Thomson’s “Acts,” vol. iii. p. 72 
^“Knox’s Works,” vol. vi. p. 122 ^ ' 

recitare verba catechismi.— 

o JL; r.k P and commandments, the use and office of the same the chief 


980 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


fession of 1560 were required or no.* * The propriety of requiring such a profession is 
maintained by Calderwood in a remarkable passage of his “Altare Damascenum,” 
where after combating the Anglican interpretation of Hebrews vi. i, etc., he says 
“Admitto jam interpretationem istam tertiam . . . et tamen dico non favere Ponti- 
ficiae aut Anglicanae Confirmationi sed potius Eclesiis Reformats illis, quae ad reni 
ipsam propius accedunt nempe neminem admittentes extraneum in gremium Ecclesiae 
aut ad sacram Coenam, absque fidei professione solenni, examinatione, foederis pac- 
tione, et precibus Ecclesiae, et ubi quid desideratur restitui optamus.” — Page 353, 

ed. 1623. . 

So much for these particular words of the Act of Parliament. The Act, as a 
whole, is more important still, as in the first Assembly held thereafter (March, 
1572-3) superintendents and commissioners were instructed to put it in execution 
against all Papists within their provinces if, within eight days after admonition, they 
did not subscribe and give thetr oath according to the Act. In the Assembly held in 
March, 1574-5, bishops, superintendents and ministers, in all parts were instructed 
to admonish such as were Papists, and had, since the Act of Parliament was passed, 
made confession of their faith, and yet had not participated in the Lord’s Supper, 
that they should participate in the sacrament with the rest of the congregation, under 
pain of being held as relapsed and excommunicated. Proceedings under the Act 
were also taken in various subsequent Assemblies in I 57 ^> I 579 > 
time when the King’s Confession was issued, and commandment given to the minis- 
ters to proceed against all who would not acknowledge and subscribe the same. 
This, as has been explained at page 3, the Assemblies of 1581 enjoined to be done 
without delay, and after that year subscription to it was frequently renewed in par- 
ticular districts, as well as more generally throughout the land. 

The evidence that the first Act, dealing with those who had been or should be 
admitted to ecclesiastical benefices, was carried out not only in the case of Papists, 
who till then had been allowed to remain in quiet possession of two-thirds of the 
produce of their benefices, but also in the case of the ministers of the Reformed 
Church preferred to benefices from the time of its passing, is almost quite as strong. 
It had been asked for by the Church. It, as well as the other, was founded on by 
her in that claim and charter of rights — the enlarged National Covenant of 1638. 
As already stated, the subscription it required was given by ministers at their admis- 
sion almost from the time it passed.f In the oldest collection of ecclesiastical forms 
and styles, we find that the form provided for admission and collation of a minister 
expressly narrates, J that confession of his faith had been received, as well as his oath 
for acknowledging of our Sovereign Lord’s authority, both of which were required 
by the said Act, and the latter by it alone. Both are directed to be required in the 
oldest forms of presentation extant after 1572.^ 

The history from the issuing of the King’s Confession has been fully given under 
the answers to former queries, and appears unquestionably to warrant the conclu- 
sion that from that time onwards to our own day, the ministers of the Church have 
been required by subscription to testify their individual adherence to her creed, in 
terms more or less definite. 

The case of the elders from the first seems to be determined by the fact that they 
were required to be men of “ best knowledge in God’s word and cleanest life;” 
that they, as well as the ministers, were subject to privy censure in doctrine as well 
as life; and that they were required to “take heed to” the doctrine as well as the 
life of their pastor. From 1581, they, as well as ordinary church members, had to 
sign the Second Confession of Faith, which implied also assent to the First and 
larger Confession. The Westminster Assembly desired that they be “ men of good 


knowledge whereof neither any man deserves to be called a Christian neither ought any to be admitted 
to the participation of the Lord’s Table.” — Ch. vii. “ First Book of Discipline.” 

* The Covenant had, by Act, 1648, to be taken before first communion. 

t “ We have already acknowledged his Majesty’s authority, by subscription to the King’s Confes- 
sion on our admission to the ministry.” — “ Calderwood’s History,” vol. iv. p. 528; vi. pp. 522, 528. 
X “ Miscellany of Wodrow Society,” p. 530. 

I “ Principal Lee’s History,” vol. ii. p. 386. 


981 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

understanding in matters of xQ\\g\ox\., sound in the faith.'' In 1690 and 1700 sub- 
scription was more explicitly required of them, and ever since it has continued ’to be 
so, though the formula to which their assent is given was left unchanged in 1711 
when that for ministers and probationers was made more strict. ' 

The case as to ordinary members of the Church may not be deemed by some* * * § 
(deservedly held in high esteem) so clear, nor early practice regarding it so uni- 
ormly consistent; yet evidence that such adherence was required in a general way 
even from them, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is by no means 
scanty, now that the publications of various Antiquarian and Historical Clubs have 
made us more fully acquainted with those times. Several of the early Acts of Par- 
liament and Assembly include them ; so does the National Covenant, Such adhe- 
rence h^ad been demanded of the members of the churches at Frankfort and Geneva, 
with which Knox was associated! when on the Continent, though waived by him on 
one occasion. It was demanded of the ordinary members of the Church of Geneva 
over which Calvin presided.^ It was demanded in the Church of the Foreigners in 
London, whose usages were so largely adopted by our Reformer. It was demanded 
also of the ordinary members of the Dutchg and French|| Churches, with which the 
Church of Scotland long maintained friendly intercourse. It was demanded in the 
Directory of Cartwright,^ which was largely founded on the teaching of Knox and 
Calvin. In the Church of Basle the Confession was read over annually before the 
congregation, at the ante-communion service on the day before Maundy-Thursday, 
and the people reminded of their oath to abide by it.** ' 

The earlier Confessions above referred to are all in fact, as has been already men- 
tioned, confessions of the body of church members. And from the injunction of one 
of them, “ Ne quis suffragium ferat nisi qui fidem antea sit professus,” and the Acts 
of 1560 on to those of the Covenanting Assemblies and Parliaments, ordaining, 
“under pain of censure, that all the masters of universities, colleges, and schools, all 
scholars at the passing of their degrees, all persons suspect of Papistry or any other 
error, and finally, all the members of this kirk and kingdom subscribe," the obliga- 
tion lay on them as. well as on the office-bearers. Even down to the stern Acts of 
the post-Revolution Assemblies in 1696 and 1710, applying not only to ministers, 
but also to “ other members of the Church,” and the Act of 1711, requiring converts 
from Popery to sign the Confession of Faith as the confession of their faith, the 
course of ecclesiastical legislation seems to have tended in the same direction. ff 
Probably the earliest Act formally relaxing the old usage was that passed in 1711.!! 


♦Dunlop, a distinguished ornament of the Church, in 1719 maintained that only office-bearers 
were by express Acts bound to the Confession. But great objection was taken to his able preface to 
the Confession by many of his brethren, who differed from him in the matter; and he himself admits 
that the practice in his day was as it is stated on p. 19. Only a few years before, the Presbytery of 
Elgin and Synod of Moray had made it matter of charge against one of their number that he did not, 
in administering baptism, “ mention the Confession of Faith publicly in his church.” 

f See what is said before of their Confessions, pp. 2, 3, 8, 10. 

X Their Confession is given, and the circumstances attending the making it described in the new 
edition of “ Calvin's Works,” vol. v., pp. xlii., and 357, 358. 

§ “ Form of Church Government in the Low Countries,” p. 15. 

II Quick’s “ Synodicon,” vol. i., p. xxxv.. Canon xxxi. 

! Lorimer’s edition of “ Directory of Church Government of Elizabethan Presbyterians.” 

** Hagenbach’s “ Geschichte der ersten Easier Confession,” p. 52. 

tfFrom the “Annals and Statistics of the United Presbyterian Church,” it appears that if not 
from the Covenanting times, at least from the beginning of the eighteenth century, there was a regu- 
lar organization of praying societies in various districts of the country. The rules of the St. An- 
drews Society in 1717, as given in the “ Original Secession Magazine ” for January, 1879, show 
that the members were required individually to “ own the true Christian religion reformed and 
founded upon the word of God, and summed up in our Confession and Catechism.” 

Act XL, Assembly 1706, recommends “ to the several ministers within this National Church to. 
take as strict trial as can be of such as they admit to the Lord’s Supper, especially before their first 
admission thereto, and that they diligently instruct them particularly as to the Covenant of Grace 
and the nature and ends of that ordinance as a seal thereof, and charge upon their consciences the 
obligations they lie under from their baptismal covenant, and seriously exhort them to renew the 
same.” Various Acts of Assembly recommend punctual observance of the practice of preaching 
catechetical doctrine, that the people may be well instructed in the principles of our holy religion, 
and Act VIIL, Assembly 1720, directs “that in these their catechetical sermons they more espe- 
cially insist upon the great and fundamental truths according to our Confession of Faith and Cate- 
chisms, such as that of the Being and Providence of God and the divine authority of the Holy Scrip- 


982 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


It earnestly recommended to ministers that those educated in other Protestant 
churches, who had come to reside in this country, and desired to join in communion 
with this Church, should be tenderly dealt with, and expressly allowed them to re- 
ceive sealing ordinances for themselves and their children on their professing their 
faith in Christ and obedience to him, and engaging to bring up their children in the 
fear of God and in the knowledge of the principles of the Protestant religion. The 
]>ractice from the middle of the seventeenth century seems almost as explicitly to 
have connected the profession of faith with the administration of Baptism as with 
admission to the Lord’s Supper, although the Westminster Confession of Faith and 
Directory for the administration of Baptism would hardly seem to us to warrant 
this.* * The General Assembly of 1649 had ordained ministers and kirk-sessions to 
take course ” that in every house where there is one that can read, there be at 
least one copy of the Shorter and Larger Catechisms, the Confession of Faith, and 
Directory for Family Worship ; and possiblyf it was in connection with this Act that 
the practice grew up of requiring of parents, when they received baptism for their 
children, to assent in some form or other to the Catechisms and Confession of Faith, 
and even to the Covenants. Renwick charged it as a defection of his indulged 
brethren that they had forborne to name the Covenants in the engagements they re- 
quired of parents on such occasions, and the Episcopal ministers say that naming 
them or the Confession was one main distinction between them and Presbyterians.^ 
This practice in the early part of the last century came to be more or less gener- 
ally exchanged for the milder form which continued in use to our own times — 
requiring assent to the doctrines contained in the Word of God, an excellent sum- 
mary of which, the minister was careful to add, may be found in the Confession of 
Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms of the Church. As late, however, as 
1802, in the “Scotch Minister’s Assistant,” printed at Inverness, the following 
stronger form of interrogatory is the only one given : “ Do you believe the Scriptures 
of the Old and New Testaments contain the mind and will of God, and that the 
Confession and Catechisms of this national Church are agreeable to and founded 
upon the Holy Scriptures, and are you sincerely desirous that your child should be 
baptized in this faith?” Both these forms have now fallen intb desuetude. 

In 1869 the following overture was laid before the General Assembly: — 
“ Whereas it is desirable that members of the Church, when called upon to make 
professions of faith, and to come under solemn obligations, as in the case of parents 
acting as sponsors in the sacrament of Baptism, should know beforehand what pro- 
fessions and promises are to be exacted from them, and also that there should be, as 
far as possible, uniformity in such matters throughout the Church, it is humbly over- 
tured to the Venerable the General Assembly to take this matter into consideration. 


tures, the necessary doctrine of the ever-blessed Trinity in the Unity of the Godhead, particularly 
of the eternal deity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the satisfaction to divine justice 
made by him who is our only propitiation, of regeneration by efficacious grace, of free justification 
through our blessed Surety, the Lord Jesus Christ received by faith alone, and of the necessity of a 
holy life.” 

*But in the National Covenant or Confession, which was then equally authoritative with the new 
standards, they had a very strict definition of what was “ the only true Christian fkith and religion 
and in the Form for the administration of Baptism, which had been long current among them they 
had both a Creed and an authoritative exposition of it. ’ 

t Or possibly when, at the request of the Scottish General Assembly, the Westminster Divines 
and the English Parliament agreed (see Minutes of Houses of Commons and Lords for 5th March 
1644-5) to strike out of the Westminster Directory the three interrogatories it had originally con- 
tained, they were entitled, if not bound, under their Act of 1645 regarding the Directory for Public 
Worship, to revert to the usage sanctioned by old Acts of Assembly, and especially the Act of As- 
seinbly 1602, whereby only parents who gave “a Christian confession of their faith” were to have 
their children baptized. This Act, at the time it was passed, was probably interpreted as meanin^r 
nothing more than compliance with the requirements of the Book of Common Order. But by 1630 
me Christian confession referred to in the Act came naturally to be identified with that particular 
Confession and Covenant which it was then imperative on all members of the Church to subscribe 
as after the Revolution it naturally was with that one which was then “ the public and avowed Con- 
fession” of the Church. Even in England brief articles were adopted in 1648, ignorance of which 
excluded from communion. 

t Crookshank's “ History of the Church of Scotland,” vol. ii., p. 410, Preface to “Case of Suffer 
tng Church of Scotland,” and other contemporary pamphlets. 


9^3 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


and, if they see fit, to refer it to the Committee on Aids to Devotion, with instruc- 
tions to report to next General Assembly.” The overture, as desired, was referred 
to the Committee on Aids to Devotion, of which the late Dr. Crawford was Con- 
vener, and on a report pesented by that Committee, the Assembly of 1870 earnestly 
recommended all ministers to frame their baptismal addresses and exhortations 
according to the method set forth in the “ Directory for the Public Worship of 
God,” “ and enjoined them to confine the exercise of their discretion in exacting 
baptismal professions within those just and reasonable limits which the Directory pre- 
scribes. The General Assembly further “ instructed the Committee to renew con- 
sideration of the subject with reference to cases of adult as well as infant baptism; 
and also to prepare a form consistently with the rules in the Directory in which the 
professions and engagements of Christian parents may be expressed, and to submit 
such form to the consideration of next General Assembly.” 

In obedience to these instructions, the Committee prepared and reported to the 
Assembly of 1871 two forms of address to Christian parents when presenting their 
children for baptism, and one form of address to an adult desiring to be baptized. 
The Assembly,, without pronouncing any opinion on these forms, appointed a 
copy of the report containing them to be sent to every minister of the Church. The 
following are the portions of the addresses which have reference to doctrines to be 
believed : 

I. “ In presenting this child for baptism, you declare your faith in the only living 
and true God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in whose name he is to be baptized ; 
you confess the fallen and sinful condition in which he and all flesh are born into 
the world, and testify your desire that he should be saved from it by the purifying 
virtue of the blood and spirit of Christ : you bring him to be solemnly received into 
the visible Church, trusting that he may be savingly engrafted into Christ, made par- 
taker of all the benefits of the covenant of grace, and finally received into the 
Church of the redeemed in heaven : and you acknowledge the obligation thereby 
laid upon him to renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil, and to yield himself 
up to the service of his God and Saviour.” 

II. “So soon as this child shall be able to receive instruction, it will be your 
duty to teach him the doctrines of that holy faith into which he is now to be baptized, 
whereof ‘ a brief sum, agreeable to the Word of God, and anciently received in the 
•Churches of Christ,’ is set forth in the Creed, wherein we say, ‘ I believe in God, 
the Father Almighty, etc.’ 

“ Is this the faith wherein you believe, and will instruct this child ? ” 

III. Forasmuch, then, as you are desirous of receiving this holy Sacrament, it is 
necessary that you sincerely give answer before God and His Church to the questions 
I have now to ask. 

“ Do you heartily receive the doctrines of that holy faith into which you are to be 
baptized, of which a brief sum, agreeable to the Word of God, and anciently 
received in the Churches of Christ, is set forth in the Creed, wherein we say, ‘ I 
believe in God, the Father Almighty, etc. ? ’ 

“ These articles of the Christian religion, and the whole doctrine of the Word of 
God, contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, you believe, and 
in this faith you desire to be baptized. Do you not ? 

“ Do you receive and rest on Christ alone for salvation as He is offered to you in 
the Gospel ; and is it your earnest desire to be washed, and justified, and sanctified 
in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God ? 

“ Do you, with heartfelt sorrow for your sins, renounce the devil, the world, and 
the flesh, and giving yourself up entirely to the Lord, do you promise, in humble 
dependence on His grace, to honour and serve Him all the days of your life ? ” 

Since the Revolution, no Act of the Legislature has imposed subscription * of 

*In 1695, however, the Scottish Parliament enacted, “that whosoever hereafter shall, in their 
writing or discourse, deny, impugn or quarrel, argue or reason against the being of God or any of 
the persons of the blessed Trinity, or the authority of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New 
Testaments, or the providence of God in the government of the world, shall for the first fault be 
punished with imprisonment, ay and until they give public satisfaction in sackcloth to the congrega- 
tion within which the scandal was committed.” 


984 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


the Confession on any individually, save on ministers, preachers, professors, and 
teachers. And probably, save in the early years of the eighteenth century, the 
Church did not mean more by her Acts as to others * than to require a general ad- 
herence to her creeds — “ the heads,” as they are termed in the Act of 1560, “of 
the Confession of Faith,” or, as in Act 17 ii, “the principles of the Protestant 
religion,” — a profession in accordance with her teaching up to the measure of the 
candidate’s knowledge, and an honest “ minting ” after further attainments. She 
never failed to distinguish between defiant contradictors and those able to yield only 
a general or partial assent, but willing to abide in her communion, wait on her 
teaching, and seek from God further light and guidance. She had, in her First 
Book of Discipline, defined heresy to mean pernicious doctrine plainly taught and 
obstinately defended against the foundations and principles of our faith. Her rep- 
resentatives at Westminster had assented to the statement, “ Such errors as subvert 
the faith, or any other errors which overthrow the power of godliness, if the party, 
who holds them spread them . . . those being publicly known to the just scandal 
of the Church, the sentence of excommunication shall proceed.” “ But the persons 
who hold other errors in judgment about points wherein learned and godly men 
possibly may and do differ . . . we do not decern to be such against whom the 
sentence of excommunication for these causes should be denounced.” f And while, 
no doubt, she would have indorsed the affirmation of these Commissioners : “ For 
us, as upon the one part we not only conceive that no man attaineth to [so] full 
assurance of faith in any matter of religion but he may receive increase of his faith,, 
and therefore should always have his mind open and ready to receive more light 
from the Word and Spirit of God . . . yet God forbid that we should never come 
to any certainty of persuasion, or that we should ever be learning and never come 
to the knowledge of the truth; we ought to be resolute and immoveable in so far as. 
we have attained ; and this we take to be the ground, as of other practices, so also of 
covenants and oaths, both assertory and promissory, in matters of religion.” j; Yet not 
a few of her best defenders would probably, then as now, have acquiesced in the- 
conclusion of Rutherford, “ Because Confessions are to be believed in so far as they 
are agreeable to God’s Word, and lay upon us an obligation secondary only, yet are 
they not so loose as that we may leap from points of faith and make the doctrine of 
faith arena gladiaioria, a fencing field for gamesters and fencers. The material 
object of our faith ; and the primary ground and foundation thereof, may be very 
well, and is, God’s Word; secondary is preaching, confessions, creeds, symbols 
which are not serie et ordine scripturae ; and yet have we certainty of divine faith 
in these things, because the formal object is, because God so saith in His Scripture, 
and we believe these with certainty of divine faith, under this reduplication, because 
the Lord hath spoken these quoad sensum in true meaning, though not in ilia serie- 
et ordine'^ \ 


* In the very next year, the General Assembly passed their Act “ against the atheistical opinions 
of the Deists, and for establishing the Confession of Faith,” wherein they enjoin ministers, when- 
occasion calls, “ to detect the abominableness of the tenets of those men, such as the denying of 
all revealed religion and the grand mysteries of the Gospel, viz., the doctrine of the Trinity, the 
incarnation of the Messiah, His satisfaction to justice, salvation through Him, justification by His 
imputed righteousness to them who believe on His name, the resurrection of the dead, and, in a 
word, the certainty and authority of Scripture revelation,” and require ministers to “ deal seriously 
with the seduced and such as are mostly in hazard to be perverted, but especially with seducers and 
impostors, that, after sufficient instruction and admonition, these be proceeded against, as scanda- 
lous and heretical apostates used to be ; and in 'general the Assembly’doth discharge all ministers 
and other members of this Church to publish or vent, either by speaking, writing, printing, teaching 
or preaching, any doctrine, tenet, or opinion, contrary unto or inconsistent with the Confession of 
Faith of this Church, or any article, part or proposition therein, and appoint that all such as con- 
travene this Act, or any part thereof, be censured by the Church according to their demerit.” 

t Directory for Church Government and Excommunication, drawn up by the Westminster 
Assembly. 

1 “ Reformation of Church Government in Scotland cleared,” etc., by Commissioners of the; 
General Assembly of Church of Scotland now in London, p. 5. 

2 Rutherford's “ Due Right of Presbyteries,” p. 139. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 




No. II. FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 

existuig Creeds or Confessions of this Church ? and %v hat 

ind th7Vf (^onRssions, with any modifications of these, 

and the dates and occasions of the same, from the Reformation to the present day ? 

Confession of the Free Church of Scot- 
land IS the Confessi^on of Faith agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines sitting at 
J^estminster, with the assistance of Commissioners from the Kirk of Scotland^”* 

bl es orthifrh l!.'' adherence as “ approven by former General Assem- 

i I'eference in these words being in accordance with the 

As.Lh^v of Scotland, especially to the 

Assembly of 1647, which expressly approved the Confession, and to those of 164S 
and 1649 which virtually repeated that approval. The Act of Assembly of 27th 
August, 1647, accepted the Confession only with certain express declarations and 
provisions; and the Act of the Free Church Assembly of ist June, 1846, when 
amending the formula of adherence, also makes a declaration as to the Church’s- 
un^derstanding of certain parts of the Confession. The existing Creed of the Free 
declarations therefore the Westminster Confession under the following 


1647. But lest our intention and meaning be in some particulars misunderstood, 
^ejeby expressly declared and provided. That the not mentioning in this. 
Confession the several sorts of ecclesiastical officers and assemblies shall be no 
^ejudice to the truth of Christ in these particulars, to be expressed fully in the 
Directory of Government. It is further declared. That the Assembly understandeth 
some parts of the second article of the thirty-one chapter, only of kirks not settled 
or constituted in point of government ; And that although, in such kirks, a synod 
of ministers and other fit persons may be called by the Magistrate’s authority and- 
nomination, without any other call, to consult and advise with, about matters of 
religion; and although likewise the Ministers of Christ, without delegation from 
their churches, may of themselves, and by virtue of their office, meet togethei? 
synodically in such kirks not yet constituted, yet neither of these ought to be done 
in kirks constituted and settled; it being always free to the Magistrate to advise 
with synods of ministers and ruling elders, meeting upon delegation from their 
Churches, either ordinarily or being indicted by his authority, occasionally and pro 
re nata ; it being also free to assemble together synodically, as well as pro re nata 
as at the ordinary times, upon delegation from the churches by the intrinsical power 
received from Christ, as often as it is necessary for the good of the Church so 
to assemble, in case the Magistrate, to the detriment of the Church, withhold or 
deny his consent ; the necessity of occasional assemblies being first remonstrate 
unto him by humble supplication.” 

1846. “And the General Assembly, in passing this act, think it right to declare that 
while the Church firmly maintains the same scriptural principles as to the duties 
of nations and their rulers in reference to true religion, and the Church of Christ,, 
for which she has hitherto contended, she disclaims intolerant or persecuting 
principles, and does not regard her Confession of Faith, or any portion thereof,, 
when fairly interpreted, as favoring intolerance or persecution, or consider that 
her office-bearers, by subscribing it, profess any principles inconsistent with liberty 
of conscience and the right of private judgment.” 

The authority of these declarations, as interpreting the formula of adherence to the 
Confession of Faith in the Free Church of Scotland, is confirmed by the express 
recognition of them in the Act of Union with the Reformed Presbyterian Church, 
25th May, 1876. 

(A) The only previous Creed of this Church since the Reformation was “ the Con- 
fession of the Faith and Doctrine believed and professed by the Protestants of the 
Realm of Scotland” [Confessio Scoticand), adopted by the Church, and ratified by 
the Estates of the kingdom in 1 560. It continued to be the Creed of the Church 


* This is the title by which it is designated in the Act of Assembly, 1647. That prefixed to the. 
authorized editions of it begins as above, but is fuller. 


986 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


>of Scotland till 27th August, 1647, when, as before mentioned, the Westminster 
Confession was adopted as “ most agreeable to the Word of God, and in nothing 
contrary to the received doctrine, worship, discipline and government of this Kirk.” 
There does not appear to have been any “ modification ” of this Creed in the sense of 
•the question put to the Committee. The National Covenant of 1580 is indeed called, 
by an alternative title, “ the Confession of Faith of the Kirk of Scotland ; ” ^ but it only 
contains a positive adherence to the “ faith and religion ” expressed in the “ Con- 
fession of our Faith” of 1560, and then goes on to protest negatively against certain 
errors opposed thereto. These Confessions alone were in the strict sense of the term 
adopted by the Church as its own’; but several others, which are mentioned in the 
answers to this question in regard to the Established Church of Scotland, were 
approved for various purposes at different dates. Further, the National Covenant 
and Solemn League and Covenant are not in the proper sense Creeds or Confessions 
-of Faith, and have not been regarded as such by either of the two bodies whose 
union in 1876 makes up the existing Free Church of Scotland. The view of the 
Free Church before that union on this subject, and as to its standards generally, is 
given in the Act and Declaration of the General Assemby, 21st May, 1851, prefixed 
'by authority of that Assembly to “ a volume containing the Subordinate Standards 
and other authoritative documents of this Church ; ” and the said Act is referred to 
as part of this report. The Reformed Presbyterian Church, which united with the 
Free Church in 1876, the united body taking the name of the latter, has, ever since 
its separation from the Established Church in 1690, held the Westminster Confession 
and Larger and Shorter Catechisms, but only as accepted by the Church of Scotland 
in 1647, the same are received and approved by the Reformed Presbyterian 

Church in its authorized Testimony, to be the only creed or proper Confession of 
Faith of the Church ; though it has given the greatest weight to the Covenants and 
other Testimonies issued by the Church of Scotland and by itself while in a condi- 
tion of separation. The doctrinal part of the Reformed Presbyterian Church’s Testi- 
mony, adopted by its Synod, 15th May, 1837, contains the following statement 
i(chap. XV., end) : “ The Reformed Presbyterian Church has been organized on an 
adherence to the principlss of the Protestant Presbyterian Covenanted Church of 
Scotland. These principles have been exhibited in the Covenants, Westminster Con- 
fession, Catechisms, the form of Presbyterian Church Government, the Directory for 
Worship, and in the Testimonies of the Martyrs ; and we believe them to be substan 
’tially founded on the Bible. When we specify these writings, we are not pledged to 
defend every sentiment or expression to be found in them. We have given a dec- 
laration of the scriptural principles to which we adhere. And while we have 
endeavored to give the reason of our faith from the Holy Scriptures, we cheerfully 
refer to the Testimonies of the Church of Scotland, in proof that these principles 
have been embraced by her, and of our approbation of her zeal and fidelity.” And 
lin the historical part of the Testimony published in 1839, there is the following 
explanation of the sense in which the Confession is understood (Period III. 
•chap. 5) : 

“ We shall only add here, that as some have, from ignorance or from more unworthy 
causes, reproached us as holding persecuting principles, we meet the charge with a 
calm but firm denial. We do not indeed exalt conscience to be a rival of the Most 
High, nor recognize those presumptuous claims for it, which tend to abrogate His 
authority. But we distinctly teach that God only is the Lord of conscience ; and 
that to have recourse to a system of pains and penalties, to employ civil coercion of 
any kind, for the purpose of inducing men to renounce an erroneous creed, or to 
espouse and profess a sound scriptural one, is incompatible with the nature of true 
religion, and must ever prove ineffectual in practice.” 

Then follows an explanation of two passages in the Confession of Faith (Chap. 
XX. sect. 4, and Chap, xxiii. sect. 3), which have been supposed to teach persecuting 
principles. 


* This is its most proper title until 1638, when it was signed with additions, which gave it more dis- 
tinctly the form of a Covenant. It is also known ;by the names of the King’s Confession and the 
-Negative Confession. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 987 

Presbyterian Church was published 

term of ministerial and'ph document was thenceforward required as a 

term oi ministerial and Christian communion in the Church • not however as a Creed 

the Westminster Confession, but "ra testbiony ex^ 
principfes'^of thf Churrh"^ recommending its principles * A new exhibition of the 
an^in 18.0 nf was made by the adoption, in 1837, of the Doctrinal part, 

that time Historical part of the Testimony in a form deemed suitable to 

^'^bI^l}he 7 rZtlr/ formulas of subscription, if any, and what have 

the^FrM^ChurrT&q^i'i® of adherence to the Confession used in 

tions Scotland consists of satisfactory answers to the following ques- 

(i.) For Elders and Deacons. 

of God°anTthe O T Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word 
OI ijrod, and the only rule of faith and manners ? 

sincerely own and declare the Confession of Faith, approven by former 
own thi confession of your fa^ith; and^^you 

aXre to^r contained to be the true doctrine, which you will constantly 

(ii.) For Probationers. 

I. Same as under (i.), 

sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine of the Confession of 
r od^rn General Assemblies of this Church, to be the truths of 

S d" h Old and New Testaments; and do you own 

the whole doctrine therein contained as the confession of your faith ? 

(ill.) For Ministers. ■' 

I. Same as under (i.). 

own and believe the whole doctrine contained in the Confes- 
L w ’d Assemblies of this Church, to be founded 

3r acknowledge the same as the confession of 

your taith, and will you firmly and constantly adhere thereto, and to the utmost of 
your power assert, maintain, and defend the same, and the purity of worship as 
presently practised in this Church ? ^ 

3. Do you disowii all Popish, Arian, Socinian, Arminian, Erastian,t and other 
doctrines, tenets, and opinions whatsoever, contrary to and inconsistent with the 
aforesaid Confession of haith? 

Followed by subscription of the following formula, which is the same for all : 

hereby declare that I do sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine 
contained in the Confession of Faith, approven by former General Assemblies of 
this Church, to be the truths of God, and I do own the same as the confession of 
my faith; as hkewise I do own the purity of worship presently authorized and prac- 
tised m the Church of Scotland, and also the Presbyterian government and 
discipline thereof; which doctrine, worship, and Church government, I am per- 
suaded, are founded on the Word of God, and agreeable thereto : I also approve 
of the general principles respecting the jurisdiction of the Church, and her subjec- 
tion to Chnst as her only Head, which are contained in the Claim of Right and in 
the Protest referred to in the questions already put to me ; and I promise that, 
through the grace of God, I shall firmly and constantly adhere to the same, and to 
the utmost of my power shall in my station, assert, maintain, and defend the said 
doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of this Church, by Kirk-sessions, Pres- 
byteries, Provincial Synods, and General Assemblies, together with the liberty and 

*See Historical part of the Testimony, Period iv. chap. 4, p. 206, ed. 1830 

As substituted for “ Bourignian '' by the Interim Act of 

Assembly 1844, made a standing law of the Church in 1846. 


988 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


exclusive jurisdiction thereof; and that I shall, in my practice, conform myself to 
the said worship, and submit to the said discipline, government, and exclusive juris- 
diction, and not endeavour, directly or indirectly, the prejudice or subversion of the 
same ; and I promise that I shall follow no divisive course from the doctrine, wor- 
ship, discipline, government, and exclusive jurisdiction of this Church, renouncing 
all doctrines, tenets, and opinions whatsoever, contrary to or inconsistent with thje 
said doctrine, worship, discipline, government, or jurisdiction of the same.” 

These forms have been the standing law of the Free Church of Scotland since- 
1846; but the questions were used under Interim Acts of Assembly from 1844,, 
though the formula was first adopted in 1846. 

[b.) As to previous forms, there does not appear to have been anything exactly- 
corresponding to the formula of subscription in connection with the Scottish Confes- 
sion of 1560. As that Confession runs throughout in the first person, “ We con- 
fess, etc., it could be subscribed directly without any explanatory formula;* but 
the National Covenant or Confession of 1580 was the form in which it was usually 
subscribed after that date. Subscription to this,f and afterwards also to the Solemn 
League and Covenant (1643), seems to have been the only prescribed form of ad- 
herence to the Scottish Confession, and to the Westminster Confession from 1647 tii. 
1690. Various forms of subscription were, however, used locally in Universities, 
Presbyteries, etc., without any express law or authority from the Assembly. Ex- 
amples of these are given in the answer to this question in regard to the Established 
Church of Scotland. 

The General Assembly of 1690 required all probationers, elders, and ministers 
“ to subscribe their approbation of the Confession of Faith, approven by former Gen- 
eral Assemblies of this Church, and ratified in the second session of the current 
Parliament;” and the Assembly of 1694 appointed the following formula of sub- 
scription ; — 

“ I, — , do sincerely own and declare the above Confession of Faith, approven by 
foriner General Assemblies of this Church, and ratified by law in the year 1690, to- 
be the confession of my faith ; and that I own the doctrine therein contained to be- 
the true doctrine, which I will constantly adhere to,” etc. See p. 6. 

This continued to be the formula for ministers and probationers till 17 ii, wbem 
the General Assembly appointed the following questions : 

(i.) For Probationers. 

believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the Word 
01 God, and the only rule of faith and manners? 

2. Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine of the Confession of 
Faith, approven by the General Assemblies of this National Church, and ratified by 
law in the year 1690, and frequently confirmed by divers Acts of Parliament since 
^at time, to be the truths of God contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New 
Testament ; and do you own the whole doctrine therein contained to be the confess 
Sion of your faith ? 

(ii.) For Ministers. 

I. Same as i. under (i.). 

• sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine contained in the Confess 

Sion of Faith, approven by the General Assemblies of this National Church, and 
ratified by law in the year 1690, to be founded upon the Word of God ; and do you 
acknowledge the same as the confession of your faith, and will you firmly and con- 
stantly adhere thereto, and to the utmost of your power assert, maintain, and defend 
the same, and the purity of worship as presently practised in this National Church 
and asserted in Act 1 5, Assembly 1707? 

3. Do you disown all Popish, Arian, Socinian, Armenian, Bourignian and otheit 


Antilles ^f^Rdi^on'TrtVe every minister to give his assent and subscribe the 

Articles ot Keligion r. the Scottish Confession, without any mention of a formula. 

t By Act of Assembly, 8th August, 1643, all ministers on their admission were required to subscribe 
the Covenant; and this seems to have been held to reonire akn J .v. c 1 suDscrrbe 

and Covenant aUerwards adopted, which implicitly contained an approval of the Westminster^C^* 
fession as part of the covenanted uniformity.-See Wodrow’s CorreFj^ondenLXl^^ 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 989 

foTelSrcSionrf fS" “"d inconsistent with the 

And the following formula to be subscribed by both 

trine contained Tn^L'^r^T’ ^^^cerely own and believe the whole doc- 

■this NatiS ChTrch by ‘be General Assemblies of 

by div?.^ lets of y'"’' ‘® 9 °’ freqnently confirmed 

.it;: .tils;;;”! 

;s« r'i"i a Tts rarj" “'i" 

Churrhr"‘^ niinisters, also continued in use till that of 1846 was adopted in the Free 

bv^subscriotfonTn previous forms of adherence have been 

bLn exaTd in Fhe r P"blio assent has 

1 .. spurts of the Church on every occasion of licence given to a 

fh™ e orthe Ch«cn‘ q" d “ri",’"'"- Orig^^by 'be questions were similar to 

prSe°/ifthe“oi;:wit"“m:"^ 

•of GotaCthfo^V^u'lfSSranPt^^^^^^ 

Fnfth?Fd 7 “ ®"'‘‘e''ely believe and own the whole doctrine of, the Confession of 
nr w f Shorter Catechisms, agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines 

UerTesTimonv to P T approved by this Church in its author- 

own ^.e elFrr’ r ^ • f°'"'‘led upon and agreeable to the Word of God ; and do you 
•own the said Confession and Catechisms as the confession of your faith ? ^ 


‘Query III .— far has individual adherence to these Creeds, by subscription or 
otherwise, been required from the Ministers, Elders, or other Office-bearers re- 
spectively, and also from the private Members of the same ^ 


Answer HI.— («.) From probationers on receiving licence, and from deacons, 
elders, and ministers, on their admission to their respective offices in any congrega- 
tion, there is required by the Free Church of Scotland an expression of personal 
adherence to the whole doctrine of the Confession of Faith in terms of the formula 
given above, which must be subscribed by them. 

private members it is held as a general principle, that among the 
qualifications nece^ary for their admission is “a confession of faith in accordance 
with the Word of God and the Standards of the Church,” as well as “ a competent 
knowledge of religious truth.”! The various Catechisms that have been at different 
times in use have been intended as means for the instruction and examination of 
applicants for Church membership ;! and since 1648 the Larger and Shorter Cate- 
chisms of the Westminster Assembly have been sanctioned for that purpose and are 
recognized by the Free Church of Scotland in the Act and Declaration of iSu 
But no form of personal adherence to any body of doctrine is required or recom- 
mended to be asked of private members ; and it is left to the discretion of Sessions 
-to judge of the amount of knowledge and profession of faith sufficient in each case 
to warrant admission to the Church. 

{b.) As to the past, individual adherence to the doctrine of the Confession has 
been required of ministers in terms of the various formulas given above • from i6qo 
onwards also of elders; and in the Free Church from 1846, of deacons as well 
hrom 1581 onwards that personal adherence to the Confession that is implied in 


* See Appendix, p. 02, where the doctrinal and other questions in use as far back as tiai arf> nrint^rl 
e t Of Jhv Free Church of Soo.land i„\er several Courts^ r.6 ^IdiSurgf Xt 

See also The Sum of the First Book of Discipline, § xili. ^ & i 7 A 

J Thus Craig’s Catechism is entitled “Ane form of exam’ination before the Communion ” and as 
uch was allowed by the Assembly of isoa. in olace of what wa« rallfarl T UeU ^ 


T o - — uciuFc luc i.,ommunion and a<; 

such was allowed by the Assembly of 1592, m place of what was called the Little Catechism nrinted 
Ivin s Catechism, and entitled, “ 1 he Maner to examine children before’ they be 


at the end of Calvin’s c.va 

-admitted to the Supper of the Lord.” 


990 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE 


the National Covenant was required of all members of the Chuixh, and from 1645^ 
onwards that implied in the Solemn League and Covenant. But it was not with a 
special view to the Confession that these subscriptions were required, and they do 
not seem to have been intended to supersede those general principles as to the 
knowledge and profession required of communicants contained in the First Book of 
Discipline and in the Confession of Faith ; which defines the visible Church to consist 
of “ all those throughout the world who profess the true religion, together with their 
children ” (ch. xxv., ^ 2) ; declares that those who profess faith in, and obedience 
to Christ, and also the infants of one or both believing parents are to be baptized 
(ch. xxviii., § 4) ; and that only ignorant and ungodly persons are not to be ad- 
mitted to the Lord’s table (ch. xxix., § 8). 

In the Reformed Presbyterian Church individual adherence to the doctrine of the 
Confession of Faith has always been required of all office bearers. That Church 
has also held the principles of the National Covenants to be binding, and acknowl- 
edged as such by all her members. Among the terms of communion as laid down 
in 1761 and modified in 1822, are the following, which were at the latter date left 
unchanged : — 

“ I. The acknowledgment of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments ta 
be the Word of God and the alone infallible rule of faith and practice. 

“ 2. The acknowledgment of the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms,. 
Larger and Shorter, to be founded upon, and agreeable to, the Word of God.” 

In May, 1872, the following, among other questions,* was sanctioned by the 
Synod as one that may be proposed to applicants for admission to the full commu- 
nion of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland. 

“ 3. Do you approve and accept, as founded upon, and agreeable to, the Word 
of God, the views of truth and duty set forth in the doctrinal Standards of this Church,, 
and more particularly in the Westminster Shorter Catechism ? ” 

It is said at the end of the Explanation and Defence of the Terms of Communion 
of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, published in 1806: — “ We wish a distinction 
between persons holding, proclaiming, and propagating sentiments in religion oppo- 
site to those which are recognized by our terms, and persons who may be compara- 
tively ignorant, or have private views of their own, but are willing to be further 
instructed. Tihe former must be positively debarred from Church fellowship; 
whereas milder treatment is due to the latter.” 

APPENDIX. 

(Answers as to the Free Chtirch of Scotland.) 

Act and Declaration anent the publication of the subordinate standards and other 
authoritative documents of the Free Church of Scotland. 

At Edinburgh the 31^/ day of May, 1851 years. Sess. 19. 

Which' day the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland being met and 
duly constituted. 

Inter alia, The General Assembly, on considering the report of the committee to- 
which this matter was referred at a previous diet, unanimously agreed to sanction, 
as they hereby sanction, the publication of a volume containing the Subordinate 
Standards, and other authoritative documents of this Church. And with the view of 
directing attention to “ all the way by which the Lord has led us,” as well as to the 
testimony which He has honoured this Church to bear for the whole truth of God' 
regarding His Church, and His glory therein, the General Assembly did, and hereby 
do adopt the following Act and Declaration : — 

When it pleased Almighty God, in his great and undeserved mercy, to reform this 
Church from Popery by presbyters, it was given to the Reformers, amid many troubles, 
to construct and model the constitution of the Church, in doctrine, worship, discip- 
line and government, according to the Word of God, and not according to the will 


* These questions are only optional, were so before the union with the Free Church, and are now 
only occasionally used. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 991 

in singleness of eye and simplicity of 
applied themselves to- 

n^LTv to P • ’ enabled, with remarkable una- 

/ f basis which, by the blessing of God, has continued 

unaltered down to the present time. 

m<S °f ‘he evangelical faith which is com- 

mon to all the Churches of the Reformation, the peculiar and essential features are • 

,•<; Church by presbyters alone, or by that order of men which 

IS indicated in the New Testament indiscriminately by the terms presbyters and bishops 
or overseers — 7rpe(7/3i;repo4 and emcKoiroc and, II. The subjection of the Church, 
m all thinp spritual, to Christ as her only Head, and to his Word as her only rule 
From the beginning these principles have been held as fundamental by the 
Reformed Church of Scotland ; and as such they were recognized in her earliest 
standards,— the First and Second Books of Discipline,— adopted by her own inde- 
pendent authority, before the full sanction either of the Crown or of the Parliament 
was given to the Reformation which God had accomplished on her behalf For 
these principles, the ministers and members of this Church, as well as the nobles 
gentlemen, and burgesses of the land, from the first united in contending; and on 
more than one occasion, in the course of these early struggles,— as in 1580 when the 
National Covenant was signed,*— our reforming ancestors bound themselves one to 
another, as in the sight of God, to maintain and defend them against all adversaries. 

■farther ; while this Church has ever held that she possesses an independent and 
exclus^e jurisdiction or power in all ecclesiastical matters, “which flows directlw 
from God and the Mediator, Jesus Christ, and is spiritual, not having a tem- 
^1? u ^ earth, but only Christ, the only King and Governor of his Church,” 
she has, at the same time, always strenuously advocated the doctrine taught in Holy 
Scripture, that nations and their rulers are bound to own the truth of God, and to- 
advance the kingdom of His Son. And accordingly, with unfeigned thankfulness 
did she acknowledge the good hand of the Lord, when after prolonged contests with 
the enemies of the Reformation,— and, in particular, with certain parties who sought 
not only to uphold a form of Prelatic government in the Church, but to establish the 
supremacy of the Crown in all causes, spiritual and ecclesiastical, as well as civil and 
temporal, — a national recognition and solemn sanction of her constitution, as it had 
been settled by her own authority, according to the Word of God, was at last 
obtained ;— first, in the Act of Parliament, 1567, and again, more completely, in the 
Act of Parliament, 1592, — then and since regarded by her as the great constitutional 
charter of her Presbyterian government and freedom. 

Thus the first Reformation was accomplished. 

But before a generation had elapsed, a sad change for the worse took place. 
Through defection in the Church, and tyrannical invasion of her independence by the 
civil power, the Presbyterian polity and government were overturned, and manifold 
abuses and corruptions in discipline and worship were insidiously introduced. A 
second Reformation accordingly became necessary. 

And here again, it pleased Almighty God, as in that former Reformation of the 
Church from Popery by presbyters, to give to our fathers light and grace ; so that, 
taking His Word as their only rule, and owning His Son as their only King in Zion^ 
they were enabled not only to restore the constitution of the Church as it had stood 
when her first Reformation seemed to be completed, but to aim also at carrying out 
more fully the great essential principles of that constitution, and securing more effec- 
tually than before the prevalence of these principles over all the land, as well as 
their permanency through all coming ages. 

In seeking this noble end, our fathers were again led, for their mutual security, as 
well as for the commending of so righteous a cause to Him by whom it was com- 
mitted to them, to have recourse to the solemnity of a holy confederation. 

The National Covenant was renewed at the beginning of the contendings for this 
second Reformation, with an extension of its weighty protests and censures, to meet 
whatever new fruit the old stock of Prelatic and Erastian usurpation had been bear- 


* National Covenant, etc. 


992 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


ing. And the Solemn League and Covenant was afterwards entered into, in concert 
with England and Ireland, “ for the reformation and defence of religion, the honour 
and happiness of the king, and the peace and safety of the three kingdoms ; ” and, 
in particular, for “ endeavouring to bring the Churches of God in the three kingdoms 
to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of 
Church government, directory for worship, and catechising.”* 

Thus religiously bound and pledged to God and to one another, our fathers were 
enabled to effect the reformation of this Church from Prelacy, even as their fathers 
in like manner effected its reformation from Popery. In the ever-memorable As- 
sembly held at Glasgow in 1638, as well as in subsequent Assemblies, it was declared 
that “ all Episcopacy different from that of a pastor over a particular flock was ab- 
jured in this Kirk; ” and provision was made accordingly for its complete removal, 
^nd for the settlement of Church government and order upon the former Presbyterian 
footing. 

In all this work of pulling down and building up, the independent spiritual juris- 
diction of the Church, flowing immediately from Christ, her only Head, was not only 
earnestly asserted, but practically exercised. For the whole work was begun and 
earried on without warrant of the civil power. And it was only after much con- 
tending, and with not a little hesitation, that the civil power began to interpose its 
authority in the years 1639 and 1641, to support and sanction what the Church had, 
by the exercise of her own inherent jurisdiction, already done. 

Thereafter, for the better prosecution of the work on hand, and in the face of the 
manifest purpose of the king and his adherents to crush it altogether, this Church, 
by commissioners duly named by the General Assembly, took part in the Assembly 
•of Divines which met at Westminster in 1643. And having in view the uniformity 
oontemplated in the Solemn League and Covenant, she consented to adopt the Con- 
fession of Faith, Catechisms, Directory for Public Worship, and Form of Church 
Government agreed upon by the said Assembly of Divines. 

These several formularies, as ratified, with certain explanations, by divers Acts of 
Assembly in the years 1645, 1646, and particularly in 1647, this Church continues 
till this day to acknowledge as her subordinate standards of doctrine, worship, and 
, government; — with this difference, however, as regards the authority ascribed to 
Ihem, that while tha Confession of Faithf contains the creed to which, as to a con- 
fession of his own faith, every office-bearer in the Church must testify in solemn form 
his personal adherence ; — and while the Catechisms, Larger and Shorter, J are sanc- 
tioned as directories for catechising ; — the Directory for Public Worship, the Form 
of Church Government, and the Directory for Family Worship, g are of the nature 
of regulations, rather than ot tests, to be enforced by the Church like her other laws, 
but not to be imposed by subscription upon her ministers and elders. These docu- 
ments, then, together with a practical application of the doctrine of the Confession, 
in the Sum of Saving Knowledge, || a valuable treatise, which though without any 
express Act of Assembly, has for ages had its place among them, — have, ever since 
the era of the second Reformation, constituted the authorized and authoritative sym- 
bolic books of the Church of Scotland. 

Nor is it to be overlooked here in connection with these proceedings, but, on the 
contrary, it is to be owned as a signal instance of the Divine favour, that when the 
civil dissensions and wars — all of which this Church unfeignedly deprecated and 
deplored — issued in a brief interval of quiet, and when the Parliament of Scotland 
was at last moved to own the Reformation work of God in the land, this Church ob- 
tained a ratification of her spiritual liberties much more full and ample than had ever 
previously been granted. This appeared, as in other things, so especially in the 
matter of presentation to benefices, with appointment to the oversight of souls. In 
, that matter, this Reformed Church had from the beginning maintained a testimony 
and contest against the right of patronage, as inconsistent with “ the order which 


* Solemn League, etc. g Directories, with relative Acts of Assembly. 

+ Confession, with relative Act of Assembly. 1) Sum of Saving Knowledge. 

4 Ihid.. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. ggj 

fcfacCOTdi^^Tthe’wilfrfGod ’and'* Church being free to 

enacted, by fhe P^Iian ent in ,6ar A?,™ •“'1’® “’n' Word, it was 

and calling, or with the consemrf^be ? be settled - upon the suit 

same year, laid down wholesome rules^and renXtions’f Assembly, in the 

mg of pastors by the conpre£Tations nf g'^l^hons for securing the orderly call- 

spiritual privileges of the oeonle nnrl regard at once to the 

bear office among them in^the^I o^d ^ jurisdiction of those appointed to 

nta?y“;;rirs''mt?f:rs‘e'i’ut'lo,'^' fh?,Th --d 

carr/ o^^ut the gL^^ndarnlal orindres „T“b 

the Church by presbyters alone • her ; ih f the government of 

® A“d"th:s'”fh^ret’nrR .-au'throtfpttor? 

falhbleS'nLvm-al ofXifproc?eSnm'’d*^^'^ Ihis great work proved themselves to be 
work itself was the work S' God The detract from our conviction that the 

»iare:x{?£S^^^ 

of intolerance“n Ae laws ena^ tSoulh s^^d some occasion to the charge 

iiilifSfiilB 

. . • • ,•' ^hese defects some of the worthiest and ablest of the artnr<; in 

ffitffilrs^'iLd'the'rt'l' spldil7ens?ed of Te Rest 

:Pa;iS:„11r°/,emrnl%"ecmL^ into the fur’nace 

nested whr'theseconVpT “f hand of man in the transactions con- 

ectea with the second Reformation, we would grievously err and sin were we not 

to recognize, in the substance of what was then done, the hand and Spirit of God • 

onri h such an adaptation to the exigencies of the times’ 

and such an amount of conformity to the Divine mind and will, as must ev^ be ■ 
of 1 ^ the attainments then made by this Church and nation a peculiar force 

^efeclions not a little the guilt of subsequent shortcomings and 

Passing over the dark period of the closing years of the Stuart dynasty and de 
scendmg along the line of history to the erJ of the glorious Revoffitionf’ we find 
e Church, which had been twice before brought out of great troubles in her con- 
tendings against Popery and Prelacy, oncfe again rescued from the oppression of 

Th’f hT^ f Presbyterian Church of Scotland 

The bloody Acts of the preceding time were repealed; on the petition of the min- 
sters and professors of the Church of Scotland, ffie civil sanction was given to the 
Confession of Fauh; Presbytenal Church government was re-established fn the hands 
of those who had been ejected by Prelacy in i66i ; and to the wonder of many, and 

Is tlm I' ^ recognized 

Sade If freedom or in bondage-whether und^er the 

hade of royal favour, or hunted as a partridge on the mountains— could trace its 
downwards from the very beginning of the Reformation, 
lhat the Revolution Settlement,” by which the liberties of the Church were 
secuied, under the reign of William and Mary, was in all respects satisfactory has 
be nninlT Hiaintained by this Church. On the contrary, various circumstance! may 
pointed out as hindenng the Church from realizing fully the attainments that had 

. 63 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


994 

been reached during the second Reformation. Not only were the three kingdoms- 
of England, Scotland, and Ireland unprepared for prosecuting the work of “ refor- 
mation and uniformity in religion,” to which they had pledged themselves; but even 
in Scotland itself the reluctant concessions of statesmen were limited to what a 
people, worn out by long and heavy tribulation, were barely willing to accept as a 
relief, and did not thoroughly undo the mischief of an age of misrule. 

Thus, for instance, in the civil sanction then given to Presbytery, the Parliament 
of 1690, overlooking altogether the higher attainments of the second Reformation, 
went back at once to the Act 1592, and based its legislation upon that Act alone, as 
being the original charter of the Presbyterian Establishment. Accordingly, it left 
unrepealed the infamous “ Act Rescissory ” of King Charles, by which all that the 
Church had done, and all that the State had done for her, in the interval between 
1638 and the Restoration, had been stigmatized as treasonable and rebellious. Thus 
the Revolution Settlement failed in adequately acknowledging the Lord’s work done 
formerly in the land ; and it was, besides, in several matters of practical legislation,, 
very generally considered by our fathers at the time to be defective and unsatisfac- 
tory. Some, and these not the least worthy, even went so far as to refuse all sub- 
mission to it. But for the most part, our fathers, smarting from the fresh wounds of 
anti-Christian oppression, weary of strife, and anxious for rest and peace, either 
thankfully accepted, or at least acquiesced in it ; in the hope of being able practi- 
cally to effect under it the great ends which the Church had all along, in all her for- 
mer contendings, regarded as indispensable. 

For it would be in a high degree ungrateful to overlook the signal and seasonable 
benefits which the Revolution Settlement really did confer upon the Church, as well 
as upon the nation. Not only did it put an end to the cruel persecution by which' 
the best blood of Scotland had been shed in the field, on the hillside, and on the 
scaffold; not only did it reinstate in their several parishes the pastors who had been 
unrighteously cast out in the reign of the second Charles, and set up again the plat- 
form of the Presbyterian government ; but by reviving and re-enacting the Statute 
of 1592, the original charter and foundation of Presbytery, it recognized^as an ina- 
lienable part of the constitution of this country the establishment of the Presbyterian 
Church. It secured also effectually, as was then universally believed, the exclusive- 
spiritual jurisdiction of the Church, and her independence in spiritual matters of all 
civil control. And by the arrangements which it sanctioned for the filling up of 
vacant charges, it abolished those rights of patronage which had been reserved in 
1592,* and made provision for enforcing the fundamental principle of this Church,, 
that “ no pastor shall be intruded into a congregation contrary to the will of the 
people.” On all these grounds, the Church was well entitled to rejoice in the deliv- 
erance wrought out for her in 1688 and 1690; to thank God for it, and take courage ;. 
and to cherish the warm and sanguine expectation of reaping now the fruit of her 
struggles and her trials, in a career of undisturbed, united, and successful exertion 
- for the glory of her great Head, the good of the land, and the saving of many 
souls. 

How far that expectation might have been fulfilled, if faith had been kept with 
the Church and people of Scotland by the British Parliament, according to the terms 
of the Revolution Settlement, subsequently ratified by the Treaty of Union between. 
Scotland and England — and if the Church had received grace to continue faithful 
to her principles — is a question which can now be little more than matter of specu- 
lation and conjecture. For the breach made upon her constitution by the restora- 
tion of patronage in 1711 — a measure passed against her own earnest remonstrance 
and protest — concurring with that unhappy declension from sound doctrine and 
spiritual life which began to visit this as well as other Churches of the Reformation 
during the early period of the last century — not to speak of the leaven of unsound 
principle transmitted from the too easy admission at the Revolution of the Prelatic 
curates into the Presbyterian Church, without any evidence of their sincere attach- 
ment to its doctrines ; these things led to abuses in the administration of the Church’s. 


♦Act 7th June, 1690. 


% 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

UemTnrfrom 1 ,fS^ P''-='en.ed ,l,e Revolu.io,, See- 

- O’' 

brethren, with the unjust deniaVof the riaht nf Church power over 

vidual consciences; the arbitrary enforcinlof exoneration of indi- 

byteries and Assemblies, acting upon thdr ovvn d'k corrupt Pres- 

Sion from any civil authority ;^the erievous onnr compul- 

forcible intrusion of ministers into mri<;W congregations, by the 

other proceedings of a Sm^^ against the will of the people, and 

tudes of godly ministers and people compelled^”fS '^cre multi- 

from her communion, and to form themselves info sake, to withdraw 

but the Church itself from which thev secf-df-H ° ^^parate ecclesiatical societies, 
blessed be God! with a pr^trsdn^inL tl In f willing-though always, 

der of the most important and distinctive orincinlL^^of make a practical surren- 

Hence it happened, that when, in the good ^providence oT^God 
gracious working of His good Soirit thi^’rhnr?^ ^ through the 

led to take up The work of the Re^ '^^^d time, was 

shortcoming, into the labours of our fathers by whom r 

Popery and Prelacy — she encountered nc ^ whom she had been reformed from 

same opposition with which thev had’he^^ as most natural, no small measure of the 

body of"Lr own minirtejfand^ie.^^^^^^^^ ^ ^---dable 

aid was called in to coerce and control the f^nlrS ^ power; whose 

spiritual functions, and, through theTto cru^^^^^^ 

calling of ministers to be ov« themT.; congregations in the 

reformationf on this third'great occasionln^her’ hH' •’"* work of 

any pastor to be intruded upon a reclaiming congregadon ^ ^ 

this Chnrct”:sX'dt°gi:e pmc’lrirefe^ 

Presbyterian polity which hadTen grlevou ly “ 1 "^^ principle of her 

“the pastor, as such, hath a ruling pLer over thrflock “ offn ‘r h ’ 

Ch.Stt"rousr‘ThraTo&^ - -“teichl'nd 

recognizing all pastom of congfegations as membeVs‘"of“he1"churdr”d^^^^ 
and assigning to each, along with the elder<; nf ^ Church judicatories,, 

of discipline among his owl flock, and fhe over^i^hTof.f^'l administration 

territorial district the Church migh S pleased lo nlace f S 

It was in carrying out these meLmes of L ^ m " '.P*"'”' “■■«• 

in 1834, that the Church was visited with the interference ’'f °™> 

in those various forms of uncon^fifm l1.oi of the courts of civil law,. 

fh.Tr^i!^ manifold invasions of her spiritual jurisdiotion by the courts of civil law 

this Church received grace steadfastly to resist at thfa ' r , , _ 

anci suffering, borne by her faithful m^inisters and people^ 

But this was not all ; for she was enabled also, duriW all her harass, 'nfr • 

nation which the General Assembly in 1842 passed of the entire svstemLfn 
as a grievance to be utterly abolished And throuah Ki of patronage, 

not left without manifest tokens of the Di^L countenate ’ I 

like circumstances, had been vouchsafed in former times— in the re^ma'Jklb'ir^ 
out of the Holy Spirit on no. a f ew portions of the choLn vityrrro?“h“ 7 oT”^ 


* Claim, etc. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


996 

Among other tokens for good, as the Church humbly considered them, it may be 
mentioned as one of the most gratifying, that a beginning was made, during this 
reforming period, of the work of reunion among the true-hearted branches of the 
Presbyterian Church in Scotland. Overtures towards a junction with the Church of 
Scotland having been made by a highly esteemed body of those whose fathers had 
seceded from it, and ample deliberations having taken place on both sides, the end 
in view’ was happily and harmoniously attained in the year 1839, when the General 
Assembly, with the consent of the Presbyteries of the Church, passed an Act to the 
following effect : 

“ Whereas proposals have been made by the Associate Synod for a re-union with 
the Church of Scotland, and a considerable number of overtures have been sent at 
the same time to the General Assembly from the Synods and Presbyteries of the 
Church favourable to that object ; and it has been ascertained by a committee of the 
General Assembly, that the course of study required for a long time past of students 
in divinity in connection with said Synod, is quite satisfactory, and that their minis- 
ters and elders do firmly adhere to the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Larger 
and Shorter Catechisms, and other standards of our Church : and whereas the mem- 
bers of the Associate Synod do heartily concur with us in holding the great princi- 
ple of an ecclesiastical establishment, and the duty of acknowledging God in our 
national as well as our individual capacity ; and we, on the other hand, do heartily 
concur with the members of the Associate Synod in confessing the great obligation 
under which we lie to our forefathers in the year 1638, and several years of that cen- 
tury immediately following, and the duty, in particular circumstances, of uniting to- 
gether in public solemn engagement in defence of the Church, and its doctrine, dis- 
cipline, and form of worship and government : and whereas our brethren of the 
Associate Synod have declared their willingness, in the event of a re-union, to sub- 
mit to all the laws and judicatories of this Church, reserving only to themselves the 
right which the members of the Established Church enjoy of endeavouring to correct, 
in a lawful manner, what may appear to them to be faulty in its constitution and 
government, — the General Assembly, with the consent of the Presbyteries of this 
Church, enact and ordain that all the ministers of the Associate Synod, and their 
congregations in Scotland, desirous of being admitted into connection and full com- 
munion with the Church of Scotland, be received accordingly,” 

This step was hailed with lively satisfaction by the supporters of the old hereditary 
principles of the Scottish Reformation, as not only a testimony to the returning faith- 
fulness with which these principles were now maintained, but a pledge and presage 
also of other movements of a similar kind which might be expected to follow, as the 
work of reformation and revival went on : thus holding out the hope of this Church 
being honoured to be successful in healing the breaches of Zion as well as rebuilding 
the walls of Jerusalem. • 

Thus, with much cause to sing of mercy as well as of judgment, the Church for 
ten years continued to testify, to contend, and to labour, in the great and good cause. 
But as time rolled on, and the causes of collision between the ecclesiastical and the 
civil courts became more embarrassing, it was apparent to all that an emergency was 
at hand, such as would call for the utmost wisdom of counsel as well as the firmest 
energy of action. 

All along, indeed, while the contendings of this third Reformation period were 
going forward, not only did “ they that feared the Lord speak often one to another,” 
but most solemn consultations of the brethren were held at every step, with much 
earnest prayer, and many affecting pledges of mutual fidelity to one another and to 
God. And as the crisis manifestly drew near, the whole body of those ministers of 
this Church by whom the contest was maintained met together in convocation, in 
November, 1842, being convened by a large number of the fathers of the Church, 
and, after a sermon preached by the late lamented Dr. Chalmers, continued in de- 
liberation for several successive days, spending a large portion of the time in united 
supplication for the guidance and grace of God ; and did not separate till, with one 
mind and one heart, they were enabled to announce, in resolutions having, in the 
circumstances, all the force of the most impressive vows and obligations, their final 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

tio!?orthk uncompromised the spiritual liberty and iurisdic- 

“lnTh?at“ 

iiSiPisis 

H Church, therefore, in laVl well as 

Sion L thiX^sSaf t -r f'f °'' but submis- 

benefits of fhe v,r I .‘ ufluputution from the State and from the 

r ^ Establishment. Holding firmly to the last, as she holds still and 
thiough God s grace, will ever hold, that it is the duty of civil rulers to recognize 
IfVhHi? according to his Word, and to promote and support the kin|dom 

of Christ, without assuming any jurisdiction in it, or any power over if and deenlv 
advantages resulting to the community at large, and U- 
pecially to its more destitute portions, from the public endowment of pastoral charges 

nmsnfri ^ f"l ‘ uot Contemplate without anxiety and alarm fhe 

prospect of losing for he^elf important means of general usefulnL,— leaving the 
mdv ‘ rl Establishment in the hands of parties who could retfin it 

fundamental principles,— and seeing large masses of the 
people deprived of the advantage of having the services of a gospel ministry provided 

W But her path was made plain before 

. For the system of civil interference in matters spiritual being still persevered in 
so as to affect naaterially the very constitution of the General Assembly, in the elec- 
tion of cornmissioners from the Presbyteries to that supreme court, it became the duty 
ot those of the said commissioners who were faithful to the crown of Christ,— and 
fo^^ed decidedly the major part of the members chosen according to the laws 
f Church,— to protest,* in presence of Her Majesty’s representative, on the i8th 

ot May 1843, against the meeting then convened being held to be a free and lawful 
Assembly of the Church of Scotland. • ^ 

Under which protest, and in the terms thereof, the said commissioners withdrew 
to another place of meeting, where, on the same day, and with concurrence of all 
the ministers and elders adhering to them, they proceeded to constitute, in the name 
ot the Lord Jesus Christ, as the only King and Head of the Church on earth, the 
Genera Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, and to take measures for the 
establishment of the Church apart from the State in the land. 

How signally God opened for her, in her new position, both a door of utterance 
^d a door of entrance, not only in this, but in other countries also— how mercifully 
He disappointed all her fears, and procured for her, acceptance among the people- 
how wonderfully He disposed all hearts so as to continue to her the means of mis- 
sionary enterprise, both at home and abroad— how graciously He cheered her by 
giving to her the signal privilege of finding all her missionaries, to the Jews ’and 
t^he Gentiles, true to herself and to her principles in the hour of trial ; and in general 
how large a measure of prosperity and peace He was pleased to grant to her— though 
with some severe persecution and oppression in certain quarters— this Church cannot 
but most devoutly acknowledge ; mourning bitterly, as she must at the same time do. 


* Protest, etc. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


998 


over many shortcomings and sins, and lamenting the little spiritual fruit of awak- 
ening and revival that has accompanied the Lord’s bountiful and wonderful dealing 
with her. In deep humiliation, therefore, but at the same time in the holy boldness 
of faith unfeigned, she would still seek to retain and occupy the position which the 
foregoing summary of her history assigns to her; humbly claiming to be identified 
with the Church of Scotland, which solemnly bound herself to the Reformation from 
Popery, and again similarly pledged herself to the Reformation from Prelacy; de- 
ploring past shortcomings f^rom the principles and work of these Reformations, as 
well as past secessions from her own communion, occasioned by tyranny and cor- 
ruption in her councils ; and finally, resolved and determined, as in the sight and by 
the help of God, to prosecute the ends contemplated from the beginning in all the 
acts and deeds of her reforming fathers, until the errors which they renounced shall 
have disappeared from the land, and the true system which they upheld shall be 
so universally received, that the whole people, rightly instructed in the faith, shall 
unite to glorify God the Father in the full acknowledgment of the kingdom of His 
Son, our blessed Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, to whose name be praise for ever 
and ever. Amen. 


Extracted from the Records of the General Assembly of the Free Church 
Scotland by 


Thomas Pitcairn, ) 
Patrick Clason, ) 


CL EccL Scot. Lib. 


of 


No. III. 

Answers as to the Creeds or Confessions and Formulce of the United 
Presbyterian Church and cf the Churches composing that Church, 
and as to any modifications of them which have been made in these 
Churches respectively, to the Questions on these subjects remitted on 
the \th of fuly, 1877, by the first General Presbyterian Council to a 
Committee of their number. 

Following the order prescribed by the questions, this answer will be presented in 
two sections, the first relating to the existing Church, the second to the Churches 
which are included and embodied in that Church. 

Section First. 

Preamble . — The United Presbyterian Church was formed in the year 1847 by ^ 
union then entered into between the United Associate Synod of the Secession 
Church and the Synod of the Relief Church. That union was formed by a mutual 
agreement, perfected at a joint meeting of the Synods of the two Churches held 
within Tanfield Hall, Canonmills, Edinburgh, on the 13th day of May, 1847, upon 
the basis of certain articles to which the Churches had separately assented. Of that 
basis, which forms the constitution of the United Presbyterian Church, the following 
is a copy : 

1. That the Word of God, contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Tes- 
taments, is the only rule of Faith and Practice. 

2. That the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Larger and Shorter Cate- 
chisms, are the confession and catechisms of this Church, and contain the authorized 
exhibition of the .sense in which we understand the Holy Scriptures; it being 
always understood that we do not approve of anything in these documents which 
teaches, or may be supposed to teach, compulsory or persecuting and intolerant prin- 
ciples in religion. 

3. That Presbyterian Government, without any superiority of office to that of a 
teaching presbyter, and in a due subordination of church courts, which is founded on 
and agreeable to the Word of God, is the government of this Church. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

41,^^’ ordinances of worship shall be administered in the United Church as 

nfrLf ^pdies of which it is formed ; and that the Westminster 

Direc^ry of Worship continue to be regarded as a compilation of excellent rules 
i K membership is a credible profession of the faith of Christ as 

iieia by this Church— a profession made with intelligence, and justified by a corre- 
sponding character and deportment. yacorre 

f ^ J to those Ministers and Sessions who may think that the 2d sec- 

ion oi the 26th chapter of the Confession of Faith authorizes free communion that is 

not loose or indiscriminate communion, but the occasional admission to fellowship in 
the Cord s Supper, of persons respecting whose Christian character satisfactory evi 
aence has been obtained, though belonging to other religious denominations— they 
Shall enjoy in the united body what they enjoyed in their separate communions— the 
right ot acting on their conscientious convictions. 

7. That the election of office-bearers of this Church, in its seyeral congregations, 
authority of Christ, exclusively to the members in full communion. 

* Church solemnly recognizes the obligation to hold forth, as well as 

^he doctrine and law of Christ, and to make exertions for the universal 
ditiusion of the blessings of his Gospel at home and abroad. 

9. That as the Lord hath ordained that they who preach the Gospel should live 
of the Gospel— that they who are taught in the Word should communicate to him 

that teacheth in all good things — that they who are strong should help the weak 

and that, having freely received, thus they should freely give the Gospel to those 
who are destitute of it— this Church asserts the obligation and the privilege of its 
members, influenced by regard to the authority of Christ, to support and extend by 
voluntary contribution, the ordinances of the Gospel. ’ 

10. That the respective bodies of which this Church is composed, without re- 
quiring from each other any approval of the steps of procedure by their fathers, or 
interfering with the rights of private judgment in reference to these, unite in regarding 
as still valid the reasons on which they have hitherto maintained their state of seces- 
sion and separation from the Judicatories of the Established Church, as expressed 
in the authorized documents of the respective bodies, and in maintaining the law- 
fulness and obligation of separation from ecclesiastical bodies in which dangerous 
«rror is tolerated, or the discipline of the Church, or the rights of her ministers or 
members are disregarded. 

^ The United Church, in their present most solemn circumstances, join in expres- 
sing their grateful acknowledgment to the Great Head of the Church for the 
measure of spiritual good which He has accomplished by them in their separate 
state— their deep sense of the many imperfections and sins which have marked their 
ecclesiastical management — and their determined resolution, in dependence on the 
promised grace of their Lord, to apply more faithfully the great principles of church 
fellowship — to be more watchful in reference to admission and discipline, that the 
purity and efficiency of our congregations may be promoted, and the great end of 
our existence as a collective body may be answered with respect to all within its 
pale, and to all without it, whether members of other denominations, or the world 
lying in wickedness. And in fine, the United Church regard, with a feeling of 
brotherhood, all the faithful followers of Christ, and shall endeavour to maintain the 
unity of the whole body of Christ, by a readiness to co-operate with all its members 
in all things in which they are agreed. 

I. — Question First. According to this constitution the present creed or confession 
of the United Presbyterian Church is embodied in the Westminster Confession of 
Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, as containing the authorized exhibi- 
tion of the sense in which the Church understands the Holy Scriptures, subject to 
the qualification that the Church does not approve of anything in these Standards 
which teaches or may be supposed to teach compulsory or persecuting and intolerant 
principles in religion. 

IL — Question Second. The prescribed F'ormulse of admission on the Licensing 
of Probationers, the Ordination of Ministers, of Missionaries, and of Elders respec- 
tively, are as follows : — 


lOOO 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


^a) — Formula for Preachers at Licence. 

1. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word 
of God, and the only rule of faith and practice ? 

2. Do you acknowledge the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Larger and 
Shorter Catechisms, as an exhibition of the sense in which you understand the Holy 
Scriptures; it being understood that you are not required to approve of anything in 
these documents which teaches, or is supposed to teach, compulsory or persecuting 
and intolerant principles in religion ? 

3. Are you persuaded that the Lord Jesus Christ, the only King and Head of the 
Church, has therein appointed a government distinct from, and not subordinate to, 
civil government? And do you acknowledge the Presbyterian form of government, 
as authorized and acted on in this Church, to be founded on, and agreeable to, the 
Word of God ? 

4. Do you approve of the constitution of the United Presbyterian Church, as ex- 
hibited in the Basis of Union ; and while cherishing a spirit of brotherhood towards 
all the faithful followers of Christ, do you engage to seek the purity, edification, 
peace, and extension of this Church ? 

5. Are zeal for the glory of God, love to the Lord Jesus Christ, and a desire to 
save souls, and not worldly interests or expectations, so far as you know your own 
heart, your great motives and chief inducements for desiring to enter into' the oflfice 
of the Holy Ministry? 

6. Is it your resolution, in the strength of the grace that is in Christ Jesus, as a 
Probationer for the Ministry in connection with this Church, to preach the Gospel 
faithfully, not shunning to declare all the counsel of God, and to visit and comfort 
the afflicted, as far as you have opportunity ? 

7. Do you engage, in the strength of the grace that is in Christ Jesus, to live a 
holy and circumspect life, to rule well your own house, and faithfully, diligently, and 
cheerfully to discharge all the parts of the work of a Probationer for the office of 
the Ministry? 

8. Do you promise to submit yourself in the Lord, to the authority of the Su- 
preme Court of this Church, and of its several Presbyteries under whose inspection 
you may be called to labour ? 

9. And all these things you profess a/id promise, through grace, as you shall be 
answerable at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, with all His saints, and as you 
would be found in that happy company ? 

(b.) — Formula for Ministers at Ordination. 

1. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word 
of God, and the only rule of faith and practice ? 

2. Do you acknowledge the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Larger and 
Shorter Catechisms, as an exhibition of the sense in which you understand the Holy 
Scriptures ; it being understood that you are not required to approve of anything in 
these documents which teaches, or is supposed to teach, compulsory or persecuting 
and intolerant principles in religion? 

3. Are you persuaded that the Lord Jesus Christ, the only King and Head of the 
Church, has therein appointed a government distinct from, and not subordinate to, 
civil government? And do you acknowledge the Presbyterian form of government, 
as authorized and acted on in this Church, to be founded on, and agreeable to, the 
Word of God? 

4. Do you approve of the Constitution of the United Presbyterian Church, as 
exhibited in the Basis of Union ; and, while cherishing a spirit of brotherhood 
towards all the faithful followers of Christ, do you engage to seek the purity, edi- 
fication, peace, and extension of this Church ? 

5 . Are zeal for the glory of God, love to the Lord Jesus Christ, and a desire to 
save souls, and not worldly interests or expectations, so far as you know your own 
heart, your great motives and chief inducements to enter into the office of the Holy 
Ministry? 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


lOOI 


of thi?Surch^? methods, by yourself or others, to obtain the Call 


[ The Members of the Church being requested to stand up, let this question be 
put to them : 'i 

Do you, the Members of this Church, testify your adherence to the Call which 
you have given to Mr. A. B. to be your Minister? and do you receive him with all 
gladness, and promise to provide for him suitable maintenance, and to give him all 
due respect, subjection, and encouragement in the Lord ? 

An opportunity wiU here be given to the Members of the Chtirch of signifyincr 
their assent to this, by holding up their right hand.^ * 

Church ? acceptance of the Call to become Minister of this 

8. Do you engage, in the strength of the grace that is in Christ Jesus, to live a 
holy and circumspect life, to rule well your own house, and faithfully, diligently, and 
cheerfully to discharge all the parts of the ministerial work to the edifying of the 
body of Christ ? ^ ^ 


9- Do you promise to give conscientious attendance on the Courts of the United 
Fresbyterian Church, to be subject to them in the Lord, to take a due interest in 
their proceedings, and to study the things which make for peace? 

lo. And all these things you profess and promise, through grace, as you shall be 
answerable at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, with all His saints, and as you 
would be found in that happy company ? 


(c .) — Formula for Missionaries at Ordination. 

1. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word 
of God, and the only rule of faith and practice ? 

2. Do you acknowledge the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Larger and 
Shorter Catechisi^s, as an exhibition of the sense in which you understand the Holy 
Scriptures ; it being understood that you are not required to approve of anything in 
these documents which teaches, or is supposed to teach, compulsory or persecuting 
and intolerant principles in religion ? 

3. Are you persuaded that the Lord Jesus Christ, the only King and Head of the 
Church, has therein appointed a government distinct from, and not subordinate to, 
civil government? And do you acknowledge the Presbyterian form of government’ 
as authorized and acted on in this Church, to be founded on, and agreeable to, the 
Word of God ? 

4; po you approve of the Constitution of the United Presbyterian Church, as 
exhibited in the Basis of Union ; and, while cherishing a spirit of brotherhood towards 
all the faithful followers of Christ, do you engage to seek the purity, edification, 
peace, and extension of this Church ? ’ 

5. Are zeal for the glory of God, love to the Lord Jesus Christ, and a desire to 
save souls, and not worldly interests or expectations, so far as you know your own 
heart, your great motives and chief inducements to enter into the office of the Holy 
Ministry ? 

6. Do you engage, in the strength of the grace that is in Christ Jesus, to live a 
holy and circumspect life, to rule well your own house, and faithfully, diligently, and 
cheerfully to discharge all the parts of the ministerial work to the edifying of the 
body of Christ ? 

7. Dp you devote yourself to the office of a Missionary of this Church, engaging 
in this solemn undertaking with a deep sense of the responsibilities of one to whom 
this grace is given, of preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ; and in this 
arduous work of turning men from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to 
God, do you resolve to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, that, when 
the Chief Shepherd shall appear, you may receive a crown of glory .that fadeth not 
away? 

8. And all these things you profess and promise, through grace, as you shall 
be answerable at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, with all His saints, and as you 
would be found in that happy company ? 


1002 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


(d.) — Formula for Elders at their Ordination. 

1. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word 
■of God, and the only rule of faith and practice ? 

2. Do you acknowledge the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Larger and 
Shorter Catechisms, as an exhibition of the sense in which you understand the Holy 
Scriptures ; it being understood that you are not required to approve of anything in 
these documents which teaches, or is supposed to teach, compulsory or persecuting 
and intolerant principles in religion ? 

3. Are you persuaded that the Lord Jesus Christ, the only King and Head of the 

Church, has therein appointed a government distinct from, and not subordinate to, 
civil government? And do you acknowledge the Presbyterian form of government, 
as authorized and acted on in this Church, to be founded on, and agreeable to, the 
Word of God ? » s » 

4. Do you approve of the Constitution of the United Presbyterian Church, as 
exhibited in the Basis of Union ; and, while cherishing a spirit of brotherhood towards 
all the faithful followers of Christ, do you engage to seek the purity, edification, 
peace, and extension of this Church ? 

5. Are zeal for the glory of God, love to the Lord Jesus Christ, and a desire to 

save souls, and not worldly interests or expectations, as far as you know your own 
heart, your great motives and chief inducements to enter into the office of Ruling 
Elder? ^ 

6. Have you «sed any undue methods, by yourself or others, to obtain the Call 
of this Church ? 

7. Do you adhere to your acceptance of the Call to become Ruling Elder of this 
Church ? 

8. Do you engage, in the strength of the grace that is in Christ Jesus, to perform 
with diligence and faithfulness the duties of a Ruling Elder, watching over the 
flock of which you are called to be an overseer, in all things showing yourself a pat- 
tern of good works, and giving a conscientious attendance upon the Meetings of the 
Session, and also of Superior Courts, when called to sit as a member in them ? 

9. And all these things you profess and promise, through grace, as you shall be 
answerable at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, with all His saints, and as you 
would be found in that happy company ? 

The following Declaratory Act bearing upon the acceptance of the creed was 
passed by the Synod in May, 1879: — 

Declaratory Act, adopted May, 1879. 

Whereas, the formula in which the Subordinate Standards of this Church are 
accepted requires assent to them as an exhibition of the sense in which the Scriptures 
are understood : Whereas these Standards, being of human composition, are neces- 
sarily imperfect, and the Church has already allowed exception to be taken to their 
teaching or supposed teaching, on one important subject : And whereas there are 
•other subjects in regard to which it has been found desirable to set forth more 
fully and clearly the view which the Synod takes of the teaching of Holy Scripture : 
Therefore the Synod hereby declares as follows : 

1. That in regard to the doctrine of redemption as taught in the Standards, and 
in consistency therewith, the love of God to all mankind. His gift of His Son to be 
the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, and the free offer of salvation to men 
without distinction on the ground of Christ’s perfect sacrifice, are matters which 
have been and continue to be regarded by this Church as vital in the system of 
Gospel truth, and to which due prominence ought ever to be given. 

2, That the doctrine of the divine decrees, including the doctrine of election to 
eternal life, is held in connection and harmony with the truth that God is not willing 
that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, and that He has 
provided a salvation sufficient for all, adapted to all, and offered to all in the Gospel ; 
and also with the responsibility of every man for his dealing with the free and unre- 
stricted offer of eternal life. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 1003 

3. That the doctrine of man’s total depravity, and of his loss of “ all ability of will 
to any spiritual good accompanying salvation,” is not held as implying such a con- 
dition of man s nature as would affect his responsibility under the law of God and 
the Gospel of Christ, or that he does not experience the strivings and restraining 
influences of the Spirit of God, or that he cannot perform actions in any sense good ; 
although actions which do not spring from a renewed heart are not spiritually good 
or holy — such as accompany salvation. 

4. That while none are saved except through the mediation of Christ, and by the 
grace of his Holy Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how it pleaselh him ; 
while the duty of sending the gospel to the heathen, who are sunk in ignorance, 
sin, and misery, IS clear and imperative; and while the outward and ordinary means 
of salvation for those capable of being called by the Word are the ordinances of the 
gospel : in accepting the Standards, it is not required to be held that any who die in 
inmncy are lost, or that God may not extend his grace to any who are without the 
pale of ordinary means, as it may seem good in his sight. 

5 - That in regard to the doctrine of the Civil Magistrate, and his authority and 
duty in the sphere of religion, as taught in the Standards, this Church holds that the 
Lord Jesus Christ is the only King and Head of the Church, and “ Head over all 
things to the Church, which is his body;” disapproves of all compulsory or perse- 
cuting and intolerant principles in religion ; and declares, as hitherto, that she does 
not require approval of anything in her Standards that teaches, or may be supposed 
to teach, such principles. 

6. That Christ has laid it as a permanent and universal obligation upon his 
Church at once to maintain her own ordinances and to “ preach the gospel to every 
creature ; ” and has ordained that his people provide by their free-will offerings for 
the fulfilment of this obligation. 

7. That, in accordance with the practice hitherto observed in this Church, liberty 
of opinion is allowed on such points in the Standards, not entering into the sub- 
stance of the faith, as the interpretation of the “six days ” in the Mosaic account of 
the creation : the Church guarding against the abuse of this liberty to the injury of 
its unity and peace. 

The second question of the Formula shall henceforth be read as follows : — “ Do 
you acknowledge the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter 
Catechisms as an exhibition of the sense in which you understand the Holy Scrip- 
tures ; this acknowledgment being made in view of the explanations contained in the 
Declaratory Act of Synod thereanent ? ” 

HI. — Question Third. Individual adherence to the Creed is uniformly required 
from ministers, missionaries, and elders, as the case may be, on ordination, by pub- 
lic assent in response to each question in the appropriate formula inforooiihe^ Pres-, 
bytery, and of the congregation or audience, and sometimes also by a promise of 
subscription, if required, to the formula when the elected takes his place as an office- 
bearer ; the promise being minuted in the record of their proceedings kept by the 
Presbytery or Session. 

The admission of private members to the fellowship of the Church is on principle 
and as a rule left to the minister and session of each congregation. The following 
is the doctrinal part of the Summary of Principles, which, without having been 
formally prescribed by the Synod, is circulated among applicants for admission to 
the Church : — 

Of the Rule of Faith and Duty — The Holy Scriptures. 

The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are proved to be the word of God 
by miracles, by the fulfilment of prophecy, by the excellence of the truths which they 
contain, by the harmony of all their parts, and by the blessed effects which they 
produce. 

These inspired books teach us “ what man is to believe concerning God, and what 
duty God requires of man ; ” and nothing is of authority in religion except what is 
either taught in them in express terms, or may be deduced from them by necessary 
inference. 


1004 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


§ I. Of God. 

There is one God, the only living and true God, a spirit, infinite, eternal, inde- 
pendent, and unchangeable in his being, and in his power, knowledge, wisdom, 
holiness justice, goodness and truth; the creator, preserver, proprietor, and gover- 
nor of all things : and the sole object of worship. 

In the Godhead there are three persons,— the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost, in essence one, and in all divine perfections equal, but each possessing a 
distinct personality indicated by appropriate personal names and acts. 

^ 2 . Of the Ptirpose of God. 

God, in the exercise of his holy, wise, and sovereign will, and for the manifesta- 
tion of his own perfections, formed, in eternity, the plan according to which all 
things come to pass; “yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is vio- 
lence offered to the will of the creatures.” 


\ 3* Works of God. 

^ This plan God executes in creation, in which he makes all things very good, and 
in providence, in which he upholds and governs them, according to his good pleasure. 
\ 4- Of the Moral Government of God. 

All the creatures of God are governed by him, according to laws suited to their 
nature; Intelligent creatures are subject to his moral law, which is “ holy, just, and 
good, and which they cannot break without being guilty of sin, and becoming lia- 
ble to punishment. ^ 

g 5. Of Man in his Original Condition, and of his Fall from it. 

Our first parents were created with a holy nature and in a happy condition.' Tn 
this state of innocence they were placed under the dispensation commonly called the 

obedience, they were forbidden to eat of 
the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” and in case of disobedience 

^o'^P^^liending not merely the separation of soul 
d o^ody, but the separation of both from the favour and enjoyment of God. They 
were fully capable of yielding perfect obedience, but abusing their freedom of will 
through the temptation of the Devil, they ate the forbidden fruit, and thus forfeited 

^epratedTS^lSab^ 

^6. Of the State of Man since the Fall. 

As in the Covenant Adam was constituted the head and representative of the 
. race, all his natural posterity come into the world subject to the penal con- 

sequences of his sm, destitute of holiness, and with depraved dispositions ; and as 
soon as they are capable of using their moral faculties, they by actual transgression 
mem-?o tW^T'd-^^^ depravity, and make themselves liable to heavier^nish- 
nf ^ divine mercy do not interpose, they must, after suffering the miseries 

of this life, die under the curse, and endure the pains of hell to all et^nity. 

§ 7* Of the Method of Salvation. 

vadon'of Sura provision has been made for the sal- 

(l.) How Salvation is procured. 

foreseeing the fall of man, in sovereign mercy, from all eternity, purposed to- 

cJveLn°t f r and formed an arrangement, commonly^ caHed the 

nerr i^d th.Prr’i-^ ^ salvation freely offered to sin- 

For ’thesl ends thX"n 'f r love, 
or these ends the Son of God was constituted the Mediator between God and man 

the People, and the “ Saviour of the world.” When 

the appointed time arrived, he took into union with his own divine person a perfect 
human nature, and became Man, being conceived by the power of ?he Holy^Ghost 
m the womb of a virgin, and born of her, yet without sin. Being made under the 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1005 


law which man had broken, he yielded perfect obedience to it, and, so far as was 
absoUite holiness, endured its penalty both in his life of suffering 

iin?n dignity of his person rendered his obediencf 

unto death infinitely meritorious, and thus a fit ground on which all who believe on 

as weTaroT hls gTace"'"''" 

from of Saviour’s work by the Father, he was raised 

fronphe drad’ and recetved up into Heaven, where, in virtue of his sacrifice, he, as 

Se rh?,rob ’ Tn 'ntercession for his people, and, as Lord of all, ries 

the Church and the world. At the time appointed he will come again to the earth 

seinTheavlrforiver perfectly happy with him- 

(2.) How Salvation is applied. 

. In the Gospel the Lord Jesus Christ is exhibited as the Saviour of sinners; salva- 
tion IS offered through his all-sufficient atonement, to men without exception ; and 
all are commanded to believe the divine testimony, and accept of the proffered sal- 
vation. But It IS only vyhen the sinner, by the agency of the Holy Spirit— who is 
promised to all who ask him— and through the instrumentality of the Word, has been 
•convinced of his sin and misery, and has had his mind enlightened in the knowl- 
edge of Christ and his will renevyed, that he, through the faith of the gospel, re- 
•ceives Jesus Christ as his own Saviour, and so enters on the enjoyment of the salva- 
tion procured by him, and made known in the gospel. 

United to Christ by faith, the believer has a personal interest in His righteousness, 
and is. pardoned, and accepted as righteous by God; and the work of sanctification 
begun in conversion is carried on by the continued operation of the Holy Ghost 
•through faith, so that the believer is preserved, strengthened, and comforted, till he 
IS prepared for heaven. 

At dea^ the souls of believers are made perfect in holiness, and depart to be with 
•Christ. ^ Their blessedness shall be completed at the last day, when their souls shall 
be reunited to their bodies, then raised incorruptible ; and after being in the general 
judgment acquitted, and acknowledged as the saved of the Lord, they shall be 
taken to heaven, where they shall be perfectly “ blessed in the full enjoyine of God 
!to all eternity.” ^ 

They who reject the salvation presented in the Gospel of Christ greatly aggravate 
their sin by this rejection, and expose themselves to severer punishment than those 
■who have never enjoyed the privilege of hearing it. 

§ 8. Of the Means of Salvation. 

The means of obtaining possession of this salvation thus procured, and thus 
applied, are partly internal and partly external. 


(i.) Of the Internal Means of Salvation. 

The internal means of salvation are exercises of the mind and heart, produced by 
the operation of the Holy Ghost through the instrumentality of the Word. They are 
chiefly these two; Faith in Christ— a crediting of the testimony of God concern- 
ing His Son, whereby the sinner receives Him as He is freely offered in the Gospel 
— trusting in Him as his Saviour, and submitting to Him as his Lord; and 
REPENTANCE TOWARDS GoD, whereby the sinner, believing in Christ Jesus, ’turns 
from sin to God, with hatred of sin, and purpose of new obedience. 

The blessings of salvation are obtained by men, not on the ground of faith and 
repentance as the meritorious cause or proper condition, but through their instru- 
mentality as fit and appointed means; so that those who continue unbelieving and 
impenitent necessarily shut themselves out from any part in this salvation. 

(2.) Of the External Means of Salvation. 

The external means of salvation are the Word read or preached, prayer, and other 
divinely instituted ordinances of religion. 

In the Word is presented the truth with its evidence, whereby, through the influ- 
ence of the Holy Ghost, faith is produced, and the blessings of salvation are thus 
■communicated. 


ioo6 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


The blessings of salvation which by the Word are made known, offered to all and 
communicated to those who believe, are to be sought and expected in the exercise 
of believing, fervent, persevering Prayer. 

The other ordinances of God are intended and fitted to serve the same ends. 

On the first day of the week, — which is called the Lord’s Day, in commemoration 
of the resurrection of Christ — the continuance, under the Christian dispensation, of 
the Sabbatical institution appointed at the creation and confirmed at Sinai, — Chris- 
tians are to come together to observe the ordinances of public worship ; and are to 
devote the whole day to religious exercises, “ except so much as is to be taken up in 
the works of necessity and mercy.” 

These ordinances of public worship are the teaching of Christian truth, the offer- 
ing up of prayers and praises to God in the name of Jesus Christ, and “the fellow- 
ship” or communication of their' property by the members of the church, as God has. 
prospered them, for maintaining and extending the cause of Christ. 

Besides these ordinances, there are two emblematical institutions usually termed 
Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In these, by outward signs, spirit- 
ual truths are represented and confirmed — the fundamental principles of Christianity 
and their evidence are brought before the mind ; and thus, “ by the blessing of God, 
and the working of His Spirit,” spiritual benefit is conferred on “ those who by faith 
receive them.” 

In Baptism the application of water to the body symbolizes the truth — “ that men 
are purified from sin freed from guilt and depravity, by the atonement of Christ and 
the influence of the Holy Spirit,” and the person baptized is recognized as connected 
with the "Visible Church. The ordinance is to be administered to unbaptized adults 
on their making a credible profession of their faith in Christ, and their obedience to 
Him ; and to the infants of such as are members of the church. 

In the Lord’s Supper, by the distribution and use of bread broken and wine 
poured out, are represented and confirmed the truths,— “ that Jesus Christ, the Son, 
of God, in human nature, suffered and died in the room of men, to obtain their par- 
don and salvation— that in the faith of these truths men enjoy the benefits procured 
by His death that all who believe are united in a holy fellowship, and bound to- 
yield implicit obedience to all Christ’s laws; ” and the believing participants of “ the 
bread” and of “the cup” have communion with Christ, and partake of the benefits 
of His salvation, “ to their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace.” The Lord’s 
Supper is therefore to be observed by believers as a memorial of Christ’s sacrificial 
death, as a public profession of their faith in Him and subjection to His authority,, 
and as an expression of the communion which they have with Him and with one 
another. As it must be profaned if observed in ignorance and unbelief, or in the 
allowed practice of sin, serious self-examination ought to precede the service, and it 
ought to be performed in the exercise of faith, love, repentance, and self-dedication 
to God. 

All these ordinances are appointed in connection with the Church; which is not 
only thus the means of salvation to those within its pale, but by being appointed to 
proclaim the Gospel to all who will listen to it, is the grand means of salvation tO' 
the unbelieving world. 

§ 9. Of the Church. 

The Visible Church of Christ consists of all those who make an intelligent and’ 
credible profession of faith in Him and obedience to Him, and their infant children 
It IS a spiritual society, or kingdom, of which He is the only King and Head, and 
IS distinct from earthly kingdoms, and not dependent on them for authority or 
support. 

The design of the Church is the advancement of the glory of Christ, by the main- 
tenance and extension of His cause, in the edification of her members, and the con- 
version of the world. 

A particular Church consists of those who are so united in their views in regard 
to doctrine and order as to admit of their co-operating for these objects 

No one should be retained as a member of such a society who does not act agree- 
ably to his profession. ^ 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


1007 

The church rulers, — called pastors, or bishops (z*. e. overseers), or elders, — are ta 
be chosen by the members, and are appointed by Jesus Christ to watch over the 
purity of the society — to instruct the members in His doctrine and law — to superin- 
tend their conduct, and to take care that the ordinances be regularly administered. 
Of these elders, all equally rule, but some also “ labour in word and doctrine.” 

Church Government by elders — regularly chosen and ordained — assembled in ses- 
sions, presbyteries, and synods, in due subordination, is founded upon, and agreea- 
ble to, the Word of God; and practical subjection to this government is required 
from all the members of this Church. 

The following are the questions which may be addressed to those admitted to 
membership ; 

1. Do you acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the 
Word of God, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice? 

2. Do you believe in God— in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, one God ?• 

3. Do you acknowledge yourselves to be by nature guilty, depraved, and helpless, 

• and do you believe that salvation is only from the grace of God, through the obedience 

unto death of His Son, and the sanctifying influence of the Holy Ghost ? 

4. Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Saviour, own Him as your Lord, and 
engage, in dependence on the promised aids of His Spirit, to observe His ordinances 
and to obey His laws? 

5. Do you, so far as your knowledge extends, approve, as agreeable to the Word 
of God, of the views of Divine truth and duty held by this Church, and of the prin- 
ciples on which its constitution and order are founded ? 

6. Do you promise to submit to the Session of this congregation as over you in the 
Lord, to contribute according to your ability for the support and extension of the 
Gospel, and to study to promote the welfare of the Congregation, and by a holy life 
to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour ? 

Section Second. 

Answers relating to the Churches included ajid embodied in the 
United Presbyterian Church. 

Preamble. — Some account of the origin of these churches, and of the formal 
changes which they have undergone, appearing necessary to understand the answers 
to be made in regard to them respectively, and the epochs to which the answers 
apply, such account is now given. 

These churches had their origin in a secession from the party then prevailing in 
the judicatories of the Church of Scotland, made in the year 1733 by four min- 
isters of that church, on account of certain proceedings which had taken place in 
the General Assembly. These ministers were the Rev. Ebenezer Erskine of Stir- 
ling, the Rev. William Wilson of Perth, the Rev. Alexander Moncrieff of Abernethy, 
and the Rev. James Fisher of Kinclaven. 

The moving cause of their secession was the action of the General Assembly of 
the Church of Scotland in regard to a proposal which came before them at their 
meeting in May, 1731, in the form of an overture “ concerning the method of plant- 
ing vacant churches,” whereby owners of land in the parish were to be admitted, 
along with the elders of the congregation, to the privilege of choosing the ministers 
of vacant parishes. When the overture came up for consideration by the General 
Assembly of May, 1732, thirty-one presbyteries of the Church were found to have 
reported their opinion against the measure, and at the same time there were pre- 
sented to the Assembly representations signed by forty-two ministers, of whom the 
above-named ministers were four, and 1700 of the Christian people, respectively, 
remonstrating against the overture and against abuses which they considered had 
arisen in the exercise of patronage in relation to the settlement of ministers in par- 
ishes, and to other matters of administration. The Assembly refused to hear these 
representations, and, notwithstanding the opposition offered, passed the overture inta 
a standing law of the Church — refusing to restrict the constituency to resident 


roo8 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


heritors, or to such as were communicants, and declining to enter upon their record 
a dissent from the Act and a protest against it made by several ministers and elders 
who were members of Assembly. In a discourse preached by Mr. Erskine at the 
opening of the meeting of the Synod of Perth and Stirling (October, 1732), he tes- 
tified against the Act and other evil practices which he thought prevailed in the 
Church Judicatories, especially in the violent settlement of ministers under the law 
of Patronage; and for this discourse he was judged censurable. Against the deci- 
sion to censure, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Fisher, with ten other ministers, protested, and 
appealed to the next Assembly. That Assembly (held in May, 1733) approved of 
the proceedings of the Synod, and ordered Mr. Erskine to be rebuked and admon- 
ished by the Moderator at their bar, and that was done accordingly. Whereupon Mr. 
Erskine declared that he could not submit to the censure; and handing in a paper of 
protest signed by himself, with subjoined minutes of concurrence by Mr. Wilson and 
Mr. Moncrieff and by Mr. Fisher, he withdrew from the Assembly. The dissen- 
tients were summoned by the officer of Court to appear before the Assembly the 
next day; and a committee was immediately appointed to deal with them. It re- 
ported their resolution to adhere to their paper and protest, and the Assembly, with- 
out hearing them, forthwith passed a resottition, ordaining the four brethren to ap- 
pear before the Commission in August, and then show sorrow for their conduct and 
misbehavior in . offering to protest, and in giving in the paper subscribed by them, and 
that they retract the same. In case of their non-appearance, and not showing sor- 
row and retracting, the Commission was empowered and appointed to suspend said 
brethren, or such of them as should not obey, from the exercise of their ministry. 
And further, in case the said brethren should be suspended by the said Commission, 
and they should act contrary to the sentence of suspension, the Commission was ap- 
pointed at their meeting in November, or any subsequent meeting, to proceed to a 
higher censure. Upon intimation of this sentence, the four brethren offered a joint 
complaint and declaration ; but the Assembly would not hear it, and it was left on 
their table. To the Commission, at its meeting in August, a representation and 
appeal was presented by Mr. Erskine and Mr. Fisher against the sentence of the 
Synod of Perth and Stirling, and another by Mr. Wilson and Mr. Moncrieff as pro- 
testers against that sentence. These representations contained declarations of the 
principles they held, their reasons for adhering to their protest made at last Assem- 
bly, and protestations against any censure or invasion upon their ministerial labours 
or charges, and that it should be lawful for them to exercise their ministry as hereto- 
fore, in regard that they were not convicted of departing from any of the received 
principles of the Church of Scotland, or of counteracting their ordination vows and 
engagements. The representations thus made were supported by the presbyteries 
to which the brethren belonged, and by the magistrates of Stirling and Perth. But 
the Commission refused to listen to any of them, and pronounced a sentence of sus- 
pension against the four protesters from the exercise of their ministerial function and 
all the parts thereof. The intimation of that sentence was met by a protestation 
taken by them before the Court, for themselves and all other ministers, elders, and 
rnembers of the Church of Scotland, and of all of their respective congregations who 
should adhere. That protestation bore that the sentence was in itself null and void 
and that it should be lawful and warrantable for them to exercise their ministry as 
theretofore, and as if no such censure had been inflicted ; and that if, in consequence 
of the sentence, any other minister or probationer should exercise any part of their 
pastoral work, the same should be held and reputed as a violent intrusion upon their 
ministerial labours. Some elders from the respective sessions of these brethren gave 
in protestation against the sentence, and testified their adherence to their ministers. 
Cited to appear before the Commission in November, they appeared under protest 
against their appearance being held or construed as a falling from the declaration 
which they had emitted, and the protestations they had entered both before and 
after the executing of the sentence of suspension against them by the Commission 
of August, and their adherence to both. To a committee appointed by the Com- 
mission to deal with them, they admitted that they had exercised all the parts of 
their ministerial office as if they had been under no such sentence. But the Com- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. J009 

-eral Synods, and by two 

to inflict a higher censure upon the^ four " ^?, immediately 

several minisler.s and elderfmemberorf^^^^ rnmisters.” From this decision 
two ministers, viz., Mr. Ralph Erskine and Mr^ against it 

not members, lodged a declLtkin nmf. / '''^re 

sembly and Commission in the case of thV f proceedings of the As- 

herence to them in that caLe brethren, and a declaration of ad- 

Ihe result of reporting a declared rpc ^^aimittee for dealing was appointed, with 
nmrly; the mode of fensure was sett^^bv ^^e same mind a^ for- 

and in favour of a modified deSvadon JhJpK deposition, 

1732, to the effect of “ loosing the reh° on of November, 

chajges.” This, the 6 nal sentencro^thp r ^ their several 

was in the following terms: ommission against the four protesters, 

tion o?Mr.°El!ine!re'? E^dL^minTsL^^^^^^ 

Perth,Mr. Alexander Moncrieff minister Wilson, minister at 

ister at Kinclaven, to their said VesnectivP Fisher, min- 

ministers of this Church- and do^ hcrplw do declare them no longer 

employ them or any of them in anv m? ministers of this Church to 

declare the churches of the said Mr EislTne Mr" Wl'’ Commission do 

Fisher, vacant, from and after the dme of ^ ^ M°""‘ieff, and Mr. 

from the Moderator and extracts of this sUZf ""PP®'"^^ ^bat letters 

fou^“m!"„?s.e;s?rer:::d^:;"’ ,<> .he 
of what became the Secessio,.' Church of Sco.l'and, ’a copy’L added! viz."*' 

a. ‘.‘hl^r f 

a!!^ f fa*' August, and when we appeared first before this meeting 

And further, we do protest in our own name, and in name of all and every one Tn 

adhering to us, that, notwithstanding of this s’!nten« 
passed against us our pastoral relation shall be held and reputed firm anr!a"id 
And likewise we do protest, that notwithstanding of our being cast out froT minis 
terial communion With the Established Church of Scotland we^<;illl hnl i " 

with all and every one who desire with us to adhere to .’hrpH ci.d s ^“0“::: 
Presbytenan covenanted Church of Scotland, in her doctrine, worship government 
whi “nd Particu arly with everyone who is groaning undef'the ev l" and 

who IS affected with the grievances we have been complaining of, who a!e in their 

this Established Church who have now cast us out from ministerial communion with 
lem, are carrying on a course of defection from our reformed and covenanted 
principles, and partmularly are suppressing ministerial freedom and faithfulness in 
testifying against the present backslidings of the Church, and inflicting censures 
upon ministers for witnessing by protestations and otherwise, against ^he same 
Therefore we do, for these and many other weighty reasons, to belaid open in due 
time, protest^ that we are obliged to make a secession from them, and tLat we can 
have no ministerial communion with them till they see -their sins and mistakrand 
..mend them. And in like manner we do protest, that it shall briavZ and ’war 
rantable for us to exercise the keys of doctrine, discipline, and government accld 
mg to the Word of God and C.mfession of Faith, and the principles and ’constitu- 
64 


lOIO 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


tions of the Covenanted Church of Scotland, as if no such censure had been passed 
upon us : upon all which we take instruments. And we hereby appeal unto the 
first free, faitnful, and reforming General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. 

(Signed) Ebenezer Erskine. 

William Wilson. 
Alexr. Moncrieff. 
James Fisher.” 

Upon the 6 th of the following month (December, 1733) brethren met at 

Gairney Bridge, near the county town of Kinross ; and after having spent the greater 
part of the day in prayer and conference, they constituted themselves into a Pres- 
bytery, afterwards known as “ The Associate Presbytery.” This step they took ‘‘ in 
conformity to their present situation, and in consequence of their late protestation 
before the Commission, and also that they might be in a condition and capacity to 
exercise all the parts of their pastoral office ; that they might have a more special 
claim to the promise of the Divine presence among them; that they might maintain 
jn-oper order among themselves, distinguishing themselves from those of the sec- 
tarian and independoit way; that they might be in a better capacity for aftording 
help and relief to the oppressed heritage of God through the land ; and that they 
might endeavour to lift up judicial as well as a doctrinal testimony for Scotland’s 
covenanted Reformation, and against the present declinings and backslidings from 
the same.” 

In May, 1734, there was prepared and issued by a committee of their number, a 
“ Testimony to the Doctrine, Worship, Government, and Discipline of the Church of 
Scotland; or reasons by the four brethren for their protestation before the Commission 
of the General Assembly, November, 1733; ” which Testimony was afterwards ap- 
proved by the Presbytery as their testimony, and its publication was commended as 
seasonable. This volume was called the First or Extrajudicial Testimony. Along with 
three more technical Testimonies which had preceded it (entitled “The True State 
of the Process,” “ The Representation,” “ The Review of the Narrative of Proce- 
dure emitted by a Committee of the General Assembly’s Commission ”), that Tes- 
timony set forth, more fully and articulately than had been done in the protest above 
quoted, the evils which the Seceders regarded as existing in the administration of 
the affairs of the Church ; and these seem to have multiplied, or to have unfolded 
themselves after the separation, so that when the General Assembly, at their meeting 
in May, 1734, not only rescinded, inter alia, the Act of 1732, but passed an Act em- 
powering the Synod of Perth and Stirling to restore the brethren to their respective 
ministerial charges without farther inquiry, and when the said Synod had, in pur- 
suance of (hat authority, in the following July, “ taken off the sentences pronounced 
by the Commission of 1733 against the four brethren, and restored them to minis- 
terial communion with the Church,” yet for reasons which they published in 1735, 
they refused to accede to the Judicatories of the Church, submitting at the same time 
certain preliminaries of reform, which they deemed essential to their harmony with 
the Church. 

The Seceders obtained ministerial accession to their number, and in December, 
1736, enacted, as the result of many deliberations, a’ “ Judicial Testimony,” giving an 
historical account of what they reckoned the defections of the Church, of existing evils 
against which they testified, and of the doctrines and principles which they held and 
upon which they acted. This Testimony was published in March, 1737. Before its 
publication, the Rev. Ralph Erskine, of Dunfermline, and the Rev. Thomas Mair, of 
Orwell, had adjoined themselves to the Seceders; and in the following September the 
Rev. Thomas Nairn, of Abbotshall, as the Rev. James Thomson, minister at Burntis- 
land, did in the following June. Notwithstanding these accessions, the brethren 
found themselves unable to answer the applications made to them for ministerial ser- 
vice, and resolved to license some young men to take part with them in the work, 
and adopted a formula of questions on licence, which, with two additions, was to be 
used on the ordination of ministers. This formula is quoted in the Appendix.* 


* See Appendix A (a 2). 


lOI I 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

sion and tVi#» TuriiVi^i t* *• now eight in number, charging their seces- 

SK fSlSr” 

ss>;b2“!S=^^ 

refra'^t'ath^n^wa^i^^^^^^^ and [^e Assembly 0^740 ^ ^ ^o 

the holy ministry and Drohibhpd ln^^- u them from the office of 

charges; but soon after the sentenr^ r.f 1 ’ . continued to minister in their 

debarred by the civ 1 nowers fmm of 't, they were 

preach in the open air Some ofThe o W Seee7 '.''ey proceeded to 

allowed to remain in their dr aris Bm 

proceeded in i^taa frtrrr, fU 'i ^ length abdicated their position, and 

Division in the Associate Synod. 

li^fS=^SS3Si= 

parVanTthd Ml'''' '"'2 “<> "'o formation, ’in 1747, of elch 

fn^b ^ their follower into two Synods-the one which accepted the oath retain 

Synod 7 e 'othl"““h-°b Associate), popularly caHed the '• Burgher ” 

te7 miT r ^ condemned the oath, somewhat larger in number of mini’s 

ca Ie 7 tLoATb?rgher’”T„ 7 d"®l^^^ Associate,” and commonly 

e ^ eu me AntiDurgher Synod. The separation continued till the vear 1820 

It issued in a reunion, to be afterwards mentioned. Towards the end of last centnrv 
secessions took place from each of the bodies, arising fJom diSrence^f 
occurring in each Synod as to the extent of the right of the Civil Magistrate^rzVrrt 
sub-Seceders returned to the parent Churchf it does not 
fall within the province of this paper to advert to their creeds, although it may serve 
the purpose of completeness thus to notice the fact. ^ y ve 

Church of Relief. 

Next in order of time l^o the two bodies of the Secession, the Church of Relief 
arose. It originated in a disputed settlement in the parish of Inverkeithing. That 
settlement, and the exercise of patronage in regard to it, were opposed by several 
SsiTtPd'^i Presbytery of Dunfermline, by whom the settlement was earnestly 

i their own Presbytery, together with the action in support of it proposed 
to be taken These ministers, six in number, on the 22d May, 1752, memorialized 

2nd Srr^i proceedings; but the Court adhered to them 

and resolved that one of the mehaorialists should be deposed. The vote, taken next 
day fell upon the Rev. Thomas Gillespie, minister of Carnock, and he was accord- 
ingly <^eposed from the office of the holy ministry. He began to preach in the open 
adhering to his position agamst endeavours to recall and reconcile hini to 
the Church, he was finally excluded from it. Others gradually joining themselves 
conpegations were organized, and a Presbytery of Relief w£ formed in 
1761, and afterwards a Synod, and so continued till the Union of 1847. 


1012 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Reunion of the two Branches of the Associate Synod. 

The two main branches of the Secession were reunited on the 8th September, 
1820. This event was the result of a general desire among the members of each 
body, expressed in numerous petitions to the respective Synods, and was favoured by 
a recent legislative abolition of the clause in the Burgess Oath which had occasioned 
the separation. The movement for union began in 1818, and not only continued, 
but increased in influence and strength, until, as the result of repeated and earnest 
deliberations, a basis of union was agreed upon, and the union was consummated, 
at a joint meeting of both Synods, in the Church of Bristo Street, Edinburgh, where 
the separation of 1747 taken place. From the union there dissented seven 
ministers, who, it is believed, were ultimately for the most part merged in one or 
other of the two bodies of dissentients from the previously existing bodies of Sece- 
ders. The name or title of the United Synod was-“ The United Associate Synod 
of the Secession Church.” 

Formation of United Presbyterian Church. 

The united body continued to maintain its separate position until the year 1847, 
when, on the 15th September, and as the result of a previous tendency of thought 
and feeling in both bodies, and of deliberate consideration, the Churches of the 
Secession and Relief were united on the basis before quoted. 

Having thus sketched the origin of the different Churches comprised in the 
United Presbyterian Church, there will now be given answers to the questions in 
respect to them severally. 

Questions I. and IT. 

The Creeds or Confession of these Churches are set forth in their respective for- 
mulse, described in Appendix A, as follows : — 

(a.) The “ ordination vows,” or formula of qpestions settled by the Associate 
Presbytery soon after the publication of the Judicial Testimony in 1737, for being 
put at the ordination of Ministers and Elders, and the licensing of young men to 
preach the gospel. 

Acts were passed by the Associate Presbytery on 23d December, 1 743, 14th Feb- 
ruary, 1744, and 15th February, 1744, for renewing their obligation to observe and 
fulfil their parts of the National Covenant, and of the Solemn League and Cove- 
nant.; but it appears from a note subjoined to the republication of them in 1770, that 
they had not been generally observed by the people, or at least none had been sul)- 
jected to discipline for non-observance. Gib’s Display^ vol. i., p. 253. 

{a 2.) Formula for licensing Preachers, and at the ordination of Ministers, 
adopted in 1737. 

[h.) Formula adopted by the Antiburgher Synod, after the separation of 1747, — 
the above (a.) with two additional questions given in the Appendix. See full Form 
in the Narrative and Testimony-enacted by the Synod on ist May, 1804, p. 249 
et seq. 

{b 2.) The Burgher Synod in- 1781 made some change in certain of the ques- 
tions of the Formula of the Associate Synod, with a view to make it more plain 
and uniform, and directed the approved formula to be inserted in the minutes of 
each Presbytery and Session, so as to prevent divergence. M'Kerrow, p. 562. 
A copy is given in the Appendix (b 2.), together with a preamble adopted by the 
Synod to the same Formula in April, 1797. k‘Kerrow, p. 591. Minutes of 
Synod. 

(^■.) The Formula for the ordination of Ministers in the Relief Church taken 
from Regulations by the Synod of that Church, printed in 1836, pp. 28 and 29. 

(d.) The basis of Union and the Formula for the ordination of Ministers, agreed 
upon and adopted by the Synod of the United Associate Secession Church in the 
year 1820. 

The adjustment of a formula for the licensing of Preachers and ordination of 
Elders was left in the meantime to the several presbyteries. A Summary of Prin- 
ciples as a Directory for the admission of private members was adopted, the doc- 
trinal part of. which is given on pp. 81, 82. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1013 


Question III. 

There seems no room to doubt that these formulse and. that Directory were ac- 
cepted and observed throughout the Church. 

APPENDIX A. 

( To Answers to United Presbyterian Church.') 

a. Formula of 1737. — For Ministers, Probationers, and Elders. 

Question I. — Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to 
be the Word of God, and the only rule of faith and manners? 

Question II. — Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine contained 
in the Confession of Faith, compiled by the Assembly of Divines who met at 
We.stininster, with Commissioners from the Church of Scotland, as the said Con- 
fession was received and approved by an Act of Assembly 1647, Session 23; and 
likewise the whole doctrine contained in the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, com- 
piled by the said Westminster Assembly, to be founded upon the Word of God: 
And do you acknowledge the said Confession as the confession of your faith : 
And will you through grace firmly and constantly adhere to the doctrine of the 
said Confession and Catechisms, and to the utmost of your power assert, maintain, 
and defend the same against all Deistical, Popish, Arian, Socinian, Arminian, 
Neonomian, Antinomian, and other doctrines, tenets, and opinions whatsoever, 
contrary to or inconsistent with the said Confession and Catechisms, and particu- 
larly against the many gross and dangerous, errors vented and maintained by 
Messrs. Simson and Campbell, which are specified and condemned in the Judicial 
Act and Testimony emitted by the Associate PreslTytery (now the Associate Synod) ?* 

Question III. — Are you persuaded that the Lord Jesus Christ, the alone King 
and Head of his Church, hath appointed a particular form of government to take 
place therein, — distinct from Civil Government, and not subordinate to the same; 
and that Presbylerial Church-government, without any superiority of office above 
a teaching Presbyter, in the due subordination of judicatories (such as of Kirk 
Sessions to Presbyteries, of Presbyteries to Provincial Synods, and of Provincial 
Synods to General Assemblies), is the only form of government laid down and 
appointed by the Lord Christ in his Word, to continue in his Church to the end 
of the world unaltei-able ; which accordingly has been owned and received by the 
Church of Scotland as the only government of Divine institution and appointment, 
as is evident from the Covenants, National and Solemn League, which this Church 
and land have sworn and come under to the Most High God, and from many of 
her public acts and constitutions, particularly from the Second Book of Discipline, 
and the propositions concerning Church government, as the said propositions were 
received and approved by an Act of Assembly 1645, Session 16; And do you 
promise to submit to the said government and discipline, and never to endeavour, 
directly or indirectly, the prejudice or subversion thereof; but that you will to the 
utmost of your power in your station, during all the days of your life, maintain, 
support, and defend the same, together with the purity of worship received and 
practised in this Church, against all Erastian, Prelatic, Sectarian, or other tenets, 
opinions, or forms of worship and government whatsoever, contrary to or incon- 
sistent with the said covenanted worship, government, and discipline, sworn to 
in our Covenants, National and Solemn League ? 

Question IV. — Do you own and acknowledge the perpetual obligation of the' 
National Covenant frequently sworn and subscribed by persons of all ranks in this 
kingdom; and particularly, as explained by the General Assembly 1638, to abjure 
the hierarchy and the five articles of Perth : Do you likewise own and acknowledge 
the perpetual obligation of the Solemn League and Covenant for maintaining ai:^ 
carrying on a work of reformation in the three kingdoms, sworn and subscribed by 
all ranks in Scotland and England in the year 1643; and particularly as renewed in 


* The enclosed addition was made on erection of Synod, March, 1745. 


1014 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Scotland, with an Acknowledgment of Sins and an Engagement to Duties, in the 
year 1648; And do you promise, through grace, to adhere to these Covenants, and 
in your station to prosecute the ends of them ? 

Question V. — Do you approve of the Act, Declaration, and Testimony for the 
Doctrine, Worship, Discipline, and Government of the Church of Scotland, enacted 
and emitted by the Associate Presbytery; And do you in your judgment disapprove 
of the several steps of defection, both in former and present times, condemned in 
the said Act as contrary to the Word of God, the Confession of Faith, and the 
National Covenant of Scotland, and the Solemn League and Covenant of the three 
nations ? 

Question VI. — (Ahr Ministers and Probationers.') Do you promise that you 
will submit yourself willingly and humbly, in the spirit of meekness, unto the ad- 
monitions of the brethren of this Presbytery, agreeable to the Word of God, and 
to be subject to them in the Lord (and to the other Presbyteries of the Association, 
and the Associate Synod, as the Lord in His providence shall cast your lot*) : And 
do you promise that you will maintain the spiritual unity and peace of, and that you 
will follow no divisive course from the reformed and covenanted Church of Scot- 
land, either by falling in with the defections of the times, or by giving yourself up 
to a detestable indifferency and neutrality in the foresaid covenanted cause; and 
this you promise, through grace, notwithstanding of whatever trouble or persecution 
you may meet with in essaying the faithful discharge of your duty herein ? 

[Con. for Elders.) Do you promise that you will submit yourself willingly and 
humbly, in the spirit of meekness, unto the admonitions of the brethren of the Ses- 
sion in this congregation : And do you promise that you will maintain the spiritual 
unity and peace of, and that you will follow no divisive course from the reformed 
and covenanted Church of Scotland : either by falling in with the defections of the 
times, or by giving yourself up to a detestable indifferency and neutrality in the fore- 
said covenanted cause; and this you promise, through grace, notwithstanding of 
whatsoever trouble or persecution you may meet with in essaying the faithful dis- 
charge of your duty herein ? 

Question VII. — {For Ministers.) Are not zeal. for the honour and glory of 
God, love to the Lord Jesus Christ, and desire of being instrumental in edifying and 
saving souls, your great motives and chief inducements to enter into the function of 
the holy Ministry ; and not any selfish views, or worldly designs or interest ? 

{For Probationers). Are not zeal for the honour and glory of God, love to the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and desire of being instrumental in edifying and saving souls, 
your great motives and chief inducements to accept of licence to preach the Gospel 
as a Probationer for the holy Ministry ; and not any selfish views, or worldly designs 
or interest ? 

{For Elders.) Are not zeal for the honour and glory of God, love to the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and desire of being instrumental in the edification of His body, your 
great motives and chief inducements to enter into the office of Eldership in this con- 
gregation ; and not any selfish views, or worldly designs or interest? 

Question VIII. — {_For Ministers}) Have you used any undue methods, either 
by yourself or others, in procuring this call to the Ministry? 

{For Elders.) Have you used any undue methods, either by yourself or others, 
in procuring your call to the office of Eldership in this congregation ? * 

Question IX. — For Ministers. Do you engage, in the strength and grace of 
our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, to rule well your own family (if it shnfl please 
the Lord to give you one); and to live an holy and circumspect life, following after 
righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness : And do you engage, in 
the strength of the same grace, faithfully, diligently, and cheerfully to discharge’ all 
the parts of the ministerial work, to the edification of the body of Christ? 

{For Probationers.) Do you engage, in the strength and grace of our Lord and 
Master Jesus Christ, to live an holy and circumspect life, following after righteous- 
ness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness; and to preach the Gospel, wher- 


* Added at erection of Synod. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 1015 

ever you shall be called, faithfully and honestly,— not with, the enticing words of 
man s wisdom but in the purity and simplicity thereof, not ceasing to declare the 
whole counsel of God ; — as also to catechise the people, and visit the sick, as you 
shall have access and opportunity : And to perform whatever other duties are incum- 
bent on you from the Word of God, as a Probationer for the holy Ministry, in order to 
the convincing and reclaiming of sinners, and the edifying and building up of the 
body of Christ ? ^ r 

{For Elders.) Do you engage (each of you), in the strength and grace of our 
1.01 c and Master Jesus Christ, to rule well your own family (if it shall please the 

Old to give you one); and to live an holy and circumspect life-, following after 
iighteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness? 

Question X, {For Ministers.) Do you accept of, and close with, the call to be 
1 astor of this Associate Congregation, and promise, through grace, to perform all 
the duties of a faithful Minister of the Gospel among this people, — in preaching the 
Gc^pel among them, not with the enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in the purity 
and simplicity thereof, not ceasing to declare unto them the whole counsel of God ; 
as also in catechising, exhorting from house to house, visiting the sick; And per 

orniing whatever other duties or means are incumbent on you from the Word ol 
God, as a faithtul Minister of Jesus Christ, for the convincing and reclaiming of 
sinners, and for the edifying and building up of the body of Christ? 

{For Elders.) Do you accept of, and close with, your call to the office of Elder- 
ship in this congregation ; And do you engage, through grace, diligently and cheer- 
fully to discharge all the parts of the office ol the Eldership, as to whatever duties 
or means are incumbent upon, and competent unto you, in that office, for the edify- 
ing and building up of the body of Christ in this congregation ? 

And all these things you promise and engage unto, through grace, as you will be 
answerable at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints, and as you 
would desire to be found among fliat happy company at His glorious appearing ? 

{a 2.) — Formula of Questions to be put to Candidates for Licence, 1737. 

I. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word 
of God, and the only rule of faith and manners ? 

IL Do you believe the whole doctrine contained in the Westminster Confession 
of Faith, as received by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1647, 
and in the Larger and Shorter Catechisms; and will you maintain and defend the 
same against all contrary errors, and particularly against the errors of Professors 
Simson and Campbell? 

III. Do you believe that Christ has appointed a particular form of government in 
His Church, and that this form of government is not Prelatic or Congregational, but 
Presbyterial, consisting in a subordination of Sessions to Presbyteries, of Presbyteries 
to Synods, of Synods to General Assemblies; andw’ill you maintain and defend the 
same, together with the purity of worship received and practised in this Church, 
against all Prelatic, Erastian, and Sectarian errors? 

IV. Do you own the binding obligation of the National Covenant of Scotland, 
particularly as explained in 1638, to abjure Prelacy and the five articles of Perth; 
and of the Solemn League of the three kingdoms, particularly as renewed in Scot- 
land in 1648, with an acknowledgment of sins; and will you study to prosecute the 
ends thereof? 

V. Do you approve of the Act and Testimony emitted by the Associate Presby- 
tery as a testimony for truth, and against defections therefrom in former and present 
times; and do you, in your judgment, condemn the several steps of defection con- 
demned therein ? 

VI. Do you promise, in the spirit of meekness, to be subject to the admonitions 
of your brethren in the Lord, and to the Associate Presbyteries, and to follow the 
peace of the Church together with your brethren, and to follow no divisive course 
from the Covenanted Church of Scotland; and that you will not give yourself up 
to detestable neutrality with respect thereto, whatever danger or suffering you may 
be exposed to on that account ? 


ioi6 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


VII. Are love to Christ, and a desire to be useful in edifying the souls of men, 
your chief motives in entering on the work of the Holy Ministry, and no worldly 
motive whatever ? 

The three following questions were afterwards added to the Formula, with a view 
to their being put to Ministers at their ordination : 

VIII. Have you used any undue methods for procuring the call from this congre- 
gation ? 

IX. Do you engage to rule your own family well, and to live an exemplary life 
before the Hock of Christ ? 

X. Do you accept of, and close with, the call from this Associate Congregation, 
and engage to perform the duties of a faithful pastor among them in preaching the 
Gospel, not with the enticing words of man’s wisdom, in catechising, and in 
visiting the same from house to house ? 

[b.) — Formula for Mitiisters, Probationers, and Elders, adopted by the General 
Associate [Antiburgher) Synod after separatio 7 i of 1747 - 

Questions I. to X. givejt in [a) supra. 

XI. Are you satisfied with, and do you purpose to adhere unto and maintain the 
principles about the present Civil Government, which are declared and maintained 
in the Associate Presbytery’s answers to Mr. Nairn’s reasons of dissent, with the 
defence thereto subjoined ? 

XII. Do you acknowledge and promise subjection to this Presbytery in subordi- 

nation to the Associate Synod [as to Elders it runs : the Session of this Congrega- 
tion, in subordination to the Associate Presbytery of and to the Associate 

Synod], as presently constituted in a way pf testifying against the sinful manage- 
ment of the prevailing party in the Synod, at some of the first diets of their meeting 
at Edinburgh in April, 1747; or other Presbyteries in that subordination, as you 
shall be regularly called [this clause is omitted as to Elders] ; and do you approve 
of, and purpose to adhere unto and maintain the said testimony, in your station and 
capacity ; and do you approve of, and purpose to adhere unto qnd maintain, the 
.sentence of Synod in April, 1746, concerning the religious clause of some Burgess 
oaths, and that in opposition to all tenets and practices to the contrary ? 

[b 2 .) — Formula as adopted by the Associate [Burgher) Synod on N May, 1781. 

[Received the reports of the several Presbyteries concerning the proposed abbre- 
viation of the second, third, fourth, and fifth questions of the Formula for Licence 
and Ordinations. Read said questions abridged along with those of the original 
form, and after deliberate reasoning upon them one by one, the Synod, without 
intending the smallest deviation from any part of their former professed adherence 
to the principles or practices of religion — or from their professed thankfulness to 
God for His singular favours to our Church or nation — or their mourning over, and 
testimony against the several backslidings from our attained to and covenanted 
Reformation in present or former times, but in order to render them more plain and 
uniform in the several Presbyteries, agreed to them as they now stand in the subse- 
quent Formula, a copy of which is hereby appointed to be inserted in the Minutes 
of every Presbytery and Session under our inspection, in order to prevent all diver- 
sity for the future.] * 

Ques. I. — Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be 
the Word of God, and the only rule of faith and manners? 

Ques. H. — Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine contained in the 
Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter Catechisms, compiled by the Assembly of 
Divines that met at Westminster, with Commissioners from the Church of Scotland, 
as the said Confession and Catechisms were received and approven by the Acts of 
the General Assembly 1647 and 1648, to be founded on the Word of God, and do 
you acknowledge the said Confession and Catechisms are the confession of your 
faith : and that you resolve through Divine Grace firmly and constantly to adhere to 


* Extract from Minutes of Synod approving of this Formula. 


1017 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

Confession of Faith and Catechisms, and to assert, 
contrary 1^1?? opinions 

nSd'^nf the alone King and 

dlcinl ne d.sth^'r*^^^ i appointed a particular form of government a, u] 
iSv elf r s^t^ordinate to, the Civil Government; and that 

1 resb>teual Government without any superiority of office above a teaching Presbyter 

Tndof Pi'et^'t Judicatures, as of Kirk-Sessions to pfesbyteiis, 

no L government delivered and ap- 

Torld? T t.hnst in His Word to continue unalterable, till the end of the 
never dir^^]^ you promise to submit to the said government and discipline, and 
mairnab snon'^'r to endeavour the prejudice or subversion of it, but to 

wit fhT’ and defend it in your station all the days of your life, together 

ErasiGn ^^ceived and practised in this Church of Scotland a|ainst 

mLf ? ’r 1 ‘^dependent, Sectarian, and other tenets or forms of govern- 
ment, discipline, or worship contrary thereto? ^ 

nf you acknowledge the perpetual obligation of the National Covenant 

of explained in 1638,10 abjure Prelacy and the five Articles 

JpoY Solemn League and Covenant? And do you acknowledge 

tha public covenantmg IS a moral duty under the New Testament dispensation to 
be performed when God in His providence calls to it ? 

Ques. y.— Do you approve of the Act, Declaration, and Testimony published by 
the Associate Presbytery, and maintained by the Associate Synod, for the Doctrine 
Worship Government, and Discipline of the House of God as a necessary and 
seasonaiye appearance for Reformation in a State of Secession from the Judicatures 
o the Lstablished Church ? And do you, through grace, resolve to prosecute the 
ends ot said Testimony by maintaining and defending the truths of God therein 
asserted in opposition to every contrary error and corruption, and particularly those 
errors that were vented by Professors Simson and Campbell ? 

Ques. VI.— Do you promise that you will submit yourself willingly and humbly in 
the spirit of meekness to the admonitions of the iTrethren of this Presbytery, agree- 
able to the W^’ord of God; and be subject to them in the Lord, and to the other 
Presbyteries of the Association, and to the Associate Synod, as the Lord in Ills 
providence shall cast your lot ? And do you promise that you will follow no divisive 
course from the Reformed and Covenanted Church of Scotland, either by falling in 
with the defections of the times, or giving up yourself to a detestable indifference 
and neutrality in the aforesaid Covenanted Cause; and this you promise, through 
grace, notwithstanding whatever trouble or persecution you may meet with ^in 
essaying the faithful discharge of your duty herein ? 

Ques. VII. — Are not zeal for the honour and glory of God, love to the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and desire of being instrumental in edifying and saving souls, your great 
motives and chief inducements to enter into the functions of the Holy Ministry, and 
not any selfish views or worldly designs or interest? 

Ques. VIII. — Have you used any undue methods either by yourself or others in 
procuring this call to the ministry? 



faith, love, patience, and meekness? And do you engage, in the strength of the 
same grace, faithfully, diligently, and cheerfully to discharge all the parts of the 
ministerial work to the edification of the Body of Christ? 

Ques. X. — Do you accept of, and close with, the call to be pastor of this Associ- 
ate Congregation, and promise, through grace, to perform all the duties of a faith- 
ful minister of the gospel among this people, in preaching the gospel among them, 
not with the enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in the purity and simplicity 
thereof, not ceasing to declare unto them the whole counsel of God; As also in 
catechising, exhorting from house to house, visiting the sick, and performing what- 
ever other duties or means are incumbent on you from the Word of God as a faith- 


ioi8 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


fill minister of Jesus Christ, for the convincing and reclaiming of sinners, and the 
edifying and building up the Body of Christ ? 

And all these things you promise and engage unto, through grace, as you will be 
answerable at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with all his Saints : and as you 
would desire to be found among that happy company at his glorious appearing? 

{b 3.) — Preamble prefixed to the above Formula in April, 1797 ' 

Preamble. — Whereas some parts of the Standard-books of this Synod have been 
interpreted as favouring compulsory measures in religion, the Synod hereby declare, 
That they do not require an approbation of any such principle from any candidate 
for license or ordination : And* whereas a controversy has arisen among us, respect- 
ing the nature and kind of the obligation of our Solemn Covenants on posterity, 
M’^hether it be entirely of the same kind upon us as upon our ancestors who swore 
them, the Synod hereby declares. That while they hold the obligations of our Sol- 
emn Covenants upon posterity, they do not interfere with that controversy which 
hath arisen respecting the nature and kind of it : And recommend it to all their 
members to suppress that controversy, as tending to gender strife rather than godly 
edifying. 

— Formula for the adinission of Minister^ into the Relief Church, taken from 
Regulations of Relief Synod, adopted 1832/” second edition, printed in 1836, 
p. 28/ but believed to have been in use from 1823. 

1. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word 
of God, and the only rule of faith and manners? 

2. Do you own, and will you adhere to the doctrine of the Westminster Confes- 
sion of Faith as founded on and consistent with the Word of God, except in so far 
as said Confession recognizes the power of the civil magistrate to interfere in relig- 
ious concerns ? 

3. Do you likewise own, and will you adhere to the Presbyterian worship, gov- 
ernment and discipline of the Relief Church, as founded on and agreeable to the 
Word of God ? 

4. Are not zeal for the honour of God, love to Jesus Christ, and desire of saving 
souls, your great motives and chief inducements to enter on the functions of the 
Holy Ministry? 

5. Do you engage, in the strength and grace of Jesus Christ our Lord and Mas- 
ter, to rule well your own family, to live a holy and circumspect life, and faithfully, 
diligently, and cheerfully to discharge all the parts of the ministerial work to the 
edhication of the body of Christ? 

6. Do you regard Patronage as a violation of the rights of the Christian people, 
and’do you engage to maintain and defend their liberties against all encroachment? 

7. Do you accept of, and close with, the call of this congregation to be their pas- ’ 
tor ; and do you promise, through grace, to perform all the duties of a faithful min- 
ister of the gospel among them ? 

8. Have you used any undue njfethods, either by yourself or others, to obtain the 
call of this congregation ? 

9. Do you promise to submit yourself in the Lord, willingly, humbly, and in the 
spirit of meekness, to the admonitions of your brethren in the ministry; and, accord- 
ing to your power, to maintain the unity and peace of the Relief Church, notwith- 
standing whatever trouble or persecution may arise ? 

[ii.') — Basis of Union and Formula for Ordination of Ministers of the United Asso- 
ciate Synod of the Secession (Jhurch. 

Basis [agreed tipon %th September, 1820). 

Without interfering with the right of private judgment respecting the grounds of 
separation, both parties shall carefully abstain from agitating in future the questions 
which occasioned it; and with regard to the Burgess Oath, both Synods agree to 
use what may appear to them the most proper means for obtaining, in those towns 
where it may still exist, the abolition of that religious clause which occasioned the 
original strife. 

O 


SECOND GENEEAL COUNCIL. 1019 

hold the Weird of God, contained in the Scriptures of the Old and 
New lestaments, as the only rule of faith and manners. 

Art. II. We retain the Westminster Confession of Faith, with the Larger and 
Shorter Catechisms, as the confession of our faiih, expressive of the sense in which 
we understand the Holy Scriptures, it being always understood however, that we do 
not approve or require an approbation of anything in those books, or in any other, 
which teaches, or may be thought to teach, compulsory or persecuting and intolerant 
principles in matters of religion. 

Art. hi. The Presbyterian form of church government, without any superiority 
of office to that of a teaching presbyter, and in a due subordination of church judica- 
tories, being the only form of government which we acknowledge as founded upon, 
and agreeable to, the Word of God, shall be the government of the United Church; 
and the Directory as heretofore, shall be retained as a compilation of excellent rules. 

Art. IV. W e consider as valid those reasons of secession from the prevailing 
paity in the judicatories of the Established Church, which are stated in the Testi- 
mony that was approved and published by the Associate Presbytery; particularly 
the sufferance of error without adequate censure,— the settling of ministers by patron- 
age even in reclaiming congregations,— the neglect or relaxation of discipline,— the 
restraint of ministerial freedom in testifying against mal-administration, — and the 
refusal of that party to be reclaimed. 

And we find the grounds of secession from the judicatories of the Established 
Church in some respects increased, instead of being diminished. 

Art. V. We cherish an unfeigned veneration for our reforming ancestors, and a 
deep sense of the inestimable value of the benefits which accrue to us from their 
noble and successful efforts in the cause of civil and religious liberty: — We approve 
of the method adopted by them for mutual excitement and encouragement, by sol- 
emn confederation and vows to God : we acknowledge that we are under high obli- 
gations to maintain and prosecute the w^ork of reformation begun, and to a great 
extent carried on by them : and we assert that public religious vowing or covenant- 
ing is a moral duty, to be practised when the circumstances of Providence require 
it; — but as the duty from its nature is occasional, not stated, and as there is, and 
may be, a diversity of sentiment respecting the seasonableness of it, we agree that 
while no obstruction shall be thrown in the way, but every scriptural facility shall 
be afforded to those who have clearness to proceed in it, yet its observance shall not 
be required of any in order to Church Communion. 

Art. VI. A formula shall be made up from the formulas already existing, suited 
to the United Secession Church. 

Note . — That it be recommended to the United Synod to prepare, as soon as possi- 
ble, a more detailed view of the above Articles as the Testimony of the United 
Church; containing the substance of the Judicial Act and Testimony, the Act con- 
cerning the Doctrine of Grace, and the Answers to Nairn’s Reasons of Dissent. 

Formula for Ordination of Mbristers [agreed upon iT^t/i September, 1820), the ad- 
justment of a Formula for the case of Preachers and Elders being meanwhile 
left to Presbyteries. 

Ques. I.— Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be 
the Word of God, and the only rule of faith and manners? 

Ques. II. — Do you acknowledge the Westminster Confession of Faith, with the 
Larger and Shorter Catechisms, as the confession of your faith, expressive of the 
sense in which you understand the Scriptures; and do you resolve, through Divine 
grace, firmly and constantly to adhere to the doctrine contained in the said Confes- 
sion and Catechism, and to assert and defend it to the utmost of your power against 
all contrary errors; it being always understood that you are not required to approve 
of anything in these books which teaches, or may be supposed to teach, compulsory 
or persecuting and intolerant principles in religion ? 

Ques. III. — Are you persuaded that the Lord Jesus Christ, the only King and 
Head of his Church, has appointed therein a form of government and discipline dis- 
tinct from, and not subordinate to, civil government; and is the Presbyterian form. 


1020 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


of government, without any superiority of office above that of a teaching presbyter, 
and in a due subordination of Church judicatories, the only form of Church govern- 
ment which you acknowledge as founded upon, and agreeable to, the Word of God ? 
And do you promise to submit to the said government and discipline, and that you 
will not attempt the prejudice or subversion of it; but to the utmost of your power, 
in your station, maintain, support, and defend the said government and discipline, 
together with the purity of worship received and practised in this Church ? 

Ques. IV. — Are you persuaded that public religious vowing or covenanting is a 
moral duty, to be practised when the circumstances of Providence require it? Do 
you approve of the method adopted by our reforming ancestors, for mutual excite- 
ment and encouragement, by solemn confederation and vows to God ; and do you 
acknowledge that we are under high obligations to maintain and prosecute the work 
of reformation begun, and to a great extent carried on, by them ? 

Ques. V. — Do you consider as still valid those reasons of secession from the judi- 
catories of the Established Church which are stated in the Testimonies emitted by 
the Secession Church, viz. : The sufferance of error without adequate censure; the 
infringement of the rights of the Christian people in the choice and settlement of 
their ministers under the law of Patronage; the neglect or relaxation of discipline; 
the restraint of ministerial freedom in opposing mal-administration ; and the refusal 
of the prevailing party to be reclaimed? And do you, through grace, resolve to 
prosecute the design of the Secession ? 

Ques. VI. — Do you promise that you w-ill submit yourself, willingly and humbly, 
in the spirit of meekness, to the admonitions of the brethren of this Presbytery, 
agreeably to the Word of God, and to be subject to them in the Lord, and to the 
other Presbyteries of the Association, and to the United Associate Synod of the 
Secession Church, as the Lord in his Providence shall cast your lot ? 

Ques. VII. — Are zeal for the glory of God, love to Jesus Christ, and the desire 
of saving souls, and not worldly designs or interests, as far as you know your own 
heart, your great motives and chief inducements to enter into the functions of the 
Holy Ministry? 

Ques. VIII. — Have you used any undue methods, either by yourself or others, to 
procure this call ? 

Ques. IX. — Do you engage, in the strength and grace of Jesus Christ, our Lord 
and Master, to rule well your own house; to live a holy and circumspect life; and 
faithfully, diligently, and cheerfully to discharge all the parts of the ministerial work, 
to the edifying of the body of Christ? 

Ques. X. — Do you accept of the call to be pastor of this Associate Congregation, 
and promise, through grace, to perform all the duties of a faithful minister among 
this people, in preaching the gospel among them, “ not with the enticing words of 
man’s wisdom,” but in its purity and simplicity, “not shunning to declare all the 
counsel of God ; ” as also in catechising, exhorting from house to house, visiting the 
sick, and performing whatever other duties are incumbent on you from the Word 
of God, as a faithful minister of Jesus Christ, for convincing and converting sinners, 
and for edifying the Church of the living God ? 

Ques. XL — And all these things you profess and promise, through grace, as 
you shall be answerable at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, with all his saints, 
and as you would be found in that happy company at his second coming ? 


APPENDIX B. 

( To answers as to United Presbyterian Church.') 

As to Modification of Creeds. 

The compiler has been unable to find any deed of the Synod of any of the 
Churches enacting any modification of its Creed as before stated, except those re- 
ferred to under {a.) I. and 11. There are to be found several declarations of the 
Churches in regard to doctrine, but these are of the nature of defences or explana- 


1021 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

p«Tnto happen ,o have 

wuh some recent adSi,ions?is Eppe^dix" 

declaratory of the^several churches on 

Assertory Part. 

Section I. — Concerning Doctrine. 

Thl', n? did, and hereby do acknowledge, declare and assert — 

S ; 9iFH“- 

An?l^ lu Confession of Faith [chJp. i. s. i., chap xxi s i 1 

And ^lereby reject and condemn all contrary principles and tenets that are 
maintained by Mr. Campbell, the Socinians, and others. ^ ’ 

Pril acknowledge, declare, and ^jj^;-/,_That the Word of 

God contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament is not only a suffi 
cient rule, or the pr ncipal rule, -but that it is the only rul^to direct us ^ho^we 
ought to glorify God and enjoy Him ;— and that “the iuthority of the Holy Scrip- 
ture, for which It ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not^upon the testimom/ 
of any man or church,— but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the Author 
hnMMh ^he^efore It IS to be received, because it is the Word of God; ’’—And 

mined ^ controversies of religion are to be deter- 

mined,— and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men 
and private spirits are to be examined,— and in whose sentence we are to rest • can 
be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture:” according to Confes- 
sion [chap. I S. 4, 10] ; and the answer to the third qLstion in the I afg er mid t ^ 
second question in the Shorter Catechism,-with the Scriptures cited. And they 

orT„cLTtenrhe,'ewl(r" ‘o, 

generation, is JEHOVAH, the most high God, self-existent and independent • And 
that He IS necessarily existent; and that the terms, necessary existence, supreme 
Deity, and the title of the only true God, cannot be taken in a sense that indudes 

belong to the and Holy equally 

with the Father: And that the three persons of the adorable Trinity are num^ically 
One in substance or essence equal m power and in glory: According to the do^ 
tune held forth from the Word of God in our Confession [chap. ii. s. 3I • and the 
ansvver to the question in the Larger and Shorter CatechiLi,-A^.z,, 
are there in the Godhead? and the answer to the question in the Larger Ccifchism 
-How doth It appear that the Son and the Holy Ghost are God equal with the 
^fher? And they hereby reject and condemn all contrary principles vented by 
Mr. Simson; and all other Arian, Socinian, and Sabellian tenets,— contrary to the 
above doctrine, or inconsistent therewith. ^ 

IV. Also they acknowledge, declare, and assert,— That God has, from all eter- 
nity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably 
decreed and ordained whatsoever comes to pass in time: And particularly, that he 
hath predestinated some of mankind unto eternal life, before the foundation of the 
world was laid,--and according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the 
counsel and good pleasure of His own will allenarly ;— and that they who are thus 
predestinated, are chosen unto everlasting glory out of His mere free grace and 
love ; without any foresight of faith, good works,— or perseverance in either of them ; 


1022 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


or any other thing in them, as conditions or causes moving Him thereto : And all to 
the praise of His glorious grace : according to the doctrine held forth from the 
Scriptures chap. iii. s. i, 5]. And they hereby reject and condei 7 in all con- 

trary principles, contained in the Assembly’s Catechism revised ; and all other Pe- 
lagian and Arminian errors, inconsistent herewith. 

V. Likewise they acknowledge, declare, and assert, — That, when God created 
man. He entered into a covenant with him; wherein life was promised, upon con- 
dition of his perfect and personal obedience; and that in this covenant (commonly 
called the covenant of works), the first Adam stood in the capacity of a public cov- 
enant-head and representative unto all his posterity: and that, by reason of his 
breach of this covenant, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation — 
sinned in him their head and representative ; and fell with him in his first transgres- 
sion : And that his sin is truly and justly imputed to them every one : And that, 
upon account of this sin imputed, — all infants descending from Adam by ordinary 
generation, want that original righteousness wherewith Adam was created; and are 
by natiu-e children of wrath ; — according to Conf. [chap. vi. s. 3, 4, 6, chap. vii. s. 2] ; 
and Larg. Cal. {giuest. 20, 22, 25, 27], Short. Cat. \jjuest. 12, 16] ; and the Scriptures 
cited. And they hereby reject and cotidemn all contrary tenets maintained by Mr. 
Simson,Zi\\(X the Reviser of the Assembly’s Catechism; and all other principles con- 
trary to, or inconsistent herewith. 

VI. Likewise they acknowledge, declare, and assert, — That man, by his fall into 
a state of sin, is wholly dead in trespasses and sins ; and hath wholly lost all ability 
of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation : and that man, in a natural 
state, being enmity against God and averse from all spiritual good, — is not able by 
his own strength to convert himself, or prepare himself thereto; and consequently, 
that there is no necessary nor certain connection, either in the nature of things or 
by any divine promise, — between the morally serious endeavours of man in a nat- 
ural state, and the obtaining special or saving grace : — According to the doctrine 
held forth from the Scriptures, Conf. [chap. ix. s. 3, chap. x. s. 2, 3]. And they 
hereby reject and condemn all opposite principles maintained by Mr. Simson ; and 
all Arminian errors inconsistent herewith. Notwithstanding they assert. That it is 
the. duty of all, and every one, to give diligent attendance upon the ordinances of 
divine institution and appointment; particularly the reading and hearing of the 
Word, and prayer; these being the ordinary means by which converting and quick- 
ening grace is communicated, to such as are dead in trespasses and sins ;— according 
to Larg. Cat. {jjuesi. 153, 155] ; and Short. Cat. {(juest. 85 and 88]. 

VII. Also they acknowledge, declare, and assert,— Thsit the light of nature is not 
sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of his will, which is necessary to sal- 
vation : and therefore they who do not profess the Christian religion cannot be saved ; 
be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature and 
the law of that religion they do profess: — According to Cotifi. [chap. i. s. i, chap. 
X. s. 4] J Larg. Cat. \jjuest. 60]. And they condetnn all Socinian or other tenets 
inconsistent therewith, in the foresaid Catechism revised: And particularly Mr. 
Simson' s erroneous doctrine, concerning an obscure revelation and offer of grace 
made to all without the Church; and Mr. CampbelP s erroneous opinion ; — that the 
laws of nature are in themselves a certain and sufficient rule to direct rational minds 
to happiness ; and that our observing of these laws is the great mean and instrument 
of our real and lasting felicity. 

VIII. Further, they acknowledge, declare, and assert, — That the second Person 
of the adorable Trinity did, in the fulness of time, assume the human nature into a 
personal union with his divine ; that he took to him a true body and a reasonable 
soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Vircrin 
Afarj,— and born of her, yet without sin; and that he is very God and very mait^m 
two distinct natuies, and one person for ever; according to Conf. [chap, viii, s. 2], 
and the Scriptures cited. And they hereby reject and condemn all Nestoi'ian and 
Sabellian principles and tenets, contrary to or inconsistent herewith ; whether vented 
in the foresaid Catechism revised, or other erroneous treatises of that kind. 

IX. Further, they acknowledge, declare, and assert,— That the eternal Son of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


the nnWir manifest in the flesh, did, in our nature, as the second Adam, 

th^n? • ^ 1 representative of elect sinners, and the undertaking surety for 

cfp-irt’ ‘'t peifect obedience to the law as a covenant of works, in the room and 
1 f ^ sinners ; and that in their room and stead alone, — he bore the whole 

tlireatened in the law, and incurred by the breach of it; and 

enrlnrprJ Substituted himself in the room of sinners, and 

en lured that curse, bore that wrath, and died that death which is the wages and 

tw sin, and which the sinner himself should have undergone: and 

tnrt .sufferings of the Son of God in our nature were a true, proper, and expia- 
y acrihce; and a proper, real, and complete satisfaction unto the justice of God 

4. 5. ch.-.p. xi. s. 3] ; Cg. cat. 

\ lx m ^‘'’^JP^.u^es cited. And they hereby reject and condenm all opposite 
p inciples held forth in the foresaid Catechism ; and all other Arminian and Bax- 
terian tenets, contrary to, or inconsistent therewith. 

, . ^'iclaiowledge, declare, and assert,— That the obedience of Christ in 

his life and his sufierings unto death (commonly called his active and passive obe- 
e.nce),— IS that perfect and complete righteousness, on the account of which alone 
a sinner is justified in the sight of God; and that it is upon the account of this right- 
eousness imputed, that sin is pardoned, -and that the persons of any are accepted 
as righteous in the sight of God ; and that this righteousness imputed, is the only 
foundation and ground of a sinner’s right and title unto eternal life: And although 
tne grace of faith be the instrument whereby we receive and apply Christ and his 
rig teousness, yet neither faith, gospel-repentance, nor our sincere obedience, — 
either all . of them together, or any of them separately,— are our justifying righteous- 
ness in the sight of God, or the ground of our acceptance, or of our right and title 
unto eternal life .---according to Conf [chap. xi. s. i], Larg. Cat. \^quest. 73]; and 
e Scriptures cited. And they hereby reject and condemn all opposite principles 
contained in the foresaid Catechism ; and all other Popish, Arminian, or Baxterian 
tenets, contrary to, or inconsistent herewith. 


XI. Also they acknowledge, declare, and assert , — That any want of conformity 
to the righteous and holy law of God is a sin, as well as all actual and voluntary 
transgressions of the law \^Conf chap. vi. s. 4, 6. Larg. Cat. qttest. 24. Short. 
Cat. quest.^ 14] : And that every sin doth, in its own nature, deserve the wrath and 
curse of God, both in this life and that ivhich is to come; according to Cottf. [chap. 
XV. s. 4] and Larg. Cat. \_quest. 152]; And consequently, that the original corrup- 
tion and depravation of our nature is a damnable sin \_Conf chap. vi. s. 6]; and 
that sinning and suffering will be the misery of the damned in hell through. eternity. 
And they hereby reject and condemn all contrary principles contained either in the 
foresaid Catechism revised, or maintained and defended hq Vix . Simsoit ; and all 
other contrary Pelagian and Arminian tenets whatsoever. 

XII. Likewise they acknowledge, declare, and assert , — That the supreme and 
only standard, measure, and rule of all virtuous and religious actions, — is the right- 
eous and holy will and law of God; and not our own self-interest and pleasure: 
According to the doctrine held forth from the Word, Conf [chap. i. s. 2] ; Larg. 
Cat. \_quest. 3] ; Short. Cat. {jquest. 2]. And they hereby reject and condemn all 
contrary principles and tenets, maintained by Mr. Campbell zx\d others. 

XIII. ^ Also, they hereby acknowledge, declare, and assert ,— although all 

that believe in Jesus are delivered from the moral law as a covenant of works, so 
as thereby they are neither justified nor condemned; yet they are under perpetual and 
indissolvable obligations to conform themselves to the moral law as a rule of their 
obedience, not only because of blessings and benefits which they have received, but 
from the authority of God as he is JEHOVAH, the Great Lawgiver; whose per- 
fections are infinitely glorious and excellent, and whose dominion is over all; ac- 
cording to [chap. xix. s. 5, 6], And they hereby reject and condemn all con- 

trary principles held forth in the foresaid Catechism, and all other Antinomian 
principles and tenets inconsistent herewith. 

XIV. Further, they acknowledge, declare, and ■assert-Thxai God hath all life, 
glory, goodness, and blessedness in and of himself, and is alone in and unto him- 


1024 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


self All-sufficient; not standing in need of creatures which he hath made, nor 
deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and 
upon them: And that he hath most sovereign dominion over them; to do by them, 
for them, or upon them, whatsoever himself pleaseth : And that any rewards that he 
has promised to any of his creatures are free and voluntary ; and that in all their 
obedience, worship, and service, they can neither profit him, nor be any way advan- 
tageous unto him : According to the doctrine held forth from the Word of God, 
Conf. [chap, ii, S. 2., chap. vii. S. l]. And they hereby reject and conde 7 nn all 
contrary principles and tenets, maintained by Mr. Cavipbell and others. 

XV. In like manner, they hereby acknowledge, declare, and asse^'i — That the 
jirincipal and leading motive, and spring of true love to God, or of acceptable obe- 
dience and service unto him, is not our own self-interest, or our own happiness and 
felicity — though the same is by divine condescension inseparably connected there- 
with; but that the leading motive of all true love to God, is the supereminent and 
glorious perfections and excellencies of his nature — as they shine forth and are 
manifested in the person of him who is IMMANUEL, God with us; and that all 
who truly love God, do love him chiefiy for himself : As also, that all acceptable 
obedience and service unto him — is primarily and chiefly influenced from a regard 
unto the authority of God in Christ, expressed in his holy law; and proceeds from 
a principle of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ : And that the principal and chief end 
of all such obedience is, that God may be honoured and glorified in our bodies and 
spirits, which are his : And consequently, all that obedience and service to God that 
is principally influenced, and primarily springs from one’s self-interest, advantage, 
or applause, or from fear of punishment or the hope of a reward — is legal, mer- 
cenary, and servile; and moves in no higher sphere than what men in a natural 
state may attain unto : According to the doctrine held forth from the scriptures, 
Conf. [chap. xvi. s. 2, 7] ; Larg. and Short. Cat. \^quest. i]. And they herelw 
reject and condemn all contrary errors maintained by Mr. Simson and Mr. Campbell, 
as having a direct tendency to make all our acts of obedience and worship servile 
and mercenary; and so to destroy and overturn the specific difference that is 
between common and saving grace ; or between the obedience of the temporary, 
and the obedience of the sound believer ; and to establish only a gradual difference 
between common grace in the one, and saving grace in the other, — which is a gross 
error of Mr. Baxter, and of the Arminians, and others. 

XVI. In like manner, they acknowledge, declare, and assert — That all such as 
have saving faith, believe in the Lord Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God : and that 
the apostles and disciples of our Lord, in the days of his humiliation, did acknowl- 
edge, believe in, and worship their Lord and Master as the true promised Messiah, 
the Son of the living God, the only-begotten of the Father ; and expected from him 
spiritual and eternal life and salvation : and that all who truly believe in the Lord 
Jesus can neither totally nor finally fall away from a st.ate of grace: and that the 
faith of the apostles and disciples of our Lord did not fail in the interval of time 
between his death and resurrection ; and therefore, whatever clouds and doubts they 
were under, they were never so far left as to conclude that their Lord and Master 
was a downright deceiver and impostor: according to Conf. [chap. viii. S. i, chap, 
xiv. s. 2, chap. xvii. s. 1,3] ; Larg. Cat. {jjiiest. 72] ; Short. Cat. {^qtcest. 86]— and 
scriptures cited. And they hereby reject and condemn all contrary principles and 
tenets maintained by Mr. Campbell, or contained in the foresaid Catechisfn Revised ; 
and all other principles and tenets inconsistent herewith. 

[b.') — The Act of the Associate Presbytery concernmg the Doctrine of Grace, passed 
at Edinburgh, the 21st day of October, 1742. 

Section" I. — Concerning the Injury done to the Doctrine of Grace, by the As- 
sembly, 1717. 

Section II. — Concerning the Injuries done to the Doctrine of Grace, by the 
Assemblies 1720 and 1722. 

Article I. — Of the Injury done to the Doctrine of Grace, under the Head cf 
Universal Atonement and Pardon. 


1025 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

Nauu’e'of Fa”ir°‘' »f Grace, concerning the 

the Injury done to the Doctrine of Grace, under the Head of 

^dTevfr's'ohldirce ‘ Modv^roVl 

T„tt7h^'B^e,7ev7r°: ^o^ J„t7thtT:t:°a 

( uV!u^\ the Injury done to the Doctrine of Grace, under the Head of 

(what the Assembly calls) The Six Antinomian Paradoxes * 

L^Section in.— a view of Evangelical Subjection, and Obedience to the Moral 

Alllr'i'l I— Concerning the Obligation of Obedience unto the Law. 

Ar^ CLF n r“^Tl'P^r Evangelical Grounds of Obedience to the Law. 
article in.— The Connection betwixt God’s Covenant of Grace and our Cov- 
enant Duties, and the influence the one has upon the other. 

Anii-Btirghe,^) at Edinbingh, 
l^t/i April, 1754 ,. containing a7i assertion of some Gospel- truths, in opposition 
to Ai minian errors upon the head of Universal Redemption. 

covenant of grace, our Lord Jesus Christ became the federal 
Head and Kepresen ative of those <?«/v among mankind-sinners whom God hath out 
of his mere good pleasure from all eternity unto everlasting life: and for 

them only, he was made an undertaking Surety. ^ 

II. That our Lord Jesus Christ hath redeemed none others by his death, but the- 
.elect only.- Because them only he was made under the law, made sin, and made 
a curse; benig substituted only in their law-room and stead,— and having ox\\\ their 
iniquities laid upon him, or imputed unto him,— so that he did bear oRiy their sins • 
for //,«« only he laid down his lile, and was crucified : For their sins only he made 
satisfaction to di^vine Justice; for //,«« only he fulfilled all righteousness; in their 

only was his obedience and .satisfaction accepted ; and for them ovi\y pur- 
chased redemption, with all other benefits of the covenant of grace. 

III. That there is but one special redemption, by the death of Christ, for all the 
objects theieof; as he died in one and the same respect, for all those for whom he in 
any respect died: Or he died out of greatest special love, for all in whose room, 
he laid down his life; with an intention of having them all effectually redeemed 
and saved, unto the glory of free grace. 

^ IV. That the Intercession of Christ is infallibly of the same extent, in respect of 
Its objects, with the atonement and satisfaction made in his death : So that he ac- 
tually and effectually makes intercession for all those for whom he laid down his. 
life, or for whom he hath purchased redemption; that it maybe fully applied to. 
them in due season. ^ 

V. That the death of Christ, as it is stated in the Covenant of Grace,~-hath a 

necessary, inseparable, certain and infallible connection with, and efficacy for the 
actua.1 and complete salvation of all those for whom he died : So that redemption is 
certainly applied and effectually communicated to all those for whom Christ purchased 
the same; all in whose stead he died being, in due season, effectually called —justi- 
fied, adopted, sanctified and glorified. ’ 

VI. That Christ and the benefits of his purchase cannot be divided; neither can 
these benefits be divided, one from another :—\l\\oxofoxo we are made partakers of 
the redemption purchased by Christ, or of the benefits procured by his death,— 
through the effectual -application thereof to us by his Holy Spirit, working faith in 
us; and thereby uniting us to Christ, in our effectual calling: And whoever do 
actively receive and enjoy any benefits of his purchase, as they do it only in the way 
of enjoying himself; so they will all be brought forward, in due lime, to the full en- 
joying of himself and all his benefits for ever; And svhalever things are actively 
received or used any otherivise than by faith, in a state of union with Christ,— are 
not to be reckoned among the benefits purchased by his death. 

65 


1026 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


VII. Tliat whereas there is general, free and unlimited offer of Christ, and sal- 
vation through him, by the gospel, unto sinners of mankind as such, — (upon the 
foundation of the intrinsic sufficiency of the death of Christ, his relation of a kins- 
man-redeemer to mankind-sinners as such and the promise of eternal life through 
him to mankind-sinners as such in the gospel) ; with an interposal of divine author- 
ity in the gospel call, immediately requiring all the hearers thereof to receive and 
rest upon Christ alone for salvation, as he is freely offered to them in the gospel 
and whereas all the hearers of the gospel are thus privileged with an eqiial, full and 
immediate warrant to make a particular application of Christ, with all his redemp- 
tion and salvation, severally unto themselves, by a true and lively faith ; So the gos- 
pel offer and call, containing the warrant of faith, cannot require or infer any 7^;//- 
versal ciUmemGni and redemption as to purchase; but are altogether consistent with 
and confor7ned unto the scripture-doctrine of particular redemption, which is ex- 
pressed in the six preceding articles: — Because our Lord Jesus Christ, in the 
glorious constitution of his perso7i as God-man, Imuianttel, God with 7is, — doth 
stand in an equal or undistinguished relation of a kinsman-redeemer, to mankind- 
sinners as such : And because his mediatory offices, in the true and glorious nature 
thereof, do stand in an equal or undistinguished relation of a kinsjjian-redeenier, to 
mankind sinners as such : And because his 7)iediatory offices, in the true and glorious 
nature thereof, do stand in an equal or undistinguished relation and suitableness — to 
the case and need of mankirnl-sinners as such: And because the ato7iement and 
righteousness of Christ, are in themselves of a justice-satisfying and law-magnifying 
nature; containing the utmost of what law and justice can require, for repairing the 
whole breach of the covenant of works and fulfilling the same, — in order to the justi- 
fication of mankind-sinners as such, who are warranted to betake themselves thereto 
by faith : And because in (he case of a sinner’s justification, law and justice have no 
respect to God’s sovereign counsel about what persons belong to the election of 
grace, — for whom only Christ was employed to make satisfaction and fulfil all right- 
eousness, and for whom alone he intentionally did so; or, which is materially the 
same thing, they have no respect to the particular objective destination or intention 
of Christ’s satisfaction and righteousness, in the transaction of the new covenant, as 
any way belonging to the pleadable7iess thereof at the bar of Law and Justice : — but 
they [znz. Law and Justice) have a respect 077ly unto the justice-satisfying and law- 
magnifying 7iatu7-e o{ this atonement and righteousness; in behalf of eve7y sin77er 
who is found betaking himself thereunto by faith upon the divine warrant. — as the 
same is 7i7ito all and 7ipo7i all the77i that believe, without any differe7ice : And because, 
therefore, the formal ground and reason of faith— doth 7iowise lie in any particular 
objective destination of Christ’s satisfaction and righteousness, or in any particular 
objective intention wherewith he made and fulfilled the same; — but it wholly lies in 
the glorious person and the offices of Christ, with his satisfaction and righteousness, 
as freely and eqically set forth by the gospel unto all the hearers thereof; with the 
Lord’s gracious call and command, for each of them to come over by faith unto this 
glorious foundation, — and with absolute promises of justification and eternal life 
through Christ to mankind-sinners as stich in the gospel, the possession of which 
blessings is to be certainly obtained in this way of believing. 

Note. — The three foregoing Acts are taken from Gib’s “ Display of the Secession Testimony.” 

{(L) — Su7n7fia7y of P/'viciples agreed upon by the Ufiited Associate Symod of the 
Secessio7i Church, September 14, 1820. 

“The Synod agreed. That this Paper is to be regarded as a compendious Exhibi- 
tion of our Principles, and as a Directory for the admission of Members, who are to 
be considered as acceding to the principles contained in this Summary, according to 
the measure of their knowledge.” 

DOCTRINAL TRUTHS. 

Of the Scriptures. 

The Holy Scriptures csf the Old and New Testaments, which are- proved to be the 


1027 


SECOND GENEEAL COUNCIL. 

tnuht excellency of ,he 

only mie of Faith and ftaclice ' ' " produce ;-are the 

Of God. 

infutUrin' kTowWoe'^pl"''“holL®f '=“'T*here present, independent, eternal. 

Of the Decrees of God and the Execution of them. 

unalterably decreed everything which 
mnrlf- iill H ' ’ this plan of his works he executes in Creation, in which he 

everythiig aShll f^ht'^^lntrl" 2“-'™ 

Of A/an^s Original and Fallen State. 

brZl^h created in a state of perfect holiness and happiness; but bv the 

bleach of the Covenant of Works, which God had made with him for himself and 

In their fallen condition mankind are guilty before God; and their whole nature is 

incapable of performing actions 
acceptable to God but theyvare also liable ta present and eternal punishment -—nor 
have they any ability to deliver themselves from this condition. ’ 


Of Redemption. 

^^efore the wmdd began, chosen some of the human 
race to eternal life, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth did 
enter into a Covenant of Grace with his Son for their salvation. 

ihe Son of God haying taken the human nature, free from sin, into union with 
hi^ Divine Person and being filled with the Holy Ghost in that nature, was thus 
prepared to finish the work which the Father had given him to do. 

Having as the surety of his people, been made under the law, he perfectly obeyed 
Its precepts and endured its curse. The dignity of his person gave such^value to 
hi.y work, that their iniquities were expiated, and eternal life obtained for them. 

Upon the third day after his death, he rose again from the dead, and afterwards 
ascended to he.yen, where he intercedes for his people,— receives for himself glory 
mid joy-exercises the poyixr delivered to him by the Father for the benefit of the 
Church; — and at the last day he shall descend to judge the world. 


Of the Applicatio7t of Redemption. 

The Salvation obtained by the Son of God is presented, as the gift of heaven to 
al who hear the gospel ;— and the ordinances of religion are the external means’bv 
which It IS applied to the soul. ^ 

^ These are rendered effectual by the Holy Spirit in regeneration, by whom the 
sinner is enlightened in the knowledge of the truth,— is persuaded and enabled to 
receive the testimony of God in the gospel,— and is made spiritually alive to God in 
holiness. 

When by faith man receives the Lord Jesus, and is united to him, having an in- 
terest in his imputed righteousness, he is pardoned,— accepted,— and made^Im heir 
of heaven. 

The work of holiness begun in regeneration is carried on by continued communi- 
cations of Divine Grace, by which the believer is preserved, strengthened, and com- 
forted, till he is prepared for being removed to heaven. 

At death, the souls of believers are made perfect in holiness, and enter into glory 
—Their blessedness shall be completed at the last day, when their bodies shall be 
raised incorruptible; and, after being judged, they .shall be taken to heaven, where 
they shall be perfectly happy in the full enjoyment of God through eternity. ’ 


1028 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


01 the Condition of Unbelievers. 

They who will not by faith receive the Lord Jesus the Saviour, but continue in 
unbelief and disobedience, increase the depravity and wretchedness of their natural 
condition, and aggravate their future punishment: — at death, their souls shall de- 
part to the place of torment ; — they shall afterwards rise to shame and contempt, 
they shall be condemned in the judgment, and they shall be driven away into ever- 
lasting misery. 

Excerpt from the aforesaid Summary of Principles on the Reasons of Secession. 

The “ Marrow of Modern Divinity” teaches, “That God in the gospel makes a 
gift of the Saviour to mankind sinners, as such, warranting every one who hears 
the gospel to believe in him for salvation ; — That believers are entirely freed from 
the law as a covenant of works ; — That good works are not to be performed by be- 
lievers, that they may obtain salvation by them.” — In the unqualified condemnation 
of these principles, the General Assembly materially condemned some of the most 
important doctrines of the gospel ; such as the unlimited extent of the gospel call, 
and the free grace of God in the salvation of sinners. 

(e.) — Act of the United Associate Synod on the Extent of the Atonement, passed at 
Glasgow, 22>th April, 1830, according to the subjoined Extract from the Min- 
utes of said Synod. 

Glasgow, 2%th April, 1830. 

• ••••••• • • 

The Committee appointed to prepare an admonition as to the mode of treating 
the subject of the Extent of the Atonement gave in a draft of such admonition; 
which was read, and, after a few alterations, was adopted, as follows : 

While the Synod reflect with much gratitude to God on the purity of Doctrine 
which he hath hitherto maintained in our Church, and which they regard as its 
stability and glory, they feel themselves called on by the excitement produced by 
the cause which was decided by the Synod at the third Sederunt of this meeting, 
and especially by the speculations prevalent in some quarters at present, respecting 
the extent of the atonement by the death of Christ, to bring forward the doctrine 
of our standards on that subject, and to enjoin a rigid adherence to it. In these 
standards it is clearly and distinctly stated — “That as God hath appointed the elect 
to glory, so hath he by the eternal and most free purpose of his love, fore-ordained 
all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam 
and redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ, by his Spirit 
working in due season, are justified, adopted, snnctified, and kept by his power 
Ihrough faith unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually 
called, justified, adopted, sanctified and saved, but the elect only. To all them for 
whom Christ hath purchased redemption he doth certainly apply and communicate 
the same, making intercession for them and revealing to them in and by his word 
the mysteries of Salvation, effectually persuading them by His Spirit to believe 
and obey, and governing them by his word and Spirit.”— But as from a misconcep- 
tion of the phraseology of Scripture, a false liberality or affectation of accuracy in 
language, and of simplicity in their views of divine truth, as if the mysterious 
scheme of Salvation could be disencumbered of all difficulties, many assert and 
maintain that Christ made atonement for all men, and thus infringe the sovereignty 
of Divine grace, and encourage the presumption of the sinner, the Synod enjoin all 
ministers and preachers to be on their guard against introducing discussions in their 
ministrations, or employing language, which may seem to oppose the doctrine of par- 
ticular redemption, or that Christ in making atonement for sin was substituted in the 
room of the elect only— and which may unsettle the minds of the ]:)eople on this 
point, or give occasion to members of other Churches to suspect the ])urity of our 
faith. They call on them in the solemn language of Paul to Timothy, “ to show 
uncorruptness in doctiine, gravity, sincerity, sound speech that cannot be condemned, 
that he that is of the contiary part may be ashamed^ having no evil thing to say of 
them.” 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


1029 

The Synod likewise enjoin Presbyteries to co-operate with our Professors of 

neology in watching over the religious principles of our Students, and to take 

ee at they be not tainted with any of the unsound and dangerous speculations 
01 the present day. 

And whereas “ the Gospel call as addressed by God to sinners of mankind as 
such, lounded on the all-sufficient virtue of the death of Christ for the salvation of 
gui ty men without exception — on God’s gift of his Son, that whosoever believeth 
on him might not perish but have everlasting life, and on his command to all to 
whom It comes to believe in the name of his Son whom he hath sent, is also clearly 
taught in our standards,” the Synod recommended it to Ministers and Preachers to 
use incieasing earnestness in urging their hearers to repent and believe the Gospel, 
and in pointing out the criminality as well as the danger of the unbelief that neglects 
the gi eat Salvation ; and while they do so, that they be careful to stir up those who 
j 3 rofess to be the redeemed of the Lord to adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour, 
by the humility of their spirits and by the holiness of their lives. 

(^•) United Associate Synod on Doctrinal Errors Condemned by them, 

passed at Edinburgh, nth May, 1842, according to the subjoined Extracts 
from Minutes of said Synod. 

Edinburgh, nth May, 1842. 

The Synod met according to adjournment, and was constituted, etc.” 

*• •*•••••» 

*‘The Synod then agreed that a statement of the Doctrinal Errors condemned by 
them be printed, and 5,000 copies of it circulated throughout our Church, and that 
it be read from all our pulpits before the first Sabbath of July, and in all our Pres- 
byteries, at as early a Meeting and as full a Sederunt as possible. 

“ The Statement to be in the following form, viz. : ” 

The Committee appointed to draw up a Statement on Doctrinal Errors, gave in 
their Report, which, after due consideration, and with some amendments, the Synod 
adopted, and resolve to declare as follows: 

I. The Synod condemn the assertion, that although all men are by nature in a 
fallen and depraved condition, yet no man is by nature in a state of condemnation 
merely in consequence of Adam’s first sin. 

II. The Synod condemn the assertion that Christ in dying had no special love to 
his people. 

III. The Synod condemn the assertion, that though the atonement of Christ has 
a general reference, and opens a door of mercy to all, yet it secures salvation to 
none, 

IV. The Synod condemn the assertion, that all the ends to be effected by the 
atonement were not necessarily and simultaneously present to the Divine mind in 
the appointment of the Redeemer to die for sinners, and that all these ends were 
not present to the mind of the Son in making the atonement, nor infallibly secured 
by it. 

V. The Synod condemn the assertion, that saving faith is nothing more than an 
individual’s belief that Christ died for him, as he died for all other men, and that 
this belief is always accompanied with assurance of eternal salvation. 

VI. The Synod condemn the assertion, that prayer cannot be acceptably offered 
up except by persons who are assured that they are in a state of grace. * 

VII. The Synod condemn the assertion, that in urging upon a sinner the duty of 
repentance, it is wrong to direct his attention at this stage to the promised aid of the 
Divine Spirit, and that his thinking directly on this subject is fitted to perplex and 
injure, rather than to benefit him. 

VIII. The Synod condemn the assertion, that the enlightening and renewing in- 
fluence of the Divine Spirit is not necessary to a sinner’s believing to the saving of 
his soul. 


1030 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE: 


— Finding of the United Associate Synod oji the subject of Divisions in Senti- 
ment on Doctrinal Points agitated in the Church, as agreed to at Fdinbnrgh , 
()th October, 1843, according to following Extract from Aliniites of Synod of 
that date. 

Report of Committee of whole House, 6 th October, 1843. 

“That the Committee having spent various sittings in full, free, and brotherly 
conference on the matters brought before them by the Overture, particularly on the 
subject of the atonement of our Saviour, were delighted to find that, on explanation, 
supposed diversities of sentiment, in a great measure, disappeared, and that scrip- 
tural harmony prevailed among the brethren ; that, in particular, on the two aspects 
of the atonement, there was entire harmony; namely, that in making the atonement, 
the Saviour bore special covenant relations to the elect, had a special love to them, 
and infallibly secured their everlasting salvation; and that his obedience unto the 
death afforded such a satisfaction to the justice of God, as that on the ground of it, 
in consistency with his character and law, the door of mercy is opened to all men, 
and a free and full salvation is presented for their acceptance. — The Committee 
being of opinion that the misunderstanding has mainly arisen from the use of am- 
biguous language, such as ‘ universal atonement,’ and ‘ limited atonement ; ’ recom- 
mend that ministers and preachers abstain from such phraseology, and from all ex- 
pressions that may seem opposed either to the special relations of the atonement on 
the one hand, or its general relations on the other.” 

“The Synod resumed its sitting, — the Moderator taking the chair, -^when the 
Report of the Committee was adopted.” 

^h.) — Resolutions passed by Synod on ftith and 315-/' July, 1845, questions of Doc- 
trine raised by proceedings against Dr. John Brown. 

“ That the Synod find that no evidence has been adduced showing that Dr. Brown 
has taught any sentiments on .the doctrine of original sin inconsistent with the Scrip- 
tures or the Subordinate Standards of this Church ; and that the Syncxi express its 
satisfaction with the exposition which Dr. Brovvn has given of the sentiments which 
he has all along held, and now holds, as contained in the following terms, viz.: — 
That in consequence of the peculiar constitution under which man was originally 
placed, commonly called the covenant of works, on Adam violating this constitution. 
Ids sin became by imputation the sin of all mankind, and his fall their fall ; that by 
this fall, the race, the whole race, every individual of the race, was brought into a 
state of sin and misery: a state of sin — of original and actual guilt and depravity; 
and a state of misery, — of exclusion from the Divine fellowship, exposure to the 
Divine vt'-rath and curse, and liability to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, 
and to the pains of hell for ever. In consequence of the first sin of the first man, 
every individual of the human race, without reference to his own personal violation 
of the Divine law, is treated as if he were a sinner, and so soon as his powers of 
moral thought, feeling, and action unfold themselves, thinks and feels and acts 
wrong; and so deep is this guilt, and so thorough this depravity, that pardon, and 
sanctification, and eternal life can only be obtained from God in the exercise of sov- 
ereign mercy, through the atonement of Christ, and by the operation of the Holy 
Ghost.” 

“ The Synod find that Dr. Brown expressly rejects the Arminian doctrine of uni^ 
versal redemption, and holds the doctrine of the Reformers, of our Standards, and 
of the decisions of this Synod on the sul>ject ; that the death of Christ, viewed in 
connection willi covenant engagements, secures the salvation of the elect only, but 
that a foundation has been laid in his death for a full, sincere, and consistent offer 
of the Gospel to all mankind.” 

Authorities. 

I. The Present Truth; a Display of the Secession Testimony, by Adam Gib, 
Minister in Edinburgh, in 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1774. 


■ SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1031 


2. A re-exhibilion of the Testimony by the Associate Synod, adopted 3d Septem- 
ber, 1778, printed 1779.* 

3. Narrative and Testimony enacted by the General Associate Synod on 1st *Mr.y, 
1804, printed same year. 

4. Rules of the Relief Synod, with proceedings, printed 1836. 

5. Declaration and Testimonies ol the United Associate Synod. Editions 1826, 
1827, 1828. 

6. Minutes of the United Associate Synod, 1820 to 1840. 

7. History of the Secession Church, by the Rev. John M’Kerrow, printed in 1841. 

8. History of the Relief Church, by Rev. Gavin Struthers, D.D., j)rinied in 1643. 

9. Annals and Statistics of the United Presbyterian Church, by the Rev. William 
Mackelvie, D. D., printed in 1873. 

10. Rules and Forms of Procedure of the United Presbyterian Church. Edition 
1876. 


No. IV. 


Ajiswers to Queries of General Presbyterian Council 07t Creeds and 
Confessio7is, in so far as relates to the Synod of United Original 
Seceders. 


Carluke, Lanarkshire, yoth A/arcA, 1878. 

In reply to the remit of the Committee of the General Presbyterian Council, as 
transmitted by A. Taylor Innes, Esq., I beg — 

I. To send copy of Testimony of Synod of United Original Seceders, which is 
a term “of fellowship, ministerial and Christian, in their body.” 

The first Testimony of the Synod was published in 1736. The Testimony I have 
sent was published in 1827. It is, as you will see at page 4, line 18 from top, an 
attempt to apply “the principles of that (first) Testimony to evils which have arisen 
since it was compiled, or to the new shape which former evils have recently as- 
sumed.” 

In 1747 the Synod divided into two denominations, called Burgher and Anti- 
burgher.f In 1842 the Synods adhering to the original principles of the denomi- 
nation were re-united. The part of the Testimony referring to that dispute was 
then removed. 

II. To state that, along with the Testimony, the Creed of the Synod — adopted in 
1736 — consists of the five Westminster Standards, viz.: the Westminster Confession, 
Catechisms, Larger and Shorter, Propositions concerning Church government, and 
the Directory for Public Worship, as these were received and ratified by the Church 
of Scotland ns standards of covenanted uniformity for the Churches of the three 
kingdoms. In the Testimony, page 4, line 8 from bottom, we say, “ Our object is to 
declare our adherence to, and bear our testimony for, the principles of the Chinch of 
Scotland, as exhibited from the Word of God in her Confession of Faith and other 
formularies drawn up, to be the subordinate standaids of union and unifoimity in 
the Churches of Britain and Ireland.” 

HI. The Formula of Questions to be put to ministers, etc., is printed at the end 
of the Testimony, and those questions relating to doctrine aie given in Appendix A. 

The Formula with the exception of the last question, was adopted by the Asso- 
ciate Presbytery in 1737. The last question was added in 1747, and in 1871 the 
Synod declared that that question amounted substantially to nothing more than v\hat 
is stated regarding the present civil government under paragraph 4lh, sect, qth of 

the historical part of Testimony, pp. 60-64. 

J\/^, SuLsci'ipiion is not required j but the minister or licentiate, after an- 


* See also Brown’s “ Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Secession, and Smith s 

“Historical Sketches of the Relief Church,” 1773. , . u • . . r 

t In 1709 the Burgher, and in 1806 the Antihurgher, Synod hirther divided each into two distinct 
denominations on the question of the extent of the M.igistrate’s power, arcu sacra. 


1032 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


swering the questions of the Formula, emits a declaration, which is minuted in the 
Records of the Presbytery, that he is willing to do so when required. 

V. Private members, in signifying their adherence to the Standards, are only 
required to do so in so far as they understand them. 

Carluke, Lanarkshire. Thomas Hobart, Minister. 

To Dr. Mitchell, St. Andrexvs. 

APPENDIX A. 

Fornuda of Questions to be put at the Ordination of Ministers and Elders, and at 
the Licensing of Probationers [frst five are given). 

I. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word 
of God, and the only rule of faith and manners? 

II. Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine contained in the Con- 
fession of P'aith, compiled by the Assembly of Divines who met at Westminster, 
with Commissioners from the Church of Scotland, — as the said Confession was re- 
ceived and approved by the Assembly of that Church in the year 1647; and likewise 
the whole doctrine contained in the Larger and Shorter Catechisms compiled by 
the said Westminster Assembly, — to be founded upon the Word of God ; and do you 
acknowledge the said Confession as the confession of your faith ; and will you, 
through grace, firmly and constantly adhere to, and to the utmost of your power as- 
sert, maintain, and defend the doctrine of the said Confession and Catechisms, 
against all Deistical, Popish, Arian, Socinian, Arminian, Neonomian, Antinomian, 
and other doctrines, tenets, and opinions whatsoever, contrary to, or inconsistent 
with the said Confession and Catechisms? 

III. Are you persuaded that the Lord Jesus Christ, the alone King and Head of 
His Church, hath appointed a particular form of government to take place therein — 
distinct from civil government, and not subordinate to the same; and that presby- 
terial Church government, without any superiority of office above a teaching presby- 
ter, in due subordination of judicatories (such as of Kirk-sessions to Presbyteries, of 
Presbyteries to Provincial Synods, and of Provincial Synods to General Assemblies), 
is the only form of government laid down and appointed by the Lord Jesus Christ 
in His Word, to continue in His Church to the end of the world unalterable, — 
which accordingly has been owned and received by.the Church of Scotland as the 
only government of divine institution and appointment, as is evident from the 
Second Book of Discipline, and from the Propositions concerning Church govern- 
ment, as the said Propositions were received and approved by an Act of Assembly 
1645, session ^^5 ^^d do you promise to submit to the said government and dis- 
cipline, and never to endeavour, directly or indirectly, the prejudice or subversion 
thereof; but that you will, to the utmost of your power, in your station, during all 
the days of your life, maintain, support, and defend the same, together with the 
purity of worship received and practised in this Church, against all Erastian, Pre- 
latic. Sectarian, or other tenets, opinions, or forms of worship and government what- 
soever, contrary to, or inconsistent with, the said worship, govei'nment, and discipline, 
sworn to in our Covenants, National and Solemn League ? 

IV. Do you own and acknowledge the morality of public covenanting? And do 
you own and acknowledge the perpetual obligation of the National Covenant, fre- 
quently sworn by persons of all ranks in Scotland, and particularly as explained by 
the General Assembly, 1638, to abjure the hierarchy and five articles of Perth ; and 
also the perpetual obligation of the Solemn League and Covenant for maintaining 
and carrying on a work of reformation in the three kingdoms, sworn and subscribed 
by all ranks in Scotland and England in the year 1643, and particularly as renewed 
in Scotland in the year 1648; and do you promise, through grace, to adhere to these 
covenants, and according to your station and opportunities, to prosecute the ends of 
them; and do you likewise acknowledge that the renewing of these Covenants in 
a bond suited to our circumstances is a duty seasonable at the present time? 

V. Do you approve of the Testimony enacted and emitted by the Associate 
Synod of Original Seceders as a suitable and seasonable testimony for the doctrine. 


SECOND GENERAL CODNCIL, 


1033 

worship, discipline, and government of the Reformed Church of Scotland; and do 
you, in your judgment, disapprove of the several steps of defection, bo'th in former 
and piesent times, condemiied in the said Testimony, as contrary to the Word of 
Cod, the Confession of Faith, and our Solemn Covenants? 

APPENDIX B. 

Aa of the Associate Pvesbytevy anent the terms of Ministerial and Christian 

Communion. 

^ ‘ The Presbytery, being engaged in an attempt to revive religious reformation, 
judged that they were called upon to revive the practice of religious covenanting, by 
wliich the refoimation of religion in Scotland had formerly been both introduced 
and sanctioned,” In December, I743> ^^^^^wed the Covenants in a bond suited 

to their present circumstances. 

In the Spring of 1744 ) the Presbytery unanimously adopted the following Act 
anent teinis of communion, not in the way of making covenant renovation “the 
teim of Communion exclusively of, or preferably to others, but as the general and 
seasonable form of avouching all the principles and duties of our holy religion : ” * 

Edinburgh, February 14, 1744. 

The Presbytery, considering the grievous and growing course of defection by the 
present generation of these lands from the truths, cause, and institution of Christ 
revealed in His Holy Word, and maintained in our Reformation standards; as also 
the dreadful prevalence of Latitudinarian principles for uniting persons of all de- 
nominations in Church communion, to the overthrow of the government of Christ’s 
house and the manifest prejudice of all His precious truths: And, considering like- 
ways the many loud calls at this day, on the foresaid and other accounts, to state more 
expressly the terms of Ministerial and Christian Communion, agreeable to the Word 
of God, the principles of this Church, and the duty of the Lord’s remnant in these 
lands : Therefore, for these and other weighty reasons, the Presbvtery did, and 
hereby do agree, resolve, and determine that the renovation of the National Covenant 
of Scotland, and the Solemn League and Covenant of the three Nations in the manner 
now agreed upon and proposed by the Presbytery , shall be the term of Ministerial 
Communion with this Presbytery, and likeways of Christian Communion in the 
admission of people to sealing ordinances, secluding therefrom all opposers, con- 
temners, and slighters of the said renovation of our Solemn Covenant: And, more- 
over, as the Presbytery judge that much tenderness and lenity is to be used with the 
weakest of Christ’s flock, who are lying open to light, and minting to come forward 
in the said cause, that they may not be at first instance secluded from sealing ordi- 
nances, so they agree that all such are to be secluded, who, after deliberate pains 
taken for their information, with all due meekness and patience, shall be found by 
the session or superior judicatories they are in subjection unto, to be neglecters and 
shifters of this important moral duty, or not to be themselves in the due use of means 
for light and satisfaction thereanent. Extracted, 

John Potts, Pr. Cls. 

No. V. 

Answers to Queries of General Presbyterian Council on Creeds and Confessions in 
• so far as relates to the Reformed Presbyterian Church. 

R. P. Manse, Loanhead, 16//^ April, 1878. 

My Dear Sir : I regret that Mr. Innes’s letter has been overlooked by me. 

I think the simplest way of answering the three questions — as far as the Reformed 
Presbyterian Church of Scotland is concerned — is to state to you in full the terms 
»f Ministerial and Christian Communion agreed upon by the Reformed Synod. 
These terms, I may say, have been essentially the same from the beginning of her 
history, but were put into their present form in 1761, with a variation on No. 4 
in 1822. 


* Gib’s “ Display of the Secession Testimony.” 


1034 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


1. The acknowledgiTieiit of the Scriptures of the Old and I\ew Testaments to 
be the Word of God, and the alone infallible rule of faith and practice. 

2. The acknowledgment of the W^estminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, 
Larger and Shorter, to be founded upon and agreeable to the Word of God. 

3. The owning of the Divine right and original of Presbyterian Church govern- 
ment. 

4. The acknowledgment of the perpetual obligation of our Covenants, National 
and .Solemn League. And in consistency with this, the duty of a minority adhering 
to these vows when the nation has cast them off ; and under the impression of 
solemn covenant obligations, following our worthy ancestors in endeavouring faith- 
fully to maintain and diffuse the principles of the Reformation. 

5. The owning of all the Scriptural Testimonies and earnest contendings of 
Christ’s faithrul witnesses; whether martyrs under the late persecution, or such as 
have succeeded them in maintaining the same cause; and especially of the Judicial 
Act, Declaration, and Testimony emitted by the Reformed Synod. 

6. Practically adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour, by walking in all his 
commandments and ordinances blamelessly. 

I have here given you the terms in full, and to these terms all the members of the 
Church, as well as office-bearers, give their assent. You will gather from the fore- 
going that our documentary Creeds* or Confessions are — The Confession of Paith, 
the Testimony of the Church, in which Scripture truth is applied to present circum- 
stances, and the Covenants. 

If there be any further information desired which I can give, I will be glad to 
give it. 1 am, my dear Sir, very sincerely yours, 

John M’Donald. 

Rev. Dr. Mitchell, St. Andrews. 

APPENDIX C. 

Forvnda of Questions to be put at the Ordin otion of Afinisters, the Liccnsh\s^ of 
Probationers^ and Ordination of Puling Elders in the Reformed Fresbyte^'ian 
Church. 

(l.) At the Crdination of Ministers. 

I. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word 
of God, and the only rule of faith and manners? 

II. Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine of the Confession of 
Faith, Larger and .Shorter Catechisms, agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at 
Westminster, with the assistance of the Commissioners from the Church of Scotlancf, 
to be the truths of God contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments ? 
Do you own the whole doctrine contained therein as the confession of your faith? 

III. Do you sincerely own the purity of worship authorized by the Church of 
Scotland? And do you also own the Presbyterian government and discipline of 
the said Church? and are you persuaded that the said doctrine, worship, discipline, 
and government are founded upon the Holy .Scriptures, and agreeable thereto? 

IV. Do you promise that, through the grace of God, you will firmly and con- 
stantly adhere to, and in your station, and to the utmost of your power, assert, main-* 
tain, and defend the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the Church of 
.Scotland, by Kirk-sessions, Presbyteries, Provincial Synods, and General Assem- 
blies, in due subordination one to another? 

V. Do you promise that in your practice you will conform yourself to the said 
worship, and submit yourself to the said discipline and government, and shall never 
endeavour, directly nor indirectly, the prejudice or subversion of the same? 

VI. Do you promise that you shall follow no divisive courses from the doctrine, 
worship, government, and discipline of the Church of Scotland? 

VII. Do you renounce Popery, Prelacy, Erastianism, Arianism, Arminianism, 


* The questions relating to doctrine are given in Appendix. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1035 

Antinomianisrn, Independency, and all doctrines, tenets, or opinions whatsoever 
contrary to or inconsistent with the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of 
the Church of Scotland ? 

VIII. Do you adhere to the Covenants, National and Solemn League, and to the 
Acts of Assemblies from the year 1638 to 1649, ratifying and approving the work 
of reformation during that period ? 

IX* Do you own, concerning the Martyrs in the late times, that is, during the 
tyranny of Charles II, and James VII,, tliat their sufferings were for bearing a tes- 
timony to Christ and his truths ; or that the cause for which they suffered was agree- 
able to the Word of God and our solemn national engagements ? 

X. Do you heartily approve of the Reformed Presbyterian Synod’s Judicial Act 
and Testimony, lately published, judging the same founded upon the Word of God, 
and agreeable to the covenanted principles of the Reformed Church of Scotland ; 
and to the faithful testimonies of such as sealed the same with their blood ? and do 
you promise, in the strength of grace, to abide by and defend the same in your prac- 
tice and doctrine all the days of your life ? 

(2.) At the licensing of Probationers. 

In addition to the questions above quoted, the following, among others, is put at 
the licensing of Probationers ; — 

Do you promise that you will maintain the spiritual unity and peace of, and that 
you will follow no divisive coui'se from, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scot- 
land, either by falling in with the defection of the times, or by giving yourself up 
to a detestable indifferency and neutrality in the covenanted cause; and thif^ you 
promise, through grace, notwithstanding whatever trouble or persecution you may 
meet with, on essaying the faithful discharge of your duty ? 

( 3 ‘) Questions put at the Ordination of Riding Elders. 

I. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the W-^rd 
of God, and the only rule of faith and manners? 

II. Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine contained in the Con- 
fession of Faith, compiled by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, as the said 
Confession was received and approven by the Act of Assembly 1647, session 23? 
Likewise the whole doctrine contained in the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, to be 
founded upon the Word of God ? And do you acknowledge the said Confession to 
be the confession of your frith ? And will you, through grace, firmly and constantly 
adhere to the doctrine of the said Confession and Catechisms, and to the utmost of 
your power assert, maintain, and defend the same against all doctrines and opinions 
whatsoever contrary to, and inconsistent wdth, the said Confession and Catechisms? 

III. Are you persuaded that the Lord Jesus Christ, the alone King of his Church, 
hath appointed a particular form of government to take place therein, distinct from 
civil government, and not subordinate to the same, and that Presbyterial Church 
government, wdthout any superiority of office above a teaching presbyter, in the due 
subordination of judicatories, viz., of Kirk-sessions to Presbyteries, of Presbyteries to 
Provincial Synods, and of Provincial Synods to General Assemblies, is the only form 
of government laid down and appointed by the Lord Jesus Christ in his Word, to 
continue in his Church to the end of the world unalterable, wdiich accordingly has 
been owmed and received by the Church of Scotland as the only government of 
divine institution and appointment? And you promise to submit to the same gov- 
ernment and discipline, and never to endeavour, directly or indirectly, the prejudice 
or subversion thereof, 'but that you wdll, to the utmost of your powder, in your station, 
during all the days of your life, maintain, support, and defend the same, together 
W’ith the purity of w'orship received and practised in the said Church, against all 
Erastian, Prelatic, Sectarian, or other tenets, opinions, or forms of worship and gov- 
ernment whatsoever contrary to, or inconsistent with, the said covenanted w'orship, 
government, and discipline sworn to and owned in our Covenants, National and 
Solemn League ? 

IV. Do you own and acknowledge the perpetual obligation of the National Cove- 


1036 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


nant, frequently sworn and subscribed by persons of all ranks in the kingdoms, and 
particularly as explained by the General Assembly 1638? Do you likewise own 
and acknowledge the perpetual obligation of the Solemn League and Covenant, for 
maintaining and carrying on a work of reformation in the three kingdoms, sworn 
and subscribed by all ranks in Scotland, England, and Ireland, anno 1648 ? /lIkI 
do you promise, through grace, to adhere to those Covenants, and in your place and 
station to prosecute the ends of them, whatsoever trouble you may meet with for the 
same ? 

V. Do you adhere to all the faithful contendings and testimonies of our Igte 
worthy martyrs, particularly those of Messrs. Cargill, Cameron, and Ren wick, who 
suffered for their adherence to truth, and to all the other faithful testimonies of the 
united Societies of Dissenters, agreeable to the Word of God, our Confession of 
Faith and Covenants, Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and Directory for Worship? 

VI. Do you own and approve of the judicial Act, Declaration, and Testimony, 
asserting, maintaining, and vindicating the whole of our covenanted Reformation 
attained unto by this Church and land in the purest times, published by the Re- 
formed Presbyterian Church in Scotland ? 

VII. Do you promise that you will submit yourselves willingly, and in the spirit 
of meekness, unto the admonitions of your brethren of the session in this congrega- 
tion, and consequently subject yourself to the Refofmed Presbytery according to the 
Word of God, and the doctrine, discipline, and government of the Reformed 
Church of Scotland, and our Covenants, National and Solemn League? Do you 
promise that you will maintain the spiritual unity and peace of the Church of 
Christ, and that you will follow no divisive courses from the covenanted establish- 
ment of the said Church, either by falling in with the defections of the times, or 
by giving up yourselves to a detestable neutrality and indifference to the cove- 
nanted cause ? 

Answers to ihe Queries of the General Presbyterian Cou7icil regarding 
Creeds and Formulas of Subscription, in so far as relates to Eng- 
land a7id Wales, Irela7id a7id the British Colo7iies. 

[Owing to the lamented death of the late Principal Lorimer, the revered Con- 
vener of the British Section of the Committee on Creeds and Formulas of Subscrip- 
tion, it has devolved on me to collect and arrange these Returns. The Answers as 
to the English Presbyterian Church have been furnished by the Rev. J. Oswald 
Dykes, D. D., London ; those as to the Calvinistic Methodists of Wales by the 
Rev. Owen Thomas, D. D., Liverpool; those as to the Irish Presbyterian Church 
by the Rev. Dr. Knox, Belfast ; and those as to the Reformed Presbyterian Church 
in Ireland by the Rev. Josias Chancellor, Belfast. Those relating to the Churches 
in the Australasian Colonies have been collected and arranged by the Rev. A. J. 
Campbell, Geelong. Those relating to the Church in the^British Dominion in 
America, so far as not here given, have been sent direct to the Rev. Dr. Matthews, 
New York. — Alex. F. Mitchell, Convener of Scottish Committee. 

No. L— PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 

Query I. — ll'/taf are the existing Creeds or Confessions of this Church ? and what 
have been its previous Creeds and Confessions, with any modipicatio7ts of th''%e, 
and the jdates a 7 td occasions of the same fro 7 n the Reformation to the pt^setic 
day ? 

ANSWER. 

(a.) The present subordinate Standards of the Presbyterian Church of England, 
as laid down in the Basis of Union adopted in the year 1876, when the former 
Presbyterian Church in England, and the English congregafions of the United Pres- 
byterian Church united into one body, are “ the Westminster Confession of Faith 
and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms,” prepared by the “ Assembly of Divines,” 
and presented to Parliament in the years 1646, 1647, and 1648. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


1037 

^ (( 5 .) It does not appear that orthodox Presbyterians in England have ever recog- 
nized ecclesiastically any other subordinate Standards than those of the Westminster 
Assembly; but at the time of the passing of the Toleration Act in the year 1689, 
many Presbyterian ministers were willing to recognize the Subscription to the Doc- 
trinal Articles of the Church of England required by that Act, as affording an ade- 
* quate security for soundness in the f^aith. 

Query II. What are the existing formulas of subscription, if any, and what haiie 
been the previous formulas of subscription used in this Church in connection zvith 
its Creeds and Confessions ? 

Answer. 

(a.) The existing method of subscription consists in returning a satisfactory 
answer to the following questions appointed to be put : 

(i.) To Ministers and Elders: “ Do you sincerely receive and adopt the doctrine 
of the Westminster Confession of Faith as in accordance with the teaching of Holy 
Scripture ; and do you consent to the said Confession as the Standard by which 
your teaching \^for Elders read ‘the public teaching’] in this Church shall be 
judged; it being understood in reference to the teachings of the Confession of 
Faith regarding the duty of Civil Rulers, that — while holding the subjection of such 
rulers, in their own province, to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ — you are not 
required to accept anything in that document which favours or may be regarded as 
favouring intolerance or persecution ? ” 

(2.) To Deacons: “Do you sincerely receive and adopt as in accordance with 
Holy Scripture, the system of evangelical doctrine taught in this Church, and con- 
tained in the Westminster Confession of Faith ? ” 

(^b.) Formulas of subscription to the Confession do not appear to have been in 
use among English Presbyterians during the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. 
The following sketch will indicate the leading facts on this subject : 

(i.) The Westminster Assembly in its “ Directory for the Ordination of Ministers ” 
W’hich was ratified by Parliament previous to the prejiaration of the Confession, ha'd 
contented itself with this general direction : “ The minister who hath preached shall, 
in the face of the congregation, demand of liim who is now to be ordained con- 
cerning his faith in Christ Jesus, and his persuasion of the truth of the reformed 
religion according to the Scripture.” 

(2.) In December, 1647, the Presbyterian ministers in London, at a meeting in 
Zion College, voluntarily issued a declaration, in which they, “touching matters of 
faith, declare their assent to the Westminster Assembly’s Confession of Faith, and 
heartily desire it may receive the sanction of authority, as the joint Confession of the 
three Kingdoms.” This document received the concurrence of several hundred 
ministers in the provinces. 

(3.) On the 22d of March, 1648, the doctrinal portions of the Assembly’s Confes- 
sion were approved by both Houses of Parliament under the title of “ Articles of 
Religion; ” but it does not seem that subscription to it by any formula was even then 
imposed upon the ministry. 

(4.) The extant minutes of Classes show that during the seventeenth century (in 
Dr. M’Crie’s words) it does not “appear to have been the practice of the English 
Presbyterians to exact from ministerial candidates a subscription or formula of assent 
to the Confession of P'aith or other Westminster Standards. In place of this was 
substituted the personal confession of the candidate.” — (Annals of English Presby- 
tery, p. 223.) 

(5.) In 1719) when Arianism began to appear among Nonconformists, and a con- 
troversy arose as to the expediency of subscribing some article of faith on the ques- 
tion of our Lord’s divinity, the majority of the non-subscribing party at the famous 
meeting in Salter’s Hall was largely composed of Presbyterians, many of whom de- 
clined to subscribe, not in consequence of their divergence from the orthodox doc- 
trine, but because they objected to the imposition of a test. 

(6.) Formulas of subscription in fact never appear to have come into use among 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


1038 

English Presbyterians until they were introduced from the Church of Scotland, after 
Presbytery began to revive in England about the end of the last or early in the 
present century. The “ classes ” which in the North of England lingered on till 
that period do not seem to have known anything of the sort. But in the Minutes 
of the Presbytery of Newcastle, it is recorded that in the year 1755, when Arianism 
had come to threaten the congregations of that “ classis,” they adopted the following 
“ Rules for orderly proceedings : ” — 

“ I. That we will study to cultivate a good understanding amongst ourselves by 
promoting each other’s peace and the common interest of religion in our several con- 
gregations, readily embracing brotherly advice. 

“ II. As Infidelity, Error, and Profaneness (with the deepest concern we mention 
it) seem to be on the growing hand, we disclaim Deism, the Arian, Socinian, Ar- 
minian, Anlinomian, Pelagian, and Sabellian Errors and Heresies as such, and re- 
solve upon all proper occasions to give our testimony against them. 

“ III. And whereas Confessions of Faith and Creeds are unreasonably run down, 
we are determined by the grace of God to make his Holy Word, and Confessions 
thereunto agreeable, the Standards of our Faith or religious principles, and the Rule 
of our practice, 

“ IV. We also in all publick affairs relating to the Church of Christ, both licens- 
ing of young men to preach the gospel and ordaining of ministers, resolve to act in 
concert with one another in an orderly and brotherly way. 

“ V. Whoever of the Protestant Dissenting Ministers will join us in this manner, 
and according to the peaceable intent of this our Declaration, we will be glad of 
their assistance and concurrence.” 

It will be observed that while a declaration of orthodox belief on the doctrine 
under dispute is clearly emitted, the reference to “Confessions” agreeable to Holy 
Scripture is of the vaguest possible character, while the Westminster Standards are 
not so much as named. 

(7.) In 1784, the Newcastle Presbytery adopted the following “ Formula ” and 
relative “ Rules,” but it is singular that eighteen years later, in 1802, the rule re- 
ejuiring subscription to this formula was rescinded, showing how far the idea of sub- 
scription was from being fully accepted at any time during last century: — 

“We, the Dissenting Ministers of the Newcastle Class, do omui and believe the 
Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, the only infalli- 
ble rule of faith and practice, we believe in original sin, and that the only way of 
mercy is by Grace, through a Mediator, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, both God and 
Man in one Person, able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God through 
Him, and as these and all the other doctrines which we believe and profess are 
clearly comprehended, and shortly and distinctly summed up yi the Westminster 
Confession of Faith, we heartily acknowledge it to be the Confession of our P^aith, 
and this we the rather do, as Arians, Socinians, Arrainians, etc., have always re- 
course to Scripture, and wrest it to support their own erroneous Tenets, whereas we 
are convinced that the Westminster Confession gives us a view of these doctrines as 
most agreeable to the mind of the Spirit of God in his Holy Word. 

“ And therefore we promise (through grace) to maintain them, both in our pro- 
fession and preaching, and we consider the said Confession as a proj^er Directory 
for Worship and Discipline, as far as our situation and circumstances will admit, by 
Vestries or Sessions, Classes or Presbyteries, and a Synod if attainable. And’ we 
promise to follow no divisive courses from the said Confession and Presbyterian form 
of worship, renouncing and disclaiming all doctrines, tenets, and opinions incon- 
sistent with and contrary thereto. As witness our hands. 

Rules. 

“As every society has a right of making rules and regulations for the direction of 
their own conduct, so this Class think it highly necessary that the following be con- 
sented to and acquiesced in by all its members, that either are or shall belidmitted 
members of it : — 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 1039 

“ Rule 1st. That no person ord.ained or unordained shall be admitted a member 
Oi this Class until he subscribe the aljove Formula. 

Rule 2(1. That we will ordain none to a charge in our bounds unless they have 

een either licensed by the Churcli of Scotlaild, or have got a regular education in 
Fngiand, and have been licensed l)y some regular Presbyterian Class.” fWith 
others not bearing on Creed.] 

(8.) Ministers who, late in last century or early in the present, came from Scot- 
land to take charge of orthodox Presbyterian congregations in the South, were 
usually ordained before they came by Scottish Presbyteries. Gradually, as English 
I lesTyteries were revived or more fully organized under this influence from Scotland, 
the ..ormula of subscription employed in the Church of Scotland crept into use here 
also, hor example, it was formally adopted by the Presbytery of Newcastle in the 
year 1824. Betore the year 1836, when the revived Presbyteries began to draw 
together into a Synod, it is probable that nearly every one of them had adopted it 
in practice. 

(9O May, 1836, the Synod of the Presbyterian Church in England was for- 
mally constituted by a convention of ministers and elders, members of the two Pres- 
byteries of Lancashire and the North-West of England. Its first act was to “ adopt 
in the fullest and most unqualified manner the Westminster Standards, as received 
by the Church of Scotland, in doctrine, discipline, government and worship.” From 
that date down to the year 1844? the formula of the Church of Scotland, though not 
imposed by any statute, remained in universal use at the ordination and induction 
of ministers and elders. In the admission of other Presbyteries to the Synod, care 
was also taken that their ministers should sign or have signed the “ Confession of 
Faith and Formula.” 

(10.) In 1844, the Synod adopted the following formulae, which continued to be 
obligatory until the Union in 1876, when they were replaced by those given under 
(«.), viz. : — For Ministers — “ I, subscribing this with my own hand, do hereby de- 
clare that I do sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine contained in the West- 
minster Confession of Faith, as approved by the General Assembly of the Church of 
Scotland in the year 1647, to be the truths of God, and I do own the same as the 
confession of my faith,” etc. For Elders and Deacons — “ I, subscribing my name 
hereto, do sincerely own and declare the Westminster Confession of Faith, as ap- 
proved by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1647, to be the con- 
fession of my faith; and I own 'the doctrine therein contained to be the true doc- 
trine, which I will constantly adhere to,” etc. 

(ii.) — To these formulae the following declaration was prefixed by the Synod of 
1861 : — “The Synod think it right to declare that, while this Church firmly main- 
tains the same scrijiture principles as to the duties of nations and their rulers in 
reference to true religion and the Church of Christ, for which we have hitherto con- 
tended, we disclaim intolerant and persecuting principles, and do not regard the 
Confession of Faith, or any portion thereof, when fairly interpreted, as favouring 
intolerance or persecution, or consider that our office-bearers, by subscribing it, pro- 
fess any principles inconsistent with liberty of conscience and the rights of private 
judgment.’’ 

These facts exhaust the history of this Church in reference to subscription, in so 
far as that portion of it is concerned which down to 1876 was known as the Presby- 
terian Church in England. With reference to the other portion, its history of the 
question is comprised in that of the United Presbyterian Church, of which, till that 
date, it formed a part. 

Query III. — //07a far has individual adherence to these Creeds, by subscription or 
ofhci"ivise, been reipiired from the Alinisiers, Elders, or other Office-bearers 
respectively, and also from the private Members of the same ? 

A.nswer. 

(a.) So far as ministers, elders, and deacons are concerned, they are required to 


1040 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


express their adherence to the doctrine of the Confession of Faith in the temis 
cited under Query 11 . 

[b.) The Church has never required any express acceptance of the Creed by her 
private members, nor determined how far they are at liberty to hold beliefs at vari- 
ance with it. It is left to the discretion of the several sessions to ascertain the 
Christian knowledge and soundness in the Christian faith of those whom they admit, 
to the sacraments of the Church. 

No. II.— CALVINISTIC METHODISTS OF WALES, 

Otherxuise called Welsh Presbyterians. 

Answer to Query I. 

((7.) The “ Confession of Faith ” of the Calvinistic Methodists in Wales was 
finally adopted in the year 1823, at their Associations held that year at Abery.stvvyth 
in South Wales, and at Bala in North Wales. It was brought out, in Welsh, in a 
small volume published by the Synod, and called The History, Constitution, Rules 
of Discipline, and Confession of Faith of the Calvinistic Methodists in Wales, of 
which there have since been published some ten or twelve editions. An English 
translation of it, undertaken by a gentleman on his own responsibility, appeared in 
the year 1827, of which three or four editions were afterwards published. In the 
year 1876, a new edition of the Welsh work w'as l^rought out, under the superin- 
tendence of a committee appointed by the General Assembly for that purpose, em- 
bodying, in an appendix, some changes and explanations on some things that had, 
since the original publication, been agreed upon by the Quarterly Associations or 
Synods of North and South Wales, and by the General Assembly. Of this new edition 
and authorized translation, prepared by the Rev. Thomas Charles Edwards, M. A., 
Principal of the University College, Aberystwyth, was published in 1877 by the 
General Assembly. The “ Confession ” consists of forty-four Articles, carefully 
drawn up, and agreeing substantially with those of the Westminster Confession. 

[b.) Previous to the year 1823, the Calvinistic Methodists had no formal Confes- 
sion. At the Quarterly Association held at Bala, June 16, 17, 1801, certain Rules 
and Regulations were agreed upon with reference to the qualifications deemed 
requisite in those who should be admitted members of our churches, as well as 
respecting the conduct expected of them as such, and the discipline to be exercised 
towards them in cases of transgression. These “Rules of Discipline” are those 
still in force among us. They were first published under the editorial care of the 
late Rev. Thomas Charles, B. A., Bala. This was some sixty-five years after the 
formation of the Connection in Wales. In the Introduction to these Rules, as then 
published, there is a reference made to the form of doctrine embraced by the Con- 
nexion, and w^e read thus: “ As to our views of doctrine, we entirely agree with 
the Doctrinal Articles of the Church of England, only that, with all humility, we 
desire in that union, to take advantage of the full liberty granted unto us by the 
constitution and laws of our country to use all scriptural means to extend our knowl- 
edge of God, and of Him whom He hath sent, Jesus Christ, and by so doing to 
build ourselves up in the most holy faith.” Again : “ To bring these remarks to con- 
clusion : since we are, as a body, altogether of the same views as the Established 
Church in her Doctrinal Articles, and that we can find no words better adapted or 
more scriptural to declare them and to put them forth, than those used there by our 
old and renowned Reformers, we do not see that there is any necessity for a more 
special publication of our views respecting points of doctrine.” In a note, the 
Articles i, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, ii, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 25, 27, 28, 31, 38, 39 of the 
Thirty-nine Articles are referred to as Doctrinal Articles; and in an apjiendix. 
Articles I, 2, 9, ii, 12, and 17 are quoted at length, as a specimen of what they 
especially regarded as essential to the Gospel. Previous to the year 1823, it is evi- 
dent that we had no Confession of Faith other than the Articles of the Church of 
England, and a clause was always inserted in the deeds of the chapels then erected, 
that they were to be used only to promote the views set forth in the Doctrinal Arti- 
cles of the Church of England, Calvinistically explained. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1041 


It was against much opposition, and at first opposition on the part of a few of the 
wisest and most influential in the Connexion, that a new Confession of Faith, or 
rather a new expression of their doctrinal views, was resolved upon by them. 
However, at last, at the Associations already referred to, it was passed without a 
dissentient voice, and it is now generally if not universally accepted by the vrhole 
Connexion. Owing to long controversies in the Principality on points relating to 
Calvinism and Arminianism, especially with reference to the extent of the Atone- 
ment, great uneasiness prevailed in the minds of many at the too particular and 
limited view supposed to be taken in Article 18 of the sacrifice of Christ, especially 
at the words in brackets (and those only). But at the General Assembly held at 
Portmadock in 1875, resolved to call attention to the corresponding truth 

concerning the infinite sufficiency of the Atonement, in words agreed upon at an 
Association at Bala, June, 1809, and always maintained by the venerable founders as 
well as the most eminent ministers in the Connection : — “ None will perish 
because of insufficiency in the atonement, but all because they will not come unto 
Christ to be saved, and those men will have no excuse for their neglect of Christ.” 

Answer to Query II. 

No subscription is required excepting from those who go abroad as Missionaries. 
Those ordained for the home service give a public statement of their views and make 
a solemn declaration of their intention to maintain the unity of the Connexion, and 
to set their faces against all unprofitable and contentious disputes that tend to gender 
strifes. Previous to this statement and declaration at the time of ordination, the 
candidate must have .satisfied the church of which he was a member of the correct- 
ness of his doctrinal views before he can have permission to commence preaching. 
He is to be examined again by the Monthly Meeting or Presbytery, and approved 
by them ere he can be received as a probationer; and must again satisfy the exam- 
iners in a special examination, before he is eligible to be proposed for the final ex- 
amination, that takes place on the day and as a part of the service of ordination. 

Answer to Query III. 

Elders and Deacons are examined with reference to their adherence to the Con- 
fession, though the examination is much less strict and formal than that to be under- 
gone by Ministers. With reference to private members, all that is required as to 
doctrine is, “ That they hold no opinion or views which are contrary to the funda- 
mental doctrines of Christianity ; for instance, that they do not deny the doctrine of 
the Trinity, etc., etc.” (Rule iv.) 

No. III.— IRISH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 

1. The Irish Presbyterian Church is a branch of the Church of Scotland, and the 
ministers who constituted its first Presbytery in 1642 had all subscribed the old 
Scottish Confession of Faith. When the Church of Scotland adopted the We.st- 
minster Confession, the Irish Presbyterian Church did so too, and this symbol has 
been ever since its recognized Creed. 

2. The present formula of subscription is : — “ I believe the Westminster Confession 
of Faith, as described in the book of the constitution and discipline of the Presbyte- 
rian Church in Ireland (chap. 2, section 3), to be founded on and agreeable to the 
Word of God, and as such I acknowledge it as the confession of my faith.” In 
chapter 2, section 3, here referred to, the following passage occurs: — “The Con- 
fession is to be received as approved by the Church of Scotland in her Act of 1647, 
and with the declaration that in the judgment of this Church subscription to the 
Confession does not imply the belief that the civil magistrate has any right to require 
or enforce, by civil penalties, adherence to ecclesia.stical formularies or conformity 
in religious worship,” The formula of subscription to the old Scottish Confession 
was the same as that used in the Church of Scotland, and so was the original for- 
mula of subscription to the Westminster Confession ; but during the eighteenth cen- 

66 


1042 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


tury various forms Were used, and at length in several Presbyteries subscription fell 
into desuetude. 

3. All ministers and elders of the Irish Presbyterian Church are now required to 
subscribe according to the formula above quoted, but subscription is not required 
from ordinary church-members. 

No. IV.— REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN IRELAND. 

1. The existing Creeds and Confessions of this Church are the Westminster Con- 
fession of f'aith and Catechisms Larger and Shorter. Also the testimony of the 
Reformed Presbyterian Church in Ireland adopted and published in 1868. 

The Westminster Confession and Catechisms have been always the Creed of this 
Church. 

Before the Revolution members were required to acknowledge, in addition to the 
Confession, the Covenanted Reformation as established in Scotland and the Testi- 
monies issued against Popery, Prelacy, the Erastian Sufiremacy and Sectarianism. 

In 1712 the Covenants, National and Solemn League and Covenant, were re- 
newed at Auchinsaugh in adaptation to the circumstances of a minority in the land, 
and from that time the acknowledgment of that Renovation was a term of com- 
munion. 

In 1761 a testimony was published called the Judicial Act, Declaration and Tes- 
timony of the Reformed Presbytery, and from that time it was acknowledged as the 
Testimony of the Church. 

In October, 1863, the Covenants were renewed by the Synod in Ireland at Der- 
vock in County Antrim, and thereafter the reference to the Auchinsaugh Renova- 
tion was dropped from the Fourth Term of Communion, and a more general expres- 
sion was inserted, as may be seen in the subjoined formula for ordination. 

In 1868 a shorter Testimony, having special reference to the history and position 
of the Church in Ireland, was adopted and published, and is still in use. It is 
called “ The Testimony of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Ireland.” 

2. The existing formulas are substantially the same as those formerly in use, 
namely : — 

“ Do you believe the doctrines contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith 
as received by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in the year 1647, 
and Catechisms, Larger and Shorter, to be founded on and agreeable to the Word 
of God ; and as such do you acknowledge them to be the confession of your faith ? ” 

“ Do you acknowledge the obligation of the Covenants, National and Solemn 
League, and the obligation arising from the renovation of these Covenants by the 
Reformed Presbyterian Church ? ” 

“ Do you approve of and acknowledge the testimony of the Reformed Presbyte- 
rian Church, and engage to adhere to and defend the same as God may give you 
opportunity ? ” 

3. These formulas are answered in the affirmative by all office-bearers of the 
Church, ministers, elders, and deacons, before ordination. They are subscribed by 
ministers immediately after ordination. Private members of the Church give their 
formal assent, after examination, to the Terms of Communion, Nos. 11 . IV. V. of 
which are substantially the same as the above questions. They also acknowledge 
these terms on obtaining tokens of admission to the Lord’s Supper, and on obtaining 
baptism to their children. Applicants for membership are asked before giving 
assent to the Terms of Communion, if they have read the Confession and the Testi- 
mony, and are examined on some leading doctrines contained in them. 

Belfast, June, 1879. Josias A. Chancellor. 

No. V.— PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES IN AUSTRALASIA. 

Geelong, Victoria, 13M May, 1879. 

Rf-V. and Dear Sir: — As Sub-Co»vener of the General Presbyterian Council's 
Committee on Creeds and Confessions for the Australasian Colonies, I beg to for- 


; SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL,'^ 1043 

ward to you the information which I have been able to obtain in regard to the For- 
mularies which are in use in the Churches of these Colonies. 

If any further information is desired I shall be glad to furnish it. 

In deference to the wishes of the Council, I have abstained from offering any 
opinion as to the state of feeling in our Churches with regard to these Standards, 
and have confined myself to a statement of facts. — I am respectfully and sincerely 

A. J. Campbell. 

ANALYSIS OF MATTERS CONTAINED IN THE BASIS OF UNION. 

(i. Victoria; 2. Queensland; 3. South Australia; 4. New South Wales; 

AND 5 . New Zealand.) 

1. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament the only rule of Faith and Prac- 

tice asserted by II., HI., IV., V. 

2. The Westminster Confession (<7), 

The Larger and Shorter Catechisms (3), 

The Form of Presbyterian Church Government (<r), 

The Directory for Public Worship (</), and 

The Second Book of Discipline (e), are adopted by all the Churches as 
follows; — 

By I. as standards and formularies. 

II. as subordinate standards. 

III. (tz) and ((5) as subordinate standards, and (r) (^) (Q as containing 
excellent suggestions, and worthy of careful consideration. 

IV. as subordinate standards, with this explanation, that while (rz) is to 

be regarded as a creed and [b) as a directory for catechising, (r), 
{(i), and (e) are to be regarded as regulations, not as tests. 

V. (a) and (b) as subordinate standards, and (c), (fb), and (e) in so far 
as they are applicable to the circumstances of the Church. 

The first Book of Discipline is adopted by V. in the same way as the second. 

3. Subscription to these Standards not to be held as countenancing persecuting prin- 

ciples or invading rights of private judgment. 

Adopted by all the Churches. 

4. Responsibility of nations and rulers to God. 

Recognized by V. 

5 . Spiritual independence in relation to civil magistrate. 

Asserted by I., H., and by III., IV., V. very emphatically. 

6. Supreme jurisdiction in matters spiritual over ministers and members. 

Claimed by all the Churches. 

7. Ministers and preachers to be received from all other Presbyterian Churches. 

Assented to by all. 

I. Victoria. 

Adopted "jlk April f 1859. 

I. That the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, 
the Form of Presbyterian Church Government, the Directory for Public Worship, 
and the Second Book of Diseipline, be the Standards and Formularies of this 
Church. 

II. That inasmuch as there is a difference of opinion in regard to the doctrines con- 
tained in these standards relative to the power and duty of the civil magistrate in 
matters of religion, the office-bearers of this Church in subscribing these standards 
and formularies, are not to be held as countenancing any persecuting or intolerant 
principles, or as professing any views in reference to the power and duty of the 
civil magistrate, inconsistent with the liberty of personal conscience or the rights of 
private judgment. 

III. That this Church asserts for itself a separate and independent character and 
position as a Church, possesses supreme jurisdiction over its subordinate judicatories, 
congregations, and people, and will receive all ministers and preachers from other 


1044 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Presbyterian Churches, applying for admission, who shall thereujxDn become subject 
to its authority alone. 

2. Queensland. 

Adopted 2 ^th November ^ 1863. 

I. That the Word of God contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Tes- 
tament is the only rule of faith and practice. 

II. That the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, 
the form of Presbyterian Church Government, the Directory for Public Worship, 
and the Second Book of Discipline, are the subordinate standards and formularies 
of this Church. 

III. That inasmuch as there is a difference of opinion in regard to the doctrines 
contained in these Standards, relative to the power and duty of the civil magistrate 
in matters of religion, the office-bearers of this Church, in subscribing these stan- 
dards and formularies, are not to be held as countenancing any persecuting or intol- 
erant principles, or as professing any views in reference to the power and duty of 
the civil magistrate, inconsistent with the liberty of personal conscience, or the right 
of private judgment. 

IV. That this Church asserts for itself a separate and independent character and 
position, possesses supreme jurisdiction over its subordinate judicatories, congrega- 
tions, and people, and will receive ministers and preachers from other Presbyterian 
Churches applying for admission on an equal footing, who shall thereupon become 
subject to its authority alone. 

3. South Australia. 

Adopted lot A May, 1865. 

I. That the designation of the United Church shall be “ The Presbyterian Church 
of South Australia.” 

II. That the Word of God, as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New 
Testaments, is held by this Church as the supreme and only authoritative rule of 
faith and practice. 

III. That the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Cat- 
echisms are the subordinate standards of this Church, but that in adopting these 
standards this Church is not to be held as approving of anything in them which 
may be supposed to countenance persecuting or intolerant principles, or to deny or 
invade the right of private judgment. 

IV. That by Christ’s appointment the Church is spiritually independent, and is 
not subordinate in its own province and in the administration of its own affairs to 
the jurisdiction or authoritative interference of the civil power. 

V. That this Church asserts for itself a separate and independent position in rela- 
tion to other Churches ; and that its highest Court shall possess supreme and final 
jurisdiction over its inferior judicatories, office-bearers, and members; and that it 
shall receive ministers and probationers from other Presbyterian Churches applying 
for admission on their affording satisfactory evidence of their qualifications and elig- 
ibility, and subscribing the formula in accordance with these articles. 

Note. — That the form of Presbyterian Church Government, and the Directory for Public Wor- 
ship, are regarded by this Church as containing excellent suggestions on the points discussed, and 
hence as worthy of the careful considerations of ministers and office-holders. 

4. New South Wales. 

Adopted September, 1865. 

I. That the designation of the United Church shall be “ The Presbyterian Church 
of New South Wales;” and that the Supreme Court of the Church shall be desig- 
nated “ The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New South Wales.’"’ 

II. That the Word of God, as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New 
Tptaments, is held by this Church as the supreme and only authoritative rule of 
faith and practice;. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 1045 

III. That the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Larger .and Shorter Cate, 
Chisms, the form of Presbyterian Church-government, the Directory for the Public 
Worship of God, and the Second Book of Discipline, are the subordinate standards 
of the Church. 

The subordinate standards above enumerated are received with the following ex- 
planations: — ^ 

1. Ibat while the Confession of Faith contains the Creed to which, as to a con- 
fession of his own faith, evefy office-bearer in the church must testify in solemn 
loim his peisonal adherence, and while the catechisms are sanctioned as directories 

Directory for Public Worship, the F'orm of Church Government, 
and the second Book of Discipline are of the nature of regulations rather than tests, 
and are not to be imposed by subscription upon ministers and elders. 

2. That in adopting these standards this Church is not to be held as countenancing 
persecuting or intolerant principles, or any denial or invasion of the rights of private 
judgment. 

3. That by Christ’s appointment, the Church is spiritually independent, and is not 
subject, in its own province, and in the administration of its own affairs to the juris- 
diction or authoritative interference of the civil power. 

IV. That the Church asserts for itself a separate and independent position in re- 
lation to other churches ; and that its highest court shall posse.ss supreme and final 
jurisdiction over its inferior judicatories, office-bearers, and members. 

y. That this Church shall receive ministers and probationers from other Presby- 
terian Churches applying for admission on their affording satisfactory evidence of 
their qualifications and eligibility, and subscribing the Formula. 

5. New Zealand. 

Adopted 2 .( 3 th November ^ 1862. 

Preamble. — We, the undersigned Ministers and Elders of the Presbyterian Church 
of Otago, of the Presbyterian Church of Auckland, and of the Presbyterian Church 
of Wellington, and the several other undersigned ministers and elders in New Zea- 
land, believing that it would be for the glory of God and the advancement of the 
cause of Christ, that we should unite and form one Church, do hereby agree so to 
unite under the name and title of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, and 
resolve that the following be adopted as the “ basis of union.” 

I. That the Word of God, as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New 
Testaments, is the only infallible rule of faith and practice, and the only certain 
standard by which all matters of doctrine, worship, government, and discipline in the 
Church of Christ are to be decided. 

II. That the Westminster Confession of F'aith, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms 
are adopted as the subordinate standards of this Church; as also the Directory for 
Public Worship, the form of Presbyterian Government, and the First and Second 
Books of Discipline, in so far as these latter are applicable to the circumstances of 
the Church. 

In reference to these subordinate standards, this Church thinks it right to declare*.— 

(i.) That inasmuch as the doctrines therein contained, relative to the power of 
the civil magistrate, are liable to a difference of interpretation, her office-bearers in 
subscribing her standards are not to be held as countenancing persecuting or intoler- 
ant principles, or as professing any views inconsistent with liberty of conscience 
and the right of private judgment. 

(2.) That this Church, while recognising the authority of the civil magistrate in 
his own province, and the great principle of the responsibility of nations and rulers 
to God, asserts for herself a distinct and independent character and position ; claims, 
as vested in her supreme courts, supreme and exclusive jurisdiction in matters spirit- 
ual over all her office-bearers, congregations, and people; and declares that no 
spiritual privileges enjoyed by her office-bearers and members is subject to the con- 
trol or interference of any body foreign to herself. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


1046 

Formula signed by Ministers and Elders at their Ordination or Admission, and by 
Probationers on receiving Licence in Presbyterian Church of Victoria. 

I, A. B., do hereby declare that I acknowledge and approve of the Articles of 
Union adopted by this Church on the 7lh April, 1859, as the basis of its Constitu- 
tion, and that I do cordially accept the same— these Articles being as follows (see 

^ f own and believe the whole doctrine contained in the Standards of this Church 
as an exhibition of the sense in which I understand the Holy Scriptures, and ac- 
knowledge it as a confession of my faith; as likewise I own the purity of worship 
presently practised in this Church and the Presbyterian government thereof, which 
doctrine, worship, and government I am persuaded are founded on the Word of 
God, and agreeable thereto; and I promise that through the grace of God I shall 
firmly and constantly adhere to the same, and to the utmost of my power shall, in 
my station, assert, maintain, and defend the said doctrine, worship, discipline, and 
government of this Church, by Sessions, Presbyteries, and General Assemblies; and 
that I shall in my practice conform to the said worship and submit to the said dis- 
cipline and government, and I promise that I shall follow no divisive courses from 
that doctrine, worship, discipline, or government of this Church. 

JV, B . — The formulas subscribed in the various Churches are understood to be 
identical with the above. 

Notes on the preceding Documents. 

1. The somewhat unusual character which all the Formularies of the Australasian 
Churches bear arises from the fact that, previous to 1859, each of these bodies ex- 
isted in a state of subdivision— the Established Church, the Free Church, and the 
United Presbyterian Church of Scotland being represented in each of them. The 
Basis of Union, in every case, was formed so as to cover a difference of belief on the 
Voluntary question and the power of the Civil Magistrate. 

2. In New South Wales a small number of ministers (4) did not see their way 
to join the United Church. They constituted themselves a Church under the title 
of “The Synod of Eastern Australia.” They claim to be connected with the Free 
Church of Scotland, and were represented in the Council. Their Formula (I believe) 
is similar to that of the Free Church. 

3. The Presbyterian Church in New Zealand, after the Union, found it expedient 
for the better working of the cause to divide themselves into two bodies. The 
Church of the Northern Island retains the title of the “ Presbyterian Church of New 
Zealand ; ” that of the Middle Island is called the “ Presbyterian Church of Otago 
and Southland.” 

4. Neither the South Australian nor the Tasmanian Churches were represented 
in the Council. The South Australian Formulary has however been given here, as 
it differs slightly from the others. 

In Tasmania there has been no reconstruction of the Churches, which are branches 
of the Established and Free Churches of Scotland, and follow their Laws and 
Usages. 

5. The Synod of the Missionary Church of the New Hebrides was represented at 
the Council. The eleven missionaries who Constitute the Synod belong to six 
different Presbyterian Churches. They have organized themselves for practical 
purposes, but have not adopted any syml>ols of their own. 

6. Since these various Unions were accomplished there has been no change in 
any of the Bases of Union or the Formulas of Subscription. 

7. In November, 1876, the following overture was presented to the General As- 
sembly of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria : — 

“ Whereas the office-bearers of this Church are required to subscribe to a greater 
number of Standards and Formularies than those of other and older Presbyterian 
Churches; and whereas it is desirable that such a state of things should not continue, 
it is hereby overtured to the Venerable the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 


1047 


t 

‘ SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 

Church of Victoria that a committee consisting of ... be appointed to consider 
and report on the following questions, viz. (i.) Whether the Second Book of Disci- 
pline should not be excised from the Standards of our Church ; (2.) Whether in ac- 
cordance with the practice of older and larger Presbyterian Churches, the subscrip- 
tion required should not be confined to the Confession of Faith, accompanied by a 
generally expressed approval of the other subordinate Standaids enumerated in our 
present Formula; (3.) Whether the Confession of P'aith itself might not and ought 
not to be modified.” 

When the motion for the adoption of this overture was made, the following amend- 
ments were proposed ; — 

f. I. “ That a Committee be appointed to consider — (r.) Whether the Second Book 
of Discipline should not be excised from the Standards of this Church ; (2.) Whether 
in accordance with the practice of older and larger Presbyterian Churches, the sub- 
scription required should not be confined to the Confession of F'aith accompanied by 
a generally expressed approval of the other subordinate Standards enumerated in 
the present formula; (3.) That the Committee be instructed to report on these mat- 
ters to next Assembly; (4.) That the Committee be instructed to prepare a Memo- 
rial to the General Council of Presbyterian Churches, asking their advice in regard 
to the modification of the Westminster Confession.” 

2. “ That it is not expedient at present to entertain the questions which are opened 
up by the Presbytery of Ballarat.” 

3. “ That the overture be remitted to a Committee consisting of ... . with in- 
structions to consider the expediency of excluding from the first article of Union the 
Second Book of Discipline, and the revision of the other Standards in that article, 
with the view of adapting their form and phraseology to the present time, and 
further to consider the revision of the other articles of Union, with the view of mak- 
ing their terms more explicit and definite.” 

' 4. “ That it is of most pressing urgency to adopt a short Formulary for subscrip- 
tion by those who are elected to the office of the eldership, and that the preparation 
of such Formulary be remitted to a Committee to report to the Commission in May 
next.” 

5. “ That this Assembly approve of the Preamble and Sections I. and II. of the 
overture, but are not prepared to consider any changes in the Confession itself, at 
least till those who introduced the overture specify the modifications they desire.” 

The first amendment was carried, but the committee appointed under that reso- 
lution of the Assembly did not prepare any memorial to be submitted to the Gen- 
eral Council, and the Committee was discharged by the Assembly 1877. ' 

QUESTIONS TO BE PUT TO OFFICE-BEARERS. 

% 

{^Reprinted front Minutes of Synod 1844.) 

I. Questions put to Elders before Ordination. 

Question ist. — Do you own the Confession of Faith, as received and explained 
by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, in the year Sixteen Hundred 
and Forty-seven, to be the Confession of your Faith — and do you own the doctrine 
therein contained to be the true doctrine, which you will constantly adhere to? 

2d. — Do you own and acknowledge the Presbyterian Church Government of this 
Church, by Kirk-Sessions, Presbyteries, and Synods, to be the only Government of 
this Church — and do you engage to submit thereto, concur therewith, and never 
endeavour, directly or indirectly, the prejudice or subversion thereof? 

3d. — Do you promise to observe uniformity of Worship, and of the administra- 
tion of all public ordinances within this Church, as the same are at present per- 
formed and allowed ? 

II. Questions put to Probationers before they are licensed. 

1st. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the word 
of God, and the only rule of ’faith and manners? . a, 


t 

104S THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 

2d. Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine of the Confession of 
Faith, as approved by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in the year 
1647, to be the truth of God contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ments ; and do you own the whole doctrine therein contained as the confession of 
your faith ? 

3d. Do you sincerely own the purity of worship presently authorised and prac- 
tised in this Presbyterian Church ; and are you persuaded that the said doctrine, 
worship, discipline, and Church-government are founded upon the Holy Scriptures, 
and agreeable thereto ? 

4th. Do you promise that, through the grace of God, you will firmly and con- 
stantly adhere to, and in your station to the utmost of your power assert, maintain, 
and defend the said doctrine, worship, and discipline, and. the government of this 
Church, by Kirk-Sessions, Presbyteries, and Synods? 

5th. Do you promise that in your practice you will conform yourself to the said 
worship, and submit yourself to the said discipline and government of this Church, 
and shall never endeavour, directly or indirectly, the prejudice or subversion of the 
same ? 

6th. Do you promise that you shall follow no divisive courses from this Presby- 
terian Church ? 

71I1. Do you renounce all doctrines, tenets, or opinions whatsoever, contrary to, 
or inconsistent with, the said doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of this 
Church? 

8th. Do you promise that you shall subject yourself to the several judicatories of 
this Church ? Are you willing to subscribe to those things? 

III. — Questions put to Ministers before Ordination. 

1st. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the 
word of God, and the only rule of faith and manners? 

2d. Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrines contained in the Con- 
fession of P'aiih, as approved by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 
in the year 1647, to be founded upon the word of God; and do you acknowledge 
the same as the Confession of your Faith; and will you firmly and constantly adhere 
thereto, and to the utmost of your power assert, maintain, and defend the same, and 
the purity of worship, as presently practised in this Presbyterian Church ? 

3d. Do you disown all Popish, Arian, Socinian, Arminian, Erastian, and other 
doctrines, tenets, and opinions whatever, contrary to, and inconsistent with, the 
aforesaid Confession of Faith ? ’ 

4th. Are you persuaded that the Presbyterian government and discipline of this 
Church are lounded upon the word of God, and. agreeable thereto; and do you 
promise to submit to said government and discipline, and to concur with the same, 
and never to endeavour, directly or indirectly, the prejudice or subversion thereof] 
but to the utmost of your power, in your station, to maintain, support, and defend 
the said discipline and Presbyterian government by Kirk-Sessions, Presbyteries, and 
Synods, during all the days of your life? 

5th. Do you promise to submit yourself, willingly and humbly, in the spirit of 
meekness, unto the admonitions of the brethren of this Presbytery, and to be sub- 
ject to them, and all other Presbyteries and superior judicatories of this Church 
where God in His providence shall cast your lot; and that, according to your power 
you shall maintain the unity and peace of this Church against error and schism, not- 
withstanding whatsoever trouble or persecution may arise, and that you shall follow 
no divisive coiiises from the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of this 
Presbyterian Church? 

6th. Are not zeal for the honour of God, love to Jesus Christ, and desire of sav- 
ing souls, your great motives and chief inducements to enter into the functions of 
the holy ministry, and not worldly de.signs and interests? 

_ 7th. Have you used any undue methods, either by yourself or others, in procur- 
ing this call ? ^ 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL 1049 

8th. Do you engage, in the strength of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Master, to rule 
well your own family, to live a holy and circumspect life, and faithfully, diligently, 
and cheerfully to discharge all the parts of the ministerial work, to the edification 
of the body of Christ ? 

9th. Do you accept of and close with the call to be the Pastor of this congrega- 
tion, and promise through grace to perform all the duties of a faithful Minister of 
the Gospel among this people ? 


No. VI.— PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES IN DOMINION OF CANADA. 

Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia. 

Grounds of Union in the Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia^ 

Formally adopted July 3, 1817. 

I. The following formulary of questions shall be put to, and shall be satisfactorily 
answered by, all who are ordained to the office of the ministry in the United ‘ 
Church : — 

1. Do you believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the 
Word of God, and the only rule of faith and practice? 

2. Do you believe that the whole doctrine contained in the Westminster Confes- 
sion of Faith and Catechisms, as received by this Church,* is a scriptural exhibition 
of divine truth ? and do you engage, according to your station, to profess and main- 
tain it in the Church ? 

3. Do you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only King and Head of the 
Church, and that he has revealed in Scripture those principles according to which 
it is to be ruled ? 

4. Do you believe that the Presbyterial form of government, as maintained in this 
Church,! is agreeable to the Word of God? and do you promise to maintain it 
doctrinally and practically, to adhere to its disciplines, both as a member of the 
Church and as a minister of Christ ? 

5. Do you engage to maintain the spiritual unity of the Church in its doctrine and 
government, worship, and discipline? and do you solemnly pledge yourself, in the 
presence of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church, never to propagate any contra- 
dictory principle, nor introduce any contrary practice, among those intrusted to your 
charge, nor in any other public way, till you have regularly acquainted your brethren 
in the ministry with the alteration of your views, and till these views have been dis- 
cussed, and the general sentiments of the Church ascertained ? 

6. Is love to God and to the souls of men your principal inducement to enter into 
the office of the holy ministry ? 

7. Can you, with a safe conscience, declare that you have used no improper 
means to procure a call to the ministry in this congregation? 

8. Do you accept the call to the pastoral office over this people ? and do you 
solemnly engage to conduct yourself as a faithful minister of the Gospel among 
them, and also, wherever Providence affords you an opportunity, keeping carefully 
in view that this congregation and the Church at large be by your labours assisted 
in the attainment of higher degrees of Christian improvement? 


* This Church receives the whole doctrine contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith and 
Catechisms, except that part of it which respects the magistrate’s power in matters of religion. 
They give no decision as to the doctrine taught in these words, Conf. Ch. xxiii. Sect. 3 : — “ Yet he 
hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, 
that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all 
corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of 
God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting whereof he hath power to 
call Synods, to be present at them.” And they deny the doctrine taught in these words, ibidem— 
“And to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God.” And. 
they hold that Church rulers have authority, ex ojficio, to meet for government and discipline, when- 
soever the circumstances of the ‘Church require it, anything in Conf. Ch. xxxi. Sect. 2, notwith- 

standing, substance of Presbyterial government consists in the equality of 

Church rulers and subordination of Church courts. 


1050 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


'9. Do you promise to exemplify the excellence of Christian doctrine by the con- 
scientious performance of the duties of a holy life, corresponding with your station 
in the Church and your relations to society ? 

10. Do you declare that you are cordially attached to the civil authorities by 
which this Province is ruled ? and do you promise, according to your station, to give 
those proofs of loyalty which Divine authority enjoins upon subjects towards their 
rulers ? 

11. Do you promise to submit yourself, in the Lord, to the authority of this Pres- 
bytery, in subordination to superior courts ? 

And all these you profess to l)elieve, and promise through grace to perform, as you 
must answer to the Lord Jesus Christ, when He comeS with all His saints ? 

II. Public covenanting with God, is explicitly recognized as a Scriptural means 
for the preservation and advancement of Christian purity, not to be neglected when 
edification requires it. 

’HI. The observance of public fasts, appointed by civil authority, shall be left a 
matter of forbearance. — James Robson, Synod Clerk, 

The Synod first constituted at Truro, Nova Scotia, July 3, 1817. There were ' 
three Presbyteries — Truro, Pictou, and Halifax — nineteen ministers. Two or three 
of these were licentiates of the Church of Scotland. Two, I think, were brought, 
up in the Congregational body. The others were from the two branches into which 
the Secession Church had divided. 

Halifax, November 21, 1878. 

Rev. Dr. Snodgrass, My Dear Doctor: I have just noticed that my time for 
replying to your letter of inquiry respecting Creeds and Formularies is nearly up, 
and that I must therefore write without delay. You say that I need not send any 
document or information respecting bodies entering the present tenure. I will - 
therefore commence far back and stop when I come down to the epoch mentioned. 
F'irst I enclose No. L, being the Basis of Union of the first Synod formed in 
Nova Scotia, and called the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia, the 
idea of those forming the Synod being that one independent Church should be 
formed embracing licentiates from the different Presbyterian bodies in Scotland. 

Their Creed is set forth in the formula of questions which I send with the 
appended note^ 

H. Next in order is the Synod in connection with the Church of Scotland. 
Respecting that I have sent your letter to Dr. Pollok, requesting him to procure 
and send you the information requested. 

HI. The Free Church Synod was formed in Pictou in July, 1844, by the Disrup- 
tion of the Synod in connection with the Church of Scotland, and called “ The 
Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia adhering to the Westminster 
Standards.” The name was subsequently changed to “The Synod of the Free 
Church of Nova .Scotia.” 

Its Creed was set forth in the questions put to office-bearers which I also enclose, 
marked No. 2. 

IV. The Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces was formed by a union of 
Nos. I. and HI. on October 4, i860. 

In P. C. L. P. there were , , 42 ministers. 

Free Church of Nova Scotia, . . 36 “ 

The name of “Nova Scotia” was dropped and “Lower Provinces” taken 
because Prince Edward Island was not in Nova Scotia and contained twelve min- 
isters, and as an invitation to the brethren in New Brunswick to come in. 

V. The Presbyterian Synod of New Brunswick united with the P. C. L. P. under 
the same name and on the same basis as the union of i860. 

This union took place in St. John, New Brunswick, and in St. David’s Church, 
on the 2d July, 1866. 

Ministers in Synod of New Brunswick, ... 18 

P. C. L. P., 95 

Total, . , . . 1 13 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1051 


This was the P. C. L. P. up to the date of union in Montreal in 
I submit, thirdly, the Blue-Book of P. C. L. P. containing: 

I. Bases of Union of i860 and of 1866. See Blue-Book sent 
herewith, 

II. Formula for the subscription of Ministers, 

III. Questions put to Ministers before ordination, 

IV. Questions put to Missionaries before ordination or before 

designation, 

V. Questions put to Probationers before they are licensed, , 

VI. Questions put to Elders and Deacons before ordination, 

VII. Formula for the admission of Members, 


June, 1875. 


Page 13 I 

133 

. 142 

• 144 

. 141 

. 140 , 

^35 


The Questions in your slip are all answered by the information furnished, except 
the third. 


How far has individual adherence to these Creeds, by subscription or other^vise, been 
required from Ministers, Elders, or other Office-bearers respectively, and also ■ 
from the private Members of the same ? 

Reply. 

' l. Adherence was expressed by solemn assent to the questions given in public 
before the congregation by all ministers, elders, and deacons, and by probationers 
before the presbytery at Licensure. 

2. Members declared their readiness to sign the formula, page 133. 

3. Assent to the questions provided and a readiness to sign the formula were not 
dispensed with, but put into practice. 

4. The assent to the Formula No. VI., page 135, by private persons joining the , 
Church was rather recommended than required, and was not practised by all. Min- 
isters and sessions were left to decide whether they deemed it for edification or not, 
and to act on their convictions. 

I think this is about all that I can do for you. If Dr. Pollok will give you a few 
notes I think you will be fairly posted. — P. G. M’Gregor. 

Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of 

Scotland. 

Questions put to Ministers at Ordination, up to 1872. 

1. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the word 
of God, and the only rule of faith and manners? 

2. Do you sincerely own and believedhe whole doctrine contained in the Confes- * 
sion of Faith, approved by the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland, and 
ratified by law in the year 1690, to be founded upon the word of God, and agreeable 
thereto; and do 'you acknowledge the same as the Confession of your- Faith and 
will you firmly and constantly adhere thereto, and to the utmost of your power as- 
sert, maintain, and defend the same, and the purity of worship, as presently practised 
in this Church ? 

3. Do you disown all Popish, Arian, Socinian, Arminian, and other doctrines, 
tenets, and opinions whatsoever, contrary to, and inconsistent with, the aforesaid ' 
Confession of Faith ? 

4. Are you persuaded that the Presbyterian government and disciplii^ of this 
Church are founded upon the word of God, and agreeable thereto; and do you : 
promise to submit to the said government and discipline, and to concur with the 
same, and never to endeavour, directly or indirectly, the prejudice or subversion 
thereof, but to the utmost of your power, in your station, to maintain, support and 
defend the said discipline and Presbyterian government by Kirk-Sessio»s, Provincial 
Synods, and General Assemblies, during all the days of your life? 

5. Do you promise to submit yourself, willingly and humbly, in the spirit of 
meekness, unto the admonitions of the brethren of this Presbytery, and to be sub- . 


1052 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


ject to them, and all other Presbyteries and superior judicatories of the Church, 
where God in his providence shall cast your lot; and that, according to your power, 
you shall maintain the unity and peace of this Church against error and schism, not- 
withstanding whatsoever trouble or persecution may arise, and that you shall follow 
no divisive course from the present established doctrine, worship, discipline, and 
government of this Church ? 

6. Are "not zeal for the honour of God, love to Jesus Christ, and desire of saving 
souls, your great motives and chief inducements to enter into the function of the 
holy ministry, and not worldly designs and interests ? 

7. Have you Used any undue methods, by yourself or others, in procuring this 
call ? 

8. Do you engage, in the strength and grace of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Master, 
to rule well your own family, to live a holy and circumspect life, and faithfully, dili- 
gently, and cheerfully to discharge all the parts of the ministerial work, to -the edi- - 
ficalion of the body of Christ ? 

9. Do you accept of and close with the call to be Pastor of this congregation, and * 
promise through grace to perform all the duties of a faithful Minister of the Gospel 
among this people ? 

10. Do you assent to the following Act of the Synod of this Church : — 

“ Whereas, This Synod has- alvyays from its first establishment, possessed a^ free 
and supreme jurisdiction over all the congregations and ministers in connection ' 
therewith ; and although the independence and freedom of this Synod, in regard to 
all things spiritual, cannot be called in question, but has been repeatedly and in 
most explicit terms affirmed. Yet as in present circumstances it is expedient that 
this independence be asserted and declared by a special act : 

“ It is therefore hereby declared. That this Synod has always claimed and pos- 
sessed, does now possess, and ought always in all time coming, to have and exercise 
a perfectly free, full, final, supreme, and uncontrolled power of jurisdiction, dis- 
cipline, and government in regard to all matters ecclesiastical and spiritual, over all ' 
the ministers, elders, church-members, and congregations under its care, without the 
right of review, appeal, complaint, or reference by or to any other court or courts 
whatsoever, in any form, or under any pretence ; and that in all cases that may * 
come before it for judgment, the decisions and deliverances of this Synod shall be 
final. And this Synod further declares that if any encroachment on this supreme 
power and authority shall be attempted or threatened, by any person or persons, 
court or courts whatsoever, then this Synod, and each and every member thereof, 
shall to the utmost of their power, resist and oppose the same. And whereas the 
words in the designation of the Synod, ‘ in connection with the Church of Scotland,’ 
have been misunderstood or misrepresented by many persons, it is hereby declared, 
that the said words imply no right of jurisdiction or control in any form whatever,, 
by the Church of Scotland over this Synod, but denote merely the connection of. 
origin, identity of standards, and ministerial and church communion.” 

Questions as amended, June I2th, 1872. 

For License, 

1. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the word 
of God, and the supreme rule of faith and manners? 

2. Do you believe the We-stminster Confession of Faith, the subordinate standard 
of this Ch|»rch, to be founded on the word of God and agreeable thereto, and will 
you adhere thereto in your teaching? 

3. Do you own the purity of worship practi.sed in this Church, and do you prom- 
ise to conform to the same ? 

4. Do you believe the government of this Church by Kirk-Sessions, Presbyteries, 
Synods, and General Assemblies, to be founded on the word of God and ao^reeable 
thereto ? 

$. Do you engage in dependence on the aid of God’s Holy Spirit, faithfully and 
diligently to preacn the gospel of Jesus Christ, as you shall have opportunity ? 


SECOND 


GENERAL COUNCIL, 


1053 


6. Do you promise, through the grace of God, to lead a holy and circumspect 
life ? 

Formula. 

. I do hereby declare that I believe the Westminster Confession of Faith, the sub- 
ordinate standard of this Church, to be founded on the word of God and agreeable 
thereto, and I engage as a Preacher of the Gospel to adhere to the same ; that I own 
the purity of w'oiship practised in this Church, and I promise to observe all public 
ordinances as they are authorized; that I believe the government of this Church by 
Kirk;Sessions, Presbyteries, Synods, and General Assemblies to be founded on the 
Word of God and agreeable thereto, and I engage as a Preacher of the Gospel to 
conform to the same. 


Questions for Ordination. 

1. As for License. — Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ments to be the word of God, and the supreme rule of faith and manners? 

2. As for License. — Do you believe the Westminster Confession of Faith, the 
.subordinate standard of this Church, to be founded on the word of God and agree- 
able thereto, and will you adhere thereto in your teaching? 

3. As for License with the added Clause. — Do you own the purity of worship 
practised in this Church, and do you engage to conform to the same, and to observe 
all public ordinances as they are authorized? 

4. As for License with the added Clause. — Do you believe the government of this 
Church by Kirk-Sessions, Presbyteries, Synods, and General Assemblies to be founded 
on the word of God, and agreeable thereto; and do you engage, as a Minister of 
this Church, to conform to the same? 

5. Are not zeal for the honour of God, love to Jesus Christ, and desire of saving 
souls, your great motives and chief inducements to enter into the holy ministry? 

6. Do you engage in dependence on the aid of God’s Holy Spirit, diligently to 
instruct the people committed to your charge, out of the Holy Scriptures; duly to 
administer the Sacraments according to Christ’s institution, and faithfully to dis- 
charge all other parts of the ministerial work ? 

7. Will you be diligent in prayer, in the reading of the Holy Scriptures, and in 
such studies as help to the knowledge of the same, that you may be able thereby to 

.teach wholesome doctrine, and to withstand and convince the gainsayers? 

8. Do you promise to submit yourself, in the spirit of meekness, to the admoni- 
tions of the brethren of this Presbytery, and to be subject to them, and to the su- 
perior judicatories of this Church, and to maintain, according to your power, the 
unity and peace of this Church against error and schism? 

9. Do you engage, in the strength of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Master, to lead 
a holy and circumspect life, so that you may be an example to the flock ? 

10. Have you used any undue methods, either by yourself or others, in procuring 
this call ? 

11. Do you accept and close with the call to be the Pastor of this congregation, 
and promise through grace to perform all the duties of a faithful Minister of the 
Gospel among this people ? 

• Foimnila. 

I hereby declare that T believe the Westminster Confession of Faith, the subor- 
dinate standard of this Church, to be founded on the word of God, and agreeable 
thereto, and I engage as a Minister of this Church to adhere to the same; that I 
own the purity of worship practised in this Church, and I promise to observe all 
public ordinances as they are authorized ; that I believe the government of this 
Church by Kirk-Sessions, Presbyteries, Synods, and General Assemblies to be 
founded on the word of God, and agreeable thereto, and I engage as a Minister of 
this Church to conform to the same; and I promise, in the strength and grace of 
Jesus Christ, to discharge diligently and faithfully all the parts of the ministerial 
work, to the edification of the body of Christ, 


1054 the PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

' Questions appointed to be put to Ministers and Office-bearers ^ and 
Formula appointed to be signed by the following Churches : 

1. Presbyterian Church of Canada. 

2. Canada Presbyterian Church. 

3. Presbyterian Church in Canada. 

Presbyterian Church of Canada. — This Church was organized in 1844, by separa* 
lion from “ Presbyterian Church of Canada, in connection with the Church of 
Scotland.” 

Canada Presbyterian Church. — This Church was formed in 1861, by the union 
of the Presbyterian Church of Canada and the United Presbyterian Church in 
Canada. 

• 'Presbyterian Church in Canada. — This Church was formed in 1875, union 

of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, in connection with the Church of Scotland, 
the Canada Presbyterian Church, the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces, 
and the Presbyterian Church of the Maritime Provinces in connection with the 
Church of Scotland. 

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF CANADA. 

Questions to be put to a Minister at his Ordination. 

1. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the word 
of God, and the only rule of faith and manners ? 

2. Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine contained in the Confes- 
sion of Faith, approved by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, in the 
year 1647, to be founded upon the word of God; and do you acknowledge the 

• same as the Confession of your Faith; and will you firmly and constantly adhere 
thereto, and to the utmost of your power assert, maintain, and defend the same and 
the purity of worship as presently practised in this Church ? 

3. Do you disown all Popish, Arian, Socinian, Arminian, Erastian, and other 
doctrines, tenets, and opinions whatsoever, contrary to, or inconsistent with the fore- 

■ said Confession of Faith? 

4. Believing, as you declare, that the Lord Jesus, as King and Head of the Church, 
hath therein appointed a government in the hand of Church officers, distinct from 
the civil magistrate, are you resolved to maintain, and that at all hazard, that in the 
administration of spiritual things, the Church is bound to act ministerially under 
Christ, her Head, as responsible in such administration to him alone; while, in all 
things secular and civil, her officers and members are subject to the laws and rules 
that govern civil society ? 

5. Are you persuaded that the Presbyterian government and discipline of this 
Church are founded upon the word of God, and agreeable thereto, and do you 
promise to submit to the same government and discipline, and to concur with the 

.same, and never to endeavour, directly or indirectly, the prejudice or subversion 
thereof; but to the utmost of your power in your station, to maintain, support, and 
defend the said discipline and Presbyterian government by Sessions, Presbyteries, 
and Synods, during all the days of your life? 

6. Are you persuaded that the pastoral relation can be legitimately founded only 
on the free choice and consent of the people ? 

7. Do you promise to submit yourself, willingly and humbly, in the spirit of 
meekness, unto the admonitions of the brethren of this Presbytery, and to be sub- 
ject to them and all other Presbyteries and the superior judicatory of this Church, 
where God in His providence shall cast your lot; and that, according to your 
power, you- will maintain the unity and peace of this Church against error and 
schism, notwithstanding of whatever trouble or persecution may arise, and that you 
shall follow no divisive courses from the present doctrine, worship, discipline, and 
government of this Church? 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


loss 

8. Are not zeal for the honour of God, love to Jesus Christ, and desire of saving 
souls, your great motives and chief inducements to enter into the function of the 

, holy ministry, and not worldly designs and interests? 

9. Have you used any undue methods, by yourself or others, in procuring this 
' call ? 

10. Do you engage, in the strength and grace of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Mas- 
ter, to rule well your own family, to live a holy and circumspect life, and faithfully,, 
diligently, and cheerfully to discharge all the parts of the. ministerial work, to the 
edification of the body of Christ? 

11. Do you accept of and close vvith the call to be pastor of this Church, and 
promise through grace to perform all the duties of a faithful minister of the gospel 
among this people ? 

Questions to be put to a Probationer, 

Nos. I, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 the same as the foregoing. 

7. Do you promise that you will subject yourself to the several judicatories of this 
Church, and are you willing to subscribe to these things ? 

. Questions to be put to an Elder, 

Nos. I, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 the same as the foregoing. 

7. Do you accept of the office of an Elder of this Church, and promise through 
grace, faithfully, diligently, and cheerfully, to discharge the duties thereof? 

Questions to be put to a Deacon, 

Nos. I, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 the same as the foregoing. ' 

7. Do you accept of the office of a Deacon of this Church, and promise through 
grace, faithfully, diligently, and cheerfully, to discharge the duties thereof. 

Formula, 

To be signed by Ministers, Elders, Deacons, and Probationers. 

I, , do hereby declare that I do sincerely own and believe the whole doc- 

trine contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith, as approved by the Church 
of Scotland, in the year one thousand six hundred and forty-seven, to be the truths 
of God, and I do own the purity of worship presently authorized and practised in 
this Church, and also the Presbyterian Government and Discipline thereof; which 
Doctrine, Worship, and Church Government I am persuaded are founded upon the 
Word of God, and agreeable thereto; and I promise that, through the grace of God, 

I shall firmly and constantly adhere to the same, and to the utmost of my power, 
shall, in my station, assert, maintain, and defend the said Doctrine, Worship, Disci- 
pline, and Government of this Church by Sessions, Presbyteries, and Synods; that 
I shall, in my practice, conform myself to the said Worship, and submit to the same 
Discipline and Government, and never endeavour, directly or indirectly, the prejudice 
or subversion of the same ; and I promise that I shall follow no divisive course from 
the present order in the Church : renouncing all doctrines, tenets, and opinions 
whatsoever contrary to or inconsistent with the said Doctrine, Woi:ship, Discipline, 
or Government of this Church. 

CANADA PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 

Questions to be put to a Minister at his Ordination, 

1. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word 

of God, and the only rule of faith and manners? 

2. Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine contained in the Confes- 
sion of Faith, approved by this Church in terms of the Articles of Union, to be 
founded upon the Word of God ; and do you acknowledge the same as the Confes- 
sion of your faith; and will you firmly and constantly adhere thereto, and to the 
utmost of your power, assert, maintain, and defend the same, and the purity of 
worship, as presently practised in this Church? • 


1056 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


3. Are you persuaded that the Lord Jesus Christ, the only King and Head of the 
Church, has therein appointed a government distinct from, and not subordinate to, 
that of tlie civil magistrate; and that the civil magistrate does not possess jurisdic- 
tion or authoritative control over the regulation of the affairs of Christ’s Church ? 

4. Do you acknowledge the Presbyterian form of government, as authorized and 
acted on in this Church, to be founded on and agreeable to the Word of God, and 
do you promise to submit to the said government and discipline, and to concur 
with the same, and not endeavour, directly or indirectly, the prejudice or subversion 
thereof, but to the utmost of your power, in your station, to assert, maintain, and 
defend the same discipline and Presbyterian government by Church Sessions, Pres- 
byteries, Synods and Assemblies? 

5. Do you promise to give a conscientious attendance on the Courts of this Church, 
to submit yourself willingly and humbly, in the spirit of meekness, unto the admon- 
itions of the brethren of this Presbytery, and to be subject to them, and all other 
Presbyteries, and the superior judicatories of this Church, where God in His provi- 
dence shall cast your lot; and that, according to your power, you will maintain the 
unity and peace of this Church against error and schism, whatever trouble or perse- 
cution may arise, and that you will follow no divisive course from the present doc- 
trine, worship, discipline, and government of this Church? 

6. Are not zeal for the honour of God, love to Jesus Christ, and desire of saving 
souls, your great motives and chief inducements to enter into the functions of the 
holy ministry, and not worldly designs and interests? 

7. Do you engage in the strength and grace of Jesus Christ, our I>ord and 
Master, to rule well your own family, to live a holy and circumspect life, and faith- 
fully, diligently, and cheerfully to discharge all the parts of the ministerial work, to 
the edification of the body of Christ? 

8. Have you used any undue methods, either by yourself or others, in procuring 
this call ? 

9. Do you adhere to your acceptance of the call, to become Minister of this 
Church ? 

10. All these things you profess and promise, through grace, as you shall be 
• answerable at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with his saints, and as you would 

be found in that happy company ? 

I Questions to he put to a Student on being Licensed. 

Nos. I, 2, 3 the same as the foregoing. 

4. Do you promise to submit yourself in the Lord to the authority of the several 
judicatories of this Church, and to the Presbytery within whose bounds you may be 
called upon to labour? 

5. Do you engage, in the strength of Divine grace, to live a holy and circumspect 
life, and faithfully, diligently, and cheerfully to perform all the parts of the work 
of a probationer l^or the office of the Ministry ? 

Questions to be pmt to an Elder at Ordination. 

Nos. I, 2,' 3 the same as the foregoing. 

4. Do you engage, in the strength of the grace that is in Jesus Christ, to perform 
wdth diligence and faithfulness the duties of a ruling Elder, watching over the flock 
of which you are called to be overseer, in all things showing yourself a pattern of 
good works ? 

Questions to be put to a Deacon at Ordinatioti. 

Nos. I, 2, 3 the same as the foregoing. 

4. Do you accept the office of a Deacon of this Church, and promise, through 
grace, faithfully and cheerfully to discharge the duties thereof? 

Formula. 

To be signed by Ministers, Probationers, Elders, and Deacons; 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


i°57 


hereby declare that I do sincerely own and believe the whole 
doctrine contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith as approved by this 
Church, in terms of the Articles of Union, to be the truth of God; and I do own 
the purity of \Vorship presently authorized and practised in this Church, and also 
the Presbyterian government and discipline thereof ; which doctrine, worship, and 
Church government I am p>ersuaded are founded upon the Word of God and agreeable 
thereto ; and I promise that, through the grace of God, I shall firmly and constantly 
adhere to the same, and to the utmost of my power shall, in my station, assert, 
maintain, and defend the said doctrine, worship, and discipline of this Church, and 
the government thereof by Sessions, Presbyteries, Synods, and Assemblies ; that I 
shall, in my practice, conform myself to the said worship, and submit to the said 
discipline and government, and not endeavour, directly or indirectly, the prejudice 
or subversion of the same ; and I promise that I shall follow no divisive course from 
the present order in the Church : renouncing all doctrines, tenets, and opinions 
whatsoever, contrary to or inconsistent with, the said doctrines, worship, discipline, 
or government of this Church. 

N. B. — In the Articles of Union between the Presbyterian Church of Canada and the 
United Presbyterian Church in Canada, by the union of which churches, in i86i, 
the Canada Presbyterian Church was formed, the following was agreed to with ref- 
erence to the subordinate standards : 

“ Of the subordinate standards. That the Westminster Confession of Faith, 
with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, are received by this Church as her subor- 
dinate standards. 

“ But whereas, certain sections of the said Confession of Faith, which treat of the 
power or duty of the civil magistrate, have been objected to, as teaching principles 
adverse both to the right of private judgment in religious matters, and to the prerog- 
ative which Christ has vested in his Church, it is to be understood : 

First, That no interpretation or reception of these sections is held by this Church 
which would interfere with the fullest forbearance as to any difference of opinion 
which may prevail on the question of the endowment of the Church by the State. 

“ Second, That no interpretation or reception of these sections is required by this 
Church, which would accord to the State any authority to violate the liberty of con- 
science and right of private judgment, which are asserted in chapter twentieth, 
section second, of the Confession ; and, in accordance with the statements of which 
this Church holds that every person ought to be at full liberty to search the Scrip- 
tures for himself, and to follow out what he conscientiously believes to be the 
teaching of Scripture, without let or hindrance, provided that no one is to be 
allowed under the pretext of following the dictates of conscience to interfere with 
the peace and good order of society. 

“ 7 hird. That no interpretation or reception of these sections is required by this 
Church, which would admit of any interference on the part of the State with 
the spiritual independence of the Church, as set forth in chapter thirtieth of the 
Confession.” 

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN CANADA. 

Questions to be put to Ministers at Ordination or Induction. 

1. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word 
of God, and the only infallible rule of faith and manners ? 

2. Do you believe the Westminster Confession of Faith, as adopted by this Church 
in the Basis of Union, to be founded on and agreeable to the Word of God, and in 
your teaching will you faithfully adhere thereto ? 

3. Do you believe the Government of this Church by Sessions, Presbyteries, 
Synods, and General Assemblies, to be founded on and agreeable to the Word of 
God, and do you engage as a Minister of this Church to maintain and defend the 
same ? 

4. Do you own the purity of worship at present authorized by this Church, and 
will you conform thereto? 

5. Do you promise to give a dutiful attendance in the Courts of this Church, to 

67 


1058 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


submit yourself in the spirit of meekness to the admonitions of this Presbytery, to be 
subject to it, and the superior judicatories, to follow no divisive course, but main- 
tain according to your power the unity and peace of the Church ? 

6. Are zeal for the glory of God, love to the Lord Jesus Christ, and desire of 
saving souls, so far as you know your own heart, your great motives and chief in- 
ducements to enter the office of theiministry ? 

7. Have you directly or indirectly used any undue means to procure this call ? 

8. Do you engage, in the strength and grace of our I^ord Jesus Christ, to live a 
holy and circumspect life, to rule well your own house, and faithfully and diligently 
to discharge all the duties of the Ministry to the edification of the body of Christ ? 

Questions to be put to Candidates for License to preach the Gospel. 

Nos. 1 , 2, 3, 4 as above. 

5. Do you engage, in the strength and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live a 
holy and circumspect life, and faithfully to preach the gospel as you have oppor- 
tunity ? 

6. Do you promise to submit yourself in the Lord to the several judicatories of 
this Church ? 

Questions to be put to Elders before Ordination. 

Nos. I, 2, 3, 4 as above, omitting “in your teaching” in No. 2, and substituting 
in No. 3 “ Ruling Elder” for “ Minister.” 

5. In accepting the office of Elder, do you engage, in the strength and grace of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, faithfully and diligently to perform the duties thereof; 
watching over the flock of which you are called to be an overseer, and in all things 
showing yourself to be a pattern of good works ? 

Questions to be ptit to Deacons before Ordination. 

• Nos. I, 2, 3, 4 as above (mutatis mutandis). 

5. In accepting the office of Deacon, do you engage, in the strength and grace of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, faithfully and diligently to perform the duties thereof? 

Formula to be signed by all Office-bearers. 

“ I hereby declare that I believe the Westminster Confession of Faith, as adopted 
by this Church, in the Basis of Union, and the government of the Church by 
Sessions, Presbyteries, Synods, and General Assemblies, to be founded on and 
agreeable to the Word of God; that I own the purity of worship at present author- 
ized by this Church ; and that I engage to adhere faithfully to the doctrine of the 
said Confession, to maintain and defend the said government, to conform to the 
said worship, and to submit to the discipline of this Church, and to follow no di- 
visive course from the present order established therein.” 

N. B. — The second article in the Basis of Union referring to the subordinate stan- 
dards of the Church is as follows: “ The Westminster Confession of Faith shall 
form the subordinate standard of this Church ; the Larger and Shorter Catechisms 
.shall be adopted by the Church, and appointed to be used for the instruction of the 
people ; it being distinctly understood that nothing contained in the aforesaid Con- 
fession or Catechisms, regarding the power and duty of the civil magistrate, shall 
be held to sanction any principles or views inconsistent with full liberty of con- 
science in matters of religion.” 

It should be stated that in all the churches above mentioned. Ministers and office- 
bearers were required either to sign the Formula or to promise to sign when judi- 
cially called upon to do so. 

THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES OF 

AMERICA. 

About the year 1705, several ministers that had come from the Presbyterian 
Churches of Great Britain, but were just then, though residing in the Colonies, 
holding no ecclesiastical connection with them, formed themselves into a Presbytery 
- -the first on American soil. As these brethren knew distinctly each other’s views. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


1059 


at first little necessity for any formal declaration of their doctrinal position, but when 
Ai lanism appeared among the British Churches and ministers from these churches 
were connng over to America, the Synod of Philadelphia judgedTneedful to Jake 
some action, and m 1729 passed a resolution commonly known as the “Adoptincr 
Act,” in which occurs the following language : ^oopun^ 

another as Christ has received us, to the glory of 
Sf’ fellowship in sacred ordinances all such as we have grounds to 

be leve Christ will at last admit to the kingdom of heaven, yet we are undoubtedly 
obliged to take care that the faith once delivered to the saints be kept pure and un^ 
coirupt among us, and so handed down to our posterity. And do (sic) therefore 
agree that all the ministers of this Synod, or that shall hereafter be admitted into 
this Synod, shall declare their agreement in and approbation of the Confession of 
Pmth, with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms of the Assembly of Divines at West- 
niinjer, as being, in ^1 the essential and necessary articles, good forms of sound 
words and systems of Christian doctrine, and do also adopt the said confession and 
catechisms as the Confession of our Faith. And we do also agree, that all the 
Presliyteries within our bounds shall always take care not to admit any candidate of 
the ministry into the exercise of the sacred function, but what declares his agreement 
in opinion with all the essential and necessary articles of said confession, either by 
subscribing the said Confession of Faith and Catechisms, or by a verbal declaration 
ot their assent thereto, as such minister or candidate shall think best.” 

On the afternoon of the day on which the above resolution was passed, the minis- 
ters of the Synod who were then present, with one exception, “unanimously agreed 
in declaring the said confession and catechisms to be the confession of their faith 
excepting only some clauses in the twentieth and twenty-third chapters, concerning 
which^ clauses the Synod do unanimously declare that they do not receive those ar- 
tides in any such sense as to suppose the civil magistrate hath a controllino- power 
over Synods with respect to the exercise of their ministerial authority, or power to 
persecute any for their religion, or in any sense contrary to the Protestant succession 
to tlie throne of Great Britain.” 

During the same meeting in reply to an enquiry as to the judgment of the Synod 
respecting the directory of Church government prepared also by the Westminster 
Divines, the following answer was returned: 

“ The Synod do unanimously acknowledge and declare, that they judge the di- 
rectory for worship, discipline, and government of this Church, commonly annexed 
to the Westminster Confession, to be agreeable in substance to the word of God, and 
founded thereon, and therefore do earnestly recommend the same to all their rnem- 
bers, to be by them observed as near as circumstances will allow and Christian pru- 
dence direct.” 


Some dissatisfaction having been expressed as to the wording of the resolution 
about candidates for Licensure, during their next meeting in 1730, the Synod de- 
clared that they understood the clauses referring to these in such a sense as to oblige 
them to receive and adopt the confession and catechisms at their admission, in the 
same manner and as fully as did the members of the Synod that were then present. 

So desirous were the Synod of protecting themselves against “ false brethren un- 
awares brought in,” that in 1734, it ordered, — “That the Synod make a particular 
enquiry during the time of meeting every year, whether such ministers as have been 
received as members since the foregoing meeting of the Synod, have adopted or 
have been required by the Synod, or by the respective Presbyteries, to adopt the 
Westminster Confession and Catechisms with the Directory, according to the Acts 
of the Synod made some years since for that purpose, and that also the report made 
to the Synod in answer to such enquiry be recorded on our minutes.” 

In the following year (1735) the Synod ordered “That each Presbytery have the 
whole Adopting Act inserted in their Presbytery book.” 

In 1736, the Synod received a “supplication” from a number of the members 
of the Church complaining that certain fears were abroad, occasioned by the lan- 
guage used in reference to the receiving or adopting the confession. To remove 
all such uneasiness, the Synod declared “that the Synod have adopted and still do 


io6o 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


adhere to the Westminster Confession, Catechisms, and Directory without the least 
variation or alteration,’' concluding as follows : 

“ We hope and desire that this our Synodical declaration and explication may 
satisfy all our people, as to our firm attachment to our old received doctrines con- 
tained in said Confession, without the least variation or alteration, and that they 
will lay aside their jealousies that have been entertained through occasion of the 
above hinted expressions and declarations, as groundless.” 

In 1741, the Synod divided into the two Synods of New York and Philadelphia, 
remaining separate until 1758. By that time a satisfactory understanding as to 
each other’s sentiments had been reached, so that in uniting, it was on a basis in 
which there are the following sections: 

“ I. Both Synods having always approved and received the Westminster Confes- 
sion of Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms as an orthodox and excellent sys- 
tem of Christian doctrine founded on the word of God, we do still receive the same 
as the Confession of our Faith, and also adhere to the plan of worship, government, 
and discipline contained in the Westminster Directory, strictly enjoining it on all our 
members and probationers for the ministry, that they preach and teach according to 
the form of sound words in said Confession and Catechisms, and avoid and oppose 
all errors contrary thereto.” 

VI. That no Presbytery shall license or ordain to the work of the ministry, any 
candidate, until he declare his acceptance of the Westminster Confession and Cate- 
chisms as the Confession of his Faith, and promise subjection “ to the Presbyterian 
plan of government in the Westminster Directory.” 

In 1786, the United Synod in a reply to an enquiry addressed to it by the Dutch 
Church, declared : 

“ The Synod of New York and Philadelphia adopt, according to the known and 
established meaning of the terms, the Westminster Confession of Faith as the Con- 
fession of their Faith.” 

In 1787, in view of the approaching change of the Church from a Synod to a 
General Assembly, the Synod ordered a thorough revision of the standards, altering 
the articles excepted to in the Adopting Act and making such amendments as were 
found to be necessary. The book as thus revised and amended was, in the follow- 
ing year, finally adopted and ratified as the constitution of the Presbyterian Church 
in America, and has remained in use and unaltered since that date. At no time 
nor under any circumstances can it now be altered unless two-thirds of the Presby- 
teries of the Church agree on doing so. 

The final deliverance of the Synod on the question as to what constitutes the 
“standards” of the Presbyterian Church in America is in the following terms : 

“ The Synod having now revised and corrected the draught of a Directory for 
w'orship, did approve and ratify the same, and do hereby appoint the said Directory, 
as n(jw amended, to be the Directory for the worship of God in the Presbyterian 
Church in the United States of America. They also took into consideration the 
Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and having made a small amendment 
of the Larger — removing the words, ‘ tolerating a false religion,’ from the answer 
to Question 109 — did approve, and do hereby approve and ratify the said Catechisms, 
as now agreed on, as the Catechisms of the Presbyterian Church in the said United 
States. And the Synod order, that the said Directory and Catechisms be printed 
and bound up in the same volume with the Confession of Faith and the form of 
government and discipline, and that the whole be considered as the standard of our 
doctrine, government, discipline, and worship, agreeably to the resolutions of the 
Synod at their present sessions.” 

How thoroughly the Assembly adhered to the position thus avowed is evident 
from the fact that when in 1848, a Presbytery asked whether, when ministers and 
other officers are ordained in the Presbyterian Church, and give an affirmative an- 
swer to the question, “ Do you sincerely receive and adopt the Confession of this 
Church as containing the system of doctrines taught in the Holy Scripture?” are 
such ministers and officers to be understood as embracing and assenting to the doc- 
trines, principles, precepts, and statements contained in the Larger and Shorter 


io6r 


SECOND GENERAL COLNCIL. 

Catechisms in the same unqualified sense in which they are understocxl to ein})race 
and assent to the doctrines, principles, precepts, and statements contained in o^her 
parts of the Confession of Faith ? To which enquiry, the Assembly ordered an 
affirmative answer to be given. 

II* The Formula of Questions addressed to candidates for license is as follows: 

1. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the word 
of God, and only infallible rule of faith and practice? 

2. Do you sincerely receive and adopt the Confession of Faith of this Church as 
containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures? 

3. Do you promise to study the peace, unity, and purity of the Church? 

4. Do you promise to submit yourself in the Lord, to the government of this 
Presbytery or of any other Presbytery in the bounds of which you may be called? 

Having satisfactorily answered the questions of the formula, a certificate of li- 
censure is given to the applicant, in which the fact is distinctly stated that he has 
adopted the Confession of Faith of this Church. 

The first and second questions, as given above, are addressed to licentiates also, 
previous to their ordination, with the addition of a third one as follows: 

Do you sincerely approve of the government and discipline of the Presbyterian 
Church in these United States ? 

And the same three questions are addressed to elders when they are about to be 
ordained. 

Princeton, N. J., September 'jth, 1880. 

Dear Brother Mathews: I think the report you have drawn up is excellent as 
far as it goes. In order to set forth all the facts of the case I would add the fol- 
lowing two particulars : 

I. In 1869, the two branches of the Presbyterian Church, known as Old School 
and New School, by an affirmative vote of nearly all the Presbyteries of both bodies, 
were united on the following basis: “The Reunion shall be effected on the doc- 
trinal and ecclesiastical basis of our common standards; the Scriptures of the Old 
and New Testaments shall be acknowledged to be the inspired Word of God, and 
the only infallible rule of faith and practice ; the Confession of Faith shall continue 
to be sincerely received and adopted as containing the system of doctrines taught in 
the Holy Scriptures; and the Government and Discipline of the Presbyterian 
Church in the United States, shall be approved as containing the principles and 
rules of our polity.” 

II . In our Seminaries (this is certainly true of Union Theological Seminary, 
New York city, of Princeton, and of the Western Theological Seminary, Allegheny 
City, Pennsylvania. I believe it to be true also of Auburn and Chicago) professors 
are required at their installation, and in some instances every third year of their 
continuance in office, to take a more stringent engagement to the doctrinal standards 
of the Church, than the. pastors are. In Princeton and Allegheny the professors sub- 
scribe the following formula, and that used in the other seminaries is virtually iden- 
tical with it: “ In the presence of God and of the Directors of this Seminary, I do 
solemnly and ex animo adopt, receive, and subscribe the Confession of Faith and Cate- 
chisms of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America as the confession 
of my faith, or as a summary and just exhibition of that system of doctrine and 
religious belief which is contained in Holy Scripture, and therein revealed by God 
to man for his salvation; and I do solemnly <?jr animo profess to receive tlie form 
of government of said Church as agreeable to the inspired oracles. And I do 
solemnly promise and engage not to inculcate, teach, or insinuate anything that 
shall appear to me to contradict or contravene, either directly or impliedly, any- 
thing taught in said Confession of Faith or Catechisms, nor to oppose any of the 
fundamental principles of Church government while I continue a Professor in this 
Seminary.” 

The above facts are part of the history of the case, and are necessary to make out 
the whole truth. 

The formula our pastors subscribe to at their ordination is less stringent than that 
in use in the Churches of Scotland. It is therefore necessary, in order to exhibit 


Io62 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


the whole truth as to the relation of our Church to the standards, that the formula 
imposed upon the professors should also be given. 

The formula subscribed by the professoi's of Union Theological Seminary, Isew 
York city, is as follows ; 

« I believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of 
God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice; and I do now, in the presence of 
God and the Directors of this Seminary, solemnly and sincerely receive and adopt 
the Westminster Confession of Faith, as containing the system of doctrine taught in 
the Holy Scriptures. I do also, in like manner, approve of the Presbyterian form 
of government; and I do solemnly promise that I will not teach or inculcate anything 
which shall appear to me to be subversive of the said system of doctrine, or of the 
principles of said form of government, so long as I shall continue to be a professor 
in this Seminary.” Yours sincerely, A. A. Hodge. 

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 

This Church was organized separately in l86i. Up to that year, its members had 
formed part of the “ Presbyterian Church in the United Slates of America,” and held 
till that date the position of that Church in all matters of doctrine and discipline. 

In answer, more specifically, to the questions of the Committee on Creeds and 
Confessions, we reply: 

I. This Church receives and adheres to the Westminster Confession as originally 
issued, except so far as altered by the Church in the United Slates of America down 
to i86i. 

II. The questions addressed to Candidates for licensure, or ordination to ministers, 
and to elders, and deacons, are the same as in the Northern Presbyterian Chur4h. 

III. In the Book of Church Order, adopted in 1879, form of government, chap. 
4, section 4, article 5, is the following provision : 

“The Presbytery shall cause to be transcribed in some convenient part of the 
Book of Records, the obligations required of ministers at their ordination, which 
shall be subscribed by all admitted to membership in the following form, viz. : ‘ I, 
A. B., do ex animo, receive, and subscribe the above obligation, as a just and true 
exhibition of my faith and principles, and do resolve and promise to exercise my 
ministry in conformity thereunto.’ ” 

IV. An adoption of the “ Confession ” is not required of private members. They 
are required to give “ credible evidence ” of faith in Christ, together with a correct 
walk and conversation. 

UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF NORTH AMERICA. 

The following is submitted by the subscriber, a delegate from the United Presby- 
terian Church of North America to the Presbyterian Council that met in Edinburgh, 
July 2, 1877, as his report to the Committee on Creeds and Confessions appointed 
by said Council : 

“The United Presbyterian Church of North America” is the result of a union 
formed in the year 1858 between “ the Associate Presbyterian Church of North 
America” and “the Associate Reformed Church in North America.” 

The highest court of the Associate Presbyterian Church at the lime of the afore- 
said union was “ The Associate Synod of North America.” 

The standards of this Church at that time were those which had been previously 
adopted by the Associate Presbytery of Pennsylvania. These standards consisted 
of the Westminster Confession of Faith, and a “ declaration and testimony for the 
doctrine and order of the Church of Christ.” This “ Testimony,” as it was com- 
monly called, was adopted by the “Associate Presbytery” at Pequea, Pennsylvania, 
on the 25th of August, 1784. 

The following extract from an “Act of the Associate Presbytery of Pennsylvania, 
concerning the admission of Church-members to Communion, passed at Philadel- 
phia, April 28, 1791,” will indicate the view of that Presbytery as to the binding 
obligation of the Standards of the Associate Presbyterian Church upon its members : 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1063 

■ I. That in congregations where there is a session, none ought to be admitted to 
Lommunion but by the session constituted. 

profession of the faith required of those who desire communion 
with us shall be an adherence to the Westminster Confession of Faith, Larger ami 
Shorter Catechisms, form of Presbyterial Church Government, and Directory for the 
Puohc Worship of God, as these are received and witnessed ,for by us in our Dec- 
laration and Testimony; and also that they profess their approbation of the said 
Declaration and Testimony for the Doctrine and Order of the Church of Christ.” 

The “ formula of questions to be put to ministers and elders at their ordination,” 
and “judicially approved at Philadelphia, November 4, 1784,” indicates the obliga- 
tions assumed by these persons. We extract the following: 

Ques. I. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be 
the Word of God, and the only rule of faith and practice ? 

Ques. 2. Do you believe and acknowledge the whole doctrine of the Confession 
of Faith, and Catechisms, Larger and Shorter, agreed upon by the Assembly of 
Divines at Westminster, with commissioners from the Church of Scotland; as these 
are received in the Declaration and Testimony, published in the year 1784, by the 
Associate Presbytery of Pennsylvania, now the Associate’ Synod of North America, 
to be the doctrine taught in the Word of God; and are you resolved, through the 
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to maintain this, as the confession of your faith, 
against all contrary opinions ? 

Ques. 3. Do you acknowledge Presbyterial Church Government to be of divine 
institution ? etc. 

Ques. 4. Do you adhere to the Declaration and Testimony of the Associate 
Synod of North America, for the Doctrine and Order of the Church of Christ ? etc. 

The other ecclesiastical organization that entered into the union that formed the 
United Presbyterian Church of North America, in the year 1858, was the Associate 
Reformed Church in North America. The following Act passed by the Associate 
Reformed Synod, May 31, 1799, indicates the creed of that Church, and the mannef 
in which it was received : 

“ The Westminster Confession of Faith, with the Catechisms, Larger and 
Shorter, having been formerly received by this Synod, with a reservation for future 
discussion of the doctrine respecting the power of the civil magistrate in matters of 
religion ; and the said doctrine being now modified in a manner more agreeable to 
the Word of God, to the nature of the Christian Church, and to the principles of 
civil society, the Synod do explicitly receive the aforesaid confession and catechisms, 
with the doctrine concerning the civil magistrate, as now stated in the twentieth, 
twenty-third, and thirty-first chapters of the Confession, as the systeiii of doctrine 
which is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ him- 
self being the chief corner-stone; and the Synod do hereby declare, that the afore- 
said confession and catechisms, as herein received, contain the true and genuine 
doctrine of the Associate Reformed Church ; and that no tenet contrary thereto, or 
to any part thereof, shall be countenanced in this Church.” 

The following extract from the formula of questions proposed to ministers, ruling 
elders and deacons, indicates the obligations assumed by these persons : 

Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word 
of the living God; the perfect and only rule of faith and practice, to which nothing 
is to be added, and from which nothing is to be taken, at any time, or upon any 
pretext, whether of new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men ? Do you 
receive the doctrine of this Church, contained in her confession and catechisms, as 
founded on the Word of God, and as the expression of your own faith ? And do 
you resolve to adhere thereto, in opposition to all deistical, popish, Arian, Socinian, 
Arminian, Neonomian, and sectarian errors, and all other opinions which are contrary 
to sound doctrine and the power of godliness? Do you approve the form of Pres- 
byterial Church government, and the directories for worship, received by this 
Church, as agreeable to, and founded on the Word of God? And do you resolve 
to maintain and observe them accordingly ? 

In the union of the two aforementioned churches, thereby constituting the United 


1064 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Presbyterian Church of North America, a statement touching the power of the civil 
magistrate, circa sacra, was agreed upon with the understanding that it would be 
regarded as containing the doctrine of the Church, and that said statement should be 
published in a column parallel with the twenty-third chapter of the Westminster 
Confession of Faith. 

In addition to the Confession of Faith the two aforementioned churches, through 
their highest judicatories, adopted, as a basis of union, eighteen declarations, with 
their respective arguments and illustrations, on the following subjects, namely : 
The Plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures ; The Eternal Sonship of Christ ; The Cov- 
enant of Works; The Fall of Man and His Present Inability; The Nature and 
Extent of the Atonement ; Imputed Righteousness ; The Gospel Offer ; Saving 
Faith ; Evangelical Repentance ; The Believer’s Deliverance from the Law as a 
Covenant; The Work of the Holy Spirit; The Headship of Christ; The Supre- 
macy of God’s Law; Slaveholding; Secret Societies; Communion; Covenanting; 
Psalmody. 

On the day preceding the consummation of the union, in Pittsburgh, May 25, 
1858, the Associate Synod, and the Associate Reformed Synod declared, in adopting 
tlie testimony containing the aforementioned declarations, that “ it is understood that 
the testimony submitted to the General Synod of the Associate Reformed Church 
by the Associate Synod, was proposed and accepted as a term of Communion, on 
the adoption of which the union of the two churches is to be consummated,” and 
also that “ it is agreed between the two churches that the forbearance in love which 
is required by the Law of God, be exercised toward any brethren who may not be 
able fully to subscribe to the standards of the United Church, while they do not 
determinedly oppose them, but follow the things which make for peace, and things 
wherewith one may edify another.” 

The following is one of the questions which, according to the book of “ The 
Government and Discipline of the United Presbyterian Church of North America,” 
is to be put to applicants for membership in said Church, namely : 

2. “ Do you profess your adherence to the doctrine received by this Church as set 
forth in the Confession of P'aith, Catechisms, Larger and Shorter, and declarations 
of the testimony; and do you approve of the form of Government and Directory 
for worship adopted by this Church, so far as you have been enabled to understand 
them, as agreeable to and founded on the Word of God ? ” 

The two following questions prescribed by the same book, indicate the obliga- 
tion assumed by candidates for ordination in the United Presbyterian Church of 
North America, namely: 

2. “ Do you believe and acknowledge the doctrines professed by this Church, 
contained in the Confession of Faith, Catechisms, Larger and Shorter, and the dec- 
larations of the testimony, as agreeable to, and founded on the Word of God ; and 
are you resolved, through divine grace, to maintain and adhere to the same against 
all opposing errors ? 

3. “ Do you approve the Presbyterial form of Church Government, and the Direc- 
tory for Worship, received by this Church, as agreeable to, and founded on the Word 
of God ; and are you resolved, by the grace of God, to maintain and defend 
them ? ” 

The following is the last paragraph of the introduction to the testimony, namely : 

“An adherence to the Westminster Standards before referred to, and to the 
declarations contained in the following testimony, will be required of those seeking 
communion with us. An assent to the argumentation and illustration under each 
declaration, cannot with propriety be demanded as a term of communion, but these 
parts may be useful as a guide to the meaning of the declaration.” 

It is believed that the foregoing contains everything of importance bearing on 
the question : What are the standards of the United Presbyterian Church of North 
America, and how are these standards recognized and received by said Church ? 

Respectfully submitted, J. T. Cooper. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


1065 


TERMS OF ECCLESIASTICAL COMMUNION IN THE REFORMED 
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA. 

I. An acknowledgment of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be 
the Word of God, and the only rule of faith and manners. 

II. An acknowledgment that the whole doctrine of the Westminster Confession 
of Faith, and the Catechisms, Larger and Shorter, are agreeable unto, and founded 
upon, the Scriptures. 

III. An acknowledgment of the divine right of one unalterable form of Church 
Government and manner of worship ; and that these are, for substance, justly 
exhibited in that form of Church Government, and the Directory for Worship agreed 
upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, as they were received by the 
Church of Scotland. 

IV. An acknowledgment of public covenanting as an ordinance of God to be 
observed by churches and nations ; and of the perpetual obligation of public cov- 
enants; and of the obligation upon this Church of the covenant entered into in 
1871, in which are embodied the engagements of the National Covenant of Scotland, 
and of the Solemn League and Covenant, so far as applicable in this land. 

V. An approbation ot the faithful contendings of the martyrs of Jesus, and of 
the present reformed covenanted churches in Britain and Ireland, against paganism, 
popery, and prelacy, and against immoral constitutions of civil government, together 
with all Erastian tolerations and persecutions which flow therefrom, 'as containing a 
noble example for us and our posterity to follow, in contending for all divine truth, 
and in testifying against all contrary evils, which may exist in the corrupt constitu- 
tions of either Church or State. 

VI. An approbation of the doctrines contained in the Declaration and Testimony 
of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America; in defence of truth, and 
in opposition to error. 

These, together with due subordination in the Lord to the authority of the Synod 
of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America, and a regular life and con- 
versation, form the bonds of our ecclesiastical union. 

— Book of Discipline of R. P. Churchy Ed. 1879,/. 1 13. 
Formula of Queries to be put to Ruling Elders at Ordination; and 

ALSO TO BE PUT TO MINISTERS AT THEIR ORDINATION, WITH THE APPRO- 
PRIATE Accommodations to their Office. 

1. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word 
of God, and the only rule of faith and manners? 

2. Do you sincerely own the doctrines contained in the Westminster Confession 
of Faith, and the Catechisms, Larger and Shorter, as these were received by the 
Church of Scotland? 

3. Are you persuaded that the Lord Jesus Christ, the King and Head of the 
Church, hath instituted one unalterable form of Church Government, distinct from, 
and independent of, civil government, and that it is exclusively Presbyterian ? 

4. Do you acknowledge the morality of solemn covenanting, both personal and 
social, private and public, in New Testament times, and that such moral covenants, 
whether civil or ecclesiastical, as recognized posterity, are binding upon those repre- 
sented in the taking of them as well as upon the actual covenanters? 

5. Do you believe that the National Covenant of Scotland, and the Solemn 
League and Covenant of Scotland, England, and Ireland, were entered into agree- 
ably to this permanent institution, and, from the unity of the Christian Church, that 
these engagements, divested of anything peculiar to the British Isles, are still binding 
upon the Reformed Church in every land ? 

6. Do you approve of the Declaration and Testimony of the Reformed Presby- 
terian Church in North America, and the faithful contendings of the confessors 
and martyrs of Jesus in former ages against paganism, popery, and prelacy; and also 
of the testimony of the Reformed Covenanted Church in Britain and Ireland, in be- 
half of all the attainments of the reformation ? 


io 65 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


7. So far as you can know your own heart, is it the glory of God and edification 
of the Church, and not any selfish object, that moves you to undertake the sacred 
office of Ruling Elder? 

8. Do you promise, in the strength of divine grace, to rule well your own house; 
to live a holy and exemplary life; to watch faithfully over the members of this 
Church ; to exhort with meekness and long suffering ; to visit the sick and the afflicted ; 
and to attend punctually the meetings of the session, and of the superior judicatories, 
when called thereunto, judging faithfully in the house of God ? 

9. Do you promise subjection to this Session, and to the superior judicatories of 
this Church in the Lord, and engage to follow no divisive courses from the doctrine 
and order which the Church has solemnly recognized and adopted ; and do you 
further promise to submit to all that brotherly admonition which your brethren may 
tender to you in the Lord 1 —Book of Discipline of R. P. Clmrch, Ed. 1879,/. U?- 

After the ordination, “ the candidates are called up, when the newly ordained 
officer signs the Terms of Communion in constituted court.” 

— Book of Discipline of R. P. Churchy Ed. 1879,/. 107. 

REFORMED (DUTCH) CHURCH IN AMERICA. 


I. The doctrinal standards of the “ Reformed (Dutch) Church in America.” con- 
sist of : 


1. The Belgic Confession of 1561. 

2. The Heidelberg Catechism, 1563. 

3. The Canons of the Synod of Dordrecht, 1618, 1619. 

1 he requirements of the Church in reference to formulas of subscription are the 
following : 

In reference to Licensure : (Art. II., sec. 4, « Constitution of the Reformed Church 
in America.”) 

^ “ Whoever, upon examination, shall be approved by the Classis, must, before he 
IS licensed, attest his adherence to the doctrines of the gospel, by subscribing the 
following formula, viz. : & 

“We the underwntten, testify, that the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Confession 
of the Netherland Churches, as also the Canons of the National Synod of Dor- 
drecht, held in the years 1618 and 1619, are fully conformable to the Word of God. 
V\ e promise, moreover, that, as far as we are able, we will, with all faithfulness, 
teach and defend, both in public and private, the doctrines established in the stand- 
ards aforesaid. And, should ever any part of these doctrines appear to us dubious, 
we will not divulge the same to any of the people, nor disturb the peace of the 
Church or of any community, until we first communicate our sentiments to the 
ecclesiastical judicatories under which we stand and subject ourselves to the counsel 
and sentence of the same.” 


Section 5. After subscribing the aforesaid formula, the candidate shall be entitled 
to a certificate or testimonial signed by the president of classis, before whom the 
examination is held, containing a license to preach the gospel; which license 
may, for cause, be revoked by the classis. 

satisfaction in this examination, 

the C3,r)didate shnll subscribe the following formula • 

“We the niinisters of the Word of God, residing within the bounds 

of the classis of N and M., do hereby sincerely and in good conscience before the 

heartily believe and are persuaded 
nf thi P ^ points of doctrine contained in the Confession and Catechism 

of the Reformed (Dutch) Church, together with the exolanation of some points of 

Dordrecht in \he year 

1619 do fully agree with the Word of God. We promise, therefore, diligently to 
teach and faithfully to defend the aforesaid doctrine, without either directly or^in- 
directly contradicting the same by our public preaching or writings. We declare 
n.oveover lhat we not only reject all error., that militate against this doctrine and 
partlculaily those which are condemned in the ahove mentioned Synod, but’ that 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


1067 


and to exert ourselves in keeping the 
Church pure from such errors. And if, here.irter, uny difficulties or different sen- 

w^wUl ‘^SShe‘J"nuwf ttforesmd doctrine should arise in our minds, we promise that 
nr.s^l!' propose, teach or defend the same, either by 

preaching or writing, until we have first revealed such sentiment to the classis, that 
the same "lay be there examined; being ready, always cheerfully to submit to the 
o nH ?' classis, under the penalty, in case of refusal, to be >>ia facto sus- 

pended from our office. And farther, if at any time, the consistory or claiis, upon 
suthcient grounds of suspicion, and to preserve the uniformity and purity of doctrme 
may deem it proper to require of us a further explanation of our sentiments respecting 
® Confession of Faith, the Catechism, or the explanation 

ot the National Synod, we do hereby promise to be always willing and ready to 
comply with such requisition under the penalty above mentioned, reserving, how- 
ever, to ourseNes the right of appeal, whenever we shall conceive ourselves 
aggrieved by the sentence of the consistory, the classis, or particular Synod; and, 
until a decision is made upon such appeal, we will acquiesce in the determination and 
judgment already passed. 


Formula of Questions proposed at Ordination. 

I. Dost thou feel in thy heart that thou art lawfully called of God’s Church, and 
therefore of God himself, to this holy ministry ? 

believe the Books of the Old and New Testament to be the only 
\Vord of God, and the perfect doctrine unto salvation ; and dost thou reject all doc- 
trines repugnant thereto ? 

(The statement in reference to the Reformed Church in the United States should 
appear here. It is not, however, among the papers that have come into tlie hands 
of the Editors, nor have they been able to secure it. It is understood that none was 
furnished to the Committee.) 


THE WELSH CALVINISTIC METHODIST (OR PRESBYTERIAN) 

CHURCH. 

T> XT T. T. Y-, June 8, 18S0. 

Rev. G. D. Mathews, D. D. : 

Dear Brother; In reply to your inquirie.s, I beg to state, ist, that the existing 
Confession of Faith of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist, or Presbyterian,* Church in 
this country, is the one adopted at the organization of our Church by the Rev. 
Thomas Charles, B. A. Bala, North Wales, in 1811. It was composed by him, in 
conjunction with the Revs. Thomas Jones, Denbigh, John Elias, of Anglesea, 
North Wales, and Ebenezer Morris, of Cardigan, South Wales. It was formed, I 
should presume, after the model of the Westminster Confession of Faith, and ap- 
proved of unanimously by a General Synod of the Church. No modification what- 
ever has been effected in point of doctrine since its adoption, and only one or two 
changes in point of discipline, with respect to intermarriage between our members 
and non-professors, which has been modified from expulsion to a milder chastise- 
ment. Also in connection with obstinate debtors in the Church, allowing our mem- 
bers to enter an action against them in a civil court. 

2d. All our ministers previous to and at their ordination (always solemnized in 
our Synods) are required to subscribe to the Doctrine and Discipline as contained in 
our Confession of Faith, and pledge their adherence to them. This answer covers 
the third inquiry, with the exception of church membership, which is founded on 
the assent of the applicant to our Creed, and that at the meeting of the members. 

Yours fraternally, 

William Roberts. 


♦Added to our name in the General Assembly held at Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1870. 


io68 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


THE REFORMED CHURCHES OF FRANCE. 


The Reformed French Chiirches may be divided into two classes: Firet. The 
National Church, united to the State which supports it and maintains its ministers. 
Second. The churches independent of the State. 


I. The Reformed Church United to the State. 


First Question.— What is the form of Confession of this Church ? 

There has been in the Reformed Church of France but one historical Confession 
of Faith, formerly recognized by all the reformed churches, namely : the Gallic Con- 
fession, called “ La Rochelle,” the joint work of Calvin and Chaudien. It was 
adopted as the doctrinal standard of these churches in their first national synod, 
which met at Paris in May, 1559, and afterwards revised and confirmed by the 
seventh synod, assembled at La Rochelle under the presidency of Theodore Beza, in 
1571. This Confession, which is composed of forty articles, is so well known and 
so easy to understand, that we do not consider it necessary to relate its origin or 
explain its contents. It is known to reproduce faithfully the Calvinistic doctrine 
(see Article 9, on Total Depravity, and Articles 12 and 21, on Predestination), and 
it recognizes in the Church no other authority than that of the word of God. « We 
believe [so runs Article 5] that the word which is contained in this Holy Book pro- 
ceeds from God, from whom alone, and not from man, it receives its authority. 
And because it is the law of all truth, containing all that is necessary for the service 
of God and for our salvation, it is not lawful for either men or angels to add to, 
diminish, or change anything contained therein. Whence it follows that neither 
antiquity, nor custom, nor numbers, nor human wisdom, nor judgments, nor sen- 
tences, nor edicts, nor decrees, nor councils, nor visions, nor miracles must be taken 
in opposition to the Holy Scriptures; but, on the contrary, all things must be proved, 
governed and reformed according to them. Hence it follows that we acknowledge 
the three creeds, namely: the Apostles’, the Nicene and the Athanasian, because 
they are in conformity with the word of God.” 

The expression, “ Everything must be reformed according to them,” is worthy of 
remark. The Confession of Faith is not, then, considered infallible; it may be re- 
formed by another synod in those points in which it does not appear to conform to 
the Holy Scriptures. 

This Confession of Faith was expressly maintained and confirmed by the twenty- 
nine national synods which met from 1559 to 1659, that is, during a century. ^ 

During the following period terrible persecutions burst upon the reformers, who 
however, remained unshaken in their constancy to their belief, and thereby pre- 
served the true unity of their Church, although the Protestant provinces were sep- 
arated from each other by the agitations of the times. ^ 

Sixty-seven years after the synod at Loudun, in 1659 (the last national synod held 
before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes), the first National Synod of the Church 
of the Wilderness assembled (1726) at Vivarais, thanks to the exertions of Anthony 
Court. The first act of this synod was to approve “ as a whole and in its details the 
Confession of Faith formerly prepared by the Reformed churches of France • con- 
sidering it an abridgment of the doctrines which the Scriptures contain, although 
having some serious errors which must be rejected.” On this same doctrinal basis 
SIX other national synods met in the Wilderness, until the year 1763, an epoch when 
political events forced the Protestants to interrupt them for a time, and they only 
resumed a legal existence in the beginning of 1787, thanks to the edict of toleration 
published by Louis XVI. 

The i8lh Germinal, year 10 (April 8, 1802), Bonaparte, then first consul, published 
a law relative to the organization of Protestant worship, which reads: “ No change 
in the discipline can take place without the authorization of the fyovemmpnf >» ( 



•r, , : — csirtuiiMicu among us. ' 

Besides this, the law provided that the synods should decide questions of doctrine 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1069 


as well as of organization and worship. “ The synods will exercise snp>ervision over 
all that relates to public worship, the teaching of doctrine, and the direction of ec- 
clesiastical affairs; and all decisions which shall emanate from them, of whatever 
nature they may be, shall be submitted to the approval of the government ” (Art. 
30 of the laws of 18th Germinal, year 10). 

The reformed doctrine, as sanctioned by the Confession of La Rochelle, was, in 
its essential features, recognized and professed by all Protestant France; and, not- 
withstanding its sufferings and internal dissensions, the Church during the first 
quarter of the nineteenth century held its own course and remained faithful to itself. 
A consistory, that of Caen, had even as late as 1840 restored in the churches of its 
jurisdiction the Confession of La Rochelle in its full vigor. Little by little, how- 
ever, under the influence of the naturalistic philosophy of the eighteenth century, 
the negative criticism of Germany, and above all the religious indifference which 
followed the repose which the Church was enjoying after two centuries of persecu- 
tion, the Confession of Faith as well as the discipline fell into disuse. It was never 
really abrogated. In the synod of 1848, the Rationalist party having declared that 
it considered this Confession abolished, Adolph Monod, then pastor at Paris, pre- 
vented the assembly from pronouncing it void; no one dared raise an objection, 
and Mr. Monod stated that this orthodox doctrine preserved in the Church both its 
historic character and its moral authority. However, we must recognize the facts 
of the ease as well as abstract right ; and it is a practical fact that the partisans of 
one of the two sections, which to-day divide the Reformed Church of France, not 
only do not consider themselves bound by the Confession of La Rochelle, but tend- 
ing more and more towards Rationalism, and seeing in Protestantism only the 
religion of free thought, have come to reject the great miracles of the gospel, and to 
demand for their pastors, in the bosom of the Church, unlimited freedom in teach- 
ing. While on the one hand the sovereignty of the Holy Scriptures is claimed, on 
the other is held the rule of individual conscience. 

These facts^prove that in every case the Confession of La Rochelle no longer met 
the need of the Church ; and even the churches most attached to the Reformed 
faith, when they separated from the National [ojicielle) Church because of its de- 
parture from orthodoxy, have not restored this ancient Confession, but have drawn 
up new creeds from which we will hereafter give some extracts. 

Between 1802 and 1872 two events important in church history took place, with- 
out, however, changing the doctrinal basis of the Church. In 1848 the churches 
met in an official assembly which made no innovation in respect to doctrine, and in 
1852 the government, for the first time since 1802, entered formally into the affairs 
of the Protestant Church, called a central council of the Refonned churches, and re- 
established parish jurisdiction, but did not interfere with doctrinal matters. 

In 1872 the thirtieth General Synod met at Paris, in consequence of a decree 
signed by the President of the French Republic. In the face of attacks directly 
aimed, in the bosom of the Church, at the unity of her doctrine, the synod devoted 
itself to drawing up, not a complete Confession of Faith, but a declaration which de- 
termined the doctrinal limits of the Church, in order to prevent in the Reformed 
Church any teachings contrary to the Reformed faith, as held and expressed by our 
fathers. It will be remarked that in this declaration, of which we give the words, 
the synod has mentioned the Confession of La Rochelle as one of the historical 
supports of the Reformed doctrine. The Reformed Church of France declares, by 
its representative organ, that it remains faithful to the principles of faith and liberty 
on which it is founded. It proclaims, with its fathers and martyrs, in the Confession 
of La Rochelle and with all the churches of the Reformation in their creeds: “The 
sovereign authority of the Holy Scriptures with regard to belief, and salvation 
through faith in Jesus Christ, the only l^egotten Son of God, who died for our sins 
and rose again for our justification.”* It holds, as the foundation of all its teaching, 
worship and discipline, the great gospel facts represented in its sacraments, com- 
memorated in its religious ceremonies and expressed in its liturgy, notably in the 
confession of sin, the Apostles’ Creed and the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. 

(Sometimes the Church has also expressed by an exceptional vote its approval of 


loyo 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


some foreign Confession of Faith in which it has found its own doctrine to be shown 
forth. This occurred in the twenty-third National Synod, held at Alais, in 1620, 
under the presidency of Peter Dunioulin, when it was proposed to present a mark 
of affection and respect to the churches of the Low Countries by approving officially 
of the decrees of the Synod of Dordrecht, which had met in the preceding year.) 

Second Question. — What are or have been the formulas or methods of adher- 
ence to the Confession of Faith? 

P'or a long time the usual method was simply signature. The members of the 
twenty-nine official national synods, which met in France between the years 1559 
and 1659, signed the Confession which had been adopted by the first synod, held at 
Paris in 1559 * Unfortunately the verbal proceedings of all the following synods, 
called the Synods of the Wilderness, held from 1726 till 1763, have not been pre- 
served; but the regulation decided upon in the assembled Synod of Vivarais (1721) 
is known, and it is probable that in these different synods there existed a nearly 
uniform rule. This law of 1721 requires “that all pastors, divinity students, and. 
elders sign the forty articles of the Confession of Faith, drawn up by the common ’ 
consent of the Reformed Churches of France, and regarded by them as true and 
orthodox.” 

The report of the verbal proceedings of the sessions of the Consistory of Paris 
show that, in 1804, 1805, 1806, and 1807, new pastors were required to sign the 
Confession of Faith at the time of their ordination. A candidate, named Mr. Combes 
(in 1804), before receiving the imposition of hands, entered into the following en- 
gagement : “You have promised and do promise to sign the Confession of Faith 
and the ecclesiastical discipline of the French Reformed" Churches.” 

In 1824 the signature was replaced by a solemn promise. Since that time differ- 
ent formulas have been used at the will of the pastors performing the ordination, 
without any one of them having the sanction of a synod, and without the manner 
of adherence having been expressly stipulated. 

Since the Synod of 1872, in ordinations over which pastors attached to the Synodal 
Church have presided, the candidates are required to conform formally, in the 
presence of the congregation, to the declaration of faith adopted by the Synod. 
Article 2, of the complete law, declares : “ Every candidate for holy orders must* 
before receiving ordination, affirm that he adheres to the faith of the Church as 
stated by the General Synod.” 

Third Question. — Has the individual adherence of all members of the Church 
to the Confession of Faith been required? 

1. It was required of the members of synods. The first Synod of the Wilderness, 
which met in May, 1726 (sixty-six years having elapsed since the last assembly)^ 
passed the following resolution among others, that after the meeting of the synod 
all the deputies should be required to sign the articles (Art. 23) ; and in the acts 
of the last Synod of the Wilderness, convened in 1763, we find “All the members 
of the synod have renewed with holy zeal, in their own name and in the name of 
the provinces which they represent, the solemn prornise to do all in their powder to 
support, cement, and perpetuate the union of the churches ; by perseveringly pro- 
fessing the same faith, observing the same form of worship, preserving the same 
morality, and maintaining the same discipline.” 

2. In many churches conformance to the Confession of Faith has been also re- 
quired of the elders.* The elders of the Church of Bolbec, installed December 
4, 1803, and also those of November 3, 1833, solemnly promised, in the presence 
of the assembled congregation, to maintain the Confession of Faith and the Disci- 
plii^ decided upon by the National Synods as being in accordance with the word 
or God. 

3. The synod of 1872 also required a profession of faith from the electors who 
named the members of the Presbyterian Council. Article 16, of the law passed by 
this body, reads as follows; “All Prench Protestants, twenty-five years of ao-e and 
residents of one year’s standing in the parish, and whose names are inscribed on 


* No especial promise is now required of the elders. 


S£ COND GENERAL CO UNCIL. 


1071 


the parish register, on their own request shall be admitted to the Reformed Church 
o 1 ancc at the next communion ; also those who declare themselves sincerely 
atrached to the Protestant Reformed Church of France, and to the truths of revela- 
tion a> contained in the sacred books of the Old and New Testament.” 

4* With regal d to theological professors; sometimes they have been appointed 
without conditions, sometimes the church has returned to its old principles. In 
Iii2, a professor ot theology at Montauban, Mr. Gasc, having in his lectures 
attacked the doctrine of the Trinity, several consistories, regarding themselves as 
the guardians of Church doctrine, were greatly agitated and required him either to 
leti.act his opinions or to withdraw from his position. Among others, the consistory 
of Nismes addressed him as follows : “ There is a reformed Christian Church in 
Piance, and it is distinct from all other Christian Churches, not because it holds to 
the Apostles’ Creed which is received by all Christian denominations, but because 
it has a Confession of Faith peculiar to itself. Answer this question conscientiously: 
What have you been appointed to teach, the doctrines of Arius and his followers, 
or the doctrine of the Reformed Church? Either teach the latter or do not teach 
at all ! ” In reply the heretic professor declared “ that he regretted having so 
thoughtlessly published opinions not in accordahce with those held by the Re- 
formed Churches.” 


In 1817, the Faculty of Theology at Montauban, having Keen informed that re- 
ports were still in circulation calculated to cast doubt upon the orthodoxy of some 
professors, especially in what concerns the doctrine of the Trinity, declared, in a 
circular distributed to all the Consistories, “ that it remained firmly attached to the 
faith of its fathers, that it professed the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian 
creeds, with the exception of the damnatory clauses, and that it found in the word 
of God full confirmation of the doctrine published in the Confession of Faith of the 
French Churches, whose fundamental articles are considered to have been signed 
by all our pastors and professors.” 

Such is the historical summary of the Confession of Faith of La Rochelle in the 
Reformed Church of France. 


II. The Protestant Churches Independent of the State. 

Among the Protestant Churches independent of the State, there are a great num- 
ber of diverse confessions, all, however, resting on a Presbyterian basis, either in 
regard to doctrine or to Church government. The greater part of these acknowl- 
edge the bond that unites them to the Reformed Churches. Already, before 1848, 
there had been formed in France a number of churches independent of the State: 
at Lyons, St. Etienne, Taitbout (in Paris), etc. Some of these, the churches of 
Bordeaux, St. Foy, and d’Orthez, since they were situated near one another, had 
united among themselves in adopting a common discipline and profession of faith. 
The following is found in a document of a date previous to the Synod of 1848. 

Form of Discipline of the United Churches. — (1847,) 

Article i. We recognize no other law of faith than the canonical books of the 
Old and New Testament, to the exclusion of the Apocrypha. 

Art. 2. The principal doctrines which we find revealed in the Bible are those 
which, through all ages, have been professed by the Christian Church, and were 
proclaimed, by an admirable unanimity of opinion, by the Churches of the Reforma- 
tion in their Confessions of Faith ; particularly in those of the Reformed Churches of 
the year 1559. These doctrines seem to admit of recapitulation in the following 
points; The full inspiration of the Holy Scriptures; the divinity and personality of 
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one God blessed forever; the total depravity and 
just condemnation of man in his natural state, in consequence of the fall of Adam ; 
the eternal election by divine grace; the Incarnation of the Son of God; the expia- 
tion of our sins by his blood; his intercession as High Priest; the sinner’s free jus- 
tification by faith ; the necessity of the working of the Holy Spirit for the regenera- 


1072 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


tion and sanctification of the children of God ; their resurrection or transmutation 
for eternal life, when our Saviour, Jesus Christ, shall descend from. heaven ; and 
finally, the everlasting damnation of the wicked. 

Art. 6. The Christians, the godly, the faithful in Jesus Christ, the redeemed, 
alone have the right to be added to a Christian Church. We consider as such all 
those who believe in Jesus Christ, however feeble may be their faith. Nevertheless, 
as the Lord alone knows those that are his, the united churches may receive all who 
confess the name of the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ our only Saviour; provided 
that they walk not after the deeds of the flesh manifestly incompatible with the 
operations of the Holy Spirit. 

Art. 7. Whoever shall desire to join one of the united churches must then ask 
himself seriously : first, whether he is bound to the Saviour by a sincere and loving 
faith ; secondly, whether it is through conviction that he thinks of joining himself to 
this body, and if, in so doing, he will act with faith according to his promise (on this 
point let each one be fully persuaded in his own mind) ; thirdly, if he is prepared to 
fulfil the duties which are attached to the position of a member of this Church. 


2. The official Synod which met at Paris in the train of the political events of 1848, 
and may be considered as a sufficiently exact representation of the Reformed 
churches, hastened this movement of separation by refusing to consider a profession 
of faith as the basis of the Church. This decision led to the formation of a certain 
number of Independent churches; that is, churches neither recognized nor supported' 
in any way by the State. At the opening of the session some members of the Synod, 
with Frederic Monod and Agenor de Gasparin at their head, demanded that before 
attending to other matters, an end should be made to the doctrinal disorder then 
reigning in the Church, by establishing in it a clear and positive law of faith. The 
majority of the Synod, thinking that the moment for accomplishing such a difficult 
and delicate undertaking was not yet come, replied to this proposition by the follow- 
ing vote The Assembly— since it is shown by the results of the ballots of the 
Consistories that the generality of the churches desire that the deliberations shall 
not touch on doctrinal matters, and since it has been shown by the discussion iust 
now engaged in that the moment has not yet come to touch upon this matter- 
reserves these questions, and decides that a committee shall be named to draw up a 
p an of an address to the churches, to be afterwards used as a preamble to head its 
plan of organization.” 


3. On hearing this vote, which was in their eyes an official sufferance of indif- 
ference on doctrinal matters, then pervading the Church, Frederic Monod and 
Agenor de Gasparin withdrew from the Assembly, and invited those who shared 
Churches views, to join in founding a “Union of the Evangelical 

To this end a constituent Synod met at Paris in August, 1849, ^nd adopted a 
.ynodal Presbyterian constitution, of which we will cite the first two articles^since 
one of them expresses the reason for the union and the other their confession of 


Union of the Evangelical Churches of France. 

Constitution.— Chapter I— General Principles. 

Article i. The Evangelical Churches of France, composed of members who 
have made an explicit and individual profession of faith, and who recotmize in re- 
hgious niatt^ers no other authority than that of Jesus Christ, the only and sovereian 
Head of the Church, unite among themselves, so that by this means they may 
glorify God by manifesting the union of his children, may work for the building up 
of the Church of Christ, and may help to extend over the earth the glorious rei-L 
and power of God. ^ 

Churches are allied by their faith to the churches of the apostolic 
era, and to those who in all ages have maintained the Christian truths ; and thus they 
truth Reformed churches of France that have sufleved for this 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


1073 


They make with one heart and voice the following profession : 

^ ^Ve believe that all the writings of the Old and New Testament were directly 
inspired by God, and so constitute the only and infallible rule of faith and life. We 

worship one God, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Creator of the heavens and 
earth. 

The Father, in his infinite and eternal comiiassion, when we were dead in sin in 
consequence of the fall of Adam, and were justly condemned to expiate our wicked- 
ness, so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. • 

The Son, “ the Word who was in the beginning with God,” and who was really 
“God over all things blessed forever,” became truly man, “God manifest in the 
flesh. Jesus Christ is the only Mediator between God and man. He has redeemed 
us and saved us from eternal damnation by his death on the cross, and has offered 
up himself to God for us as “an offering and a sweet-smelling sacrifice.” Having 
died for our sins, he is risen again for our justification. Ascended into heaven, 
he is seated on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, w'here he ever inter- 
cedes for us. 

The Holy Spirit, sent by the Son through the authority of the Father, regenerates 
^ the redeemed, “chosen according to the foreknowledge of God;” he dwells in 
them, he makes them walk in the light of his word, and in that holiness without 
which no man can see the Lord. He hastens to all those who call upon him. It 
is through this Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ directs and governs the Church, which 
is his bride and his visible body. Jesus Christ calls every man to repentance, 
saving fully, freely, and through no merit of their own, all those who believe in his 
name and who come unto God by him. 

We look for the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, who shall descend from 
heaven and lead us into glory. He will raise the dead, judge the world, and render 
to every man according to his deeds. This is the faith common to our churches, 
and we wish to make every effort to propagate it. But, at the same time, we extend 
a brotherly hand to all those who, in whatever place or of whatever denomination, 
love the Saviour Jesus Christ, and call upon him in sincerity and truth ; and we 
consider them as members of the Church universal. 

■ Now, to the Father who has loved us, to the Son who has washed us from our 
sins in his own blood, and to the Holy Ghost, our Comforter, be praise and glory 
forever! Amen. 

4. The Churches of the Union, “ founded for the purpose of maintaining sound 
doctrine, an individual profession of faith, and the distinction between the Church 
and the world,” must adhere to this profession of faith which has just been drawn up 
at the same time they reserve the right of forming a particular confession of faith as 
well as the general confession of the Union ; and as many churches have availed 
themselves of this permission, there have appeared a number of confessions of faith.. 
Among these there reigns a profound harmony, and all are impressed with a spirit 
of charity and humility, thus making them very different from some of the formulas 
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 

A plan of discipline for the Independent churches of Bordeaux, St. Foy and 
d’Orthez was published at Bordeaux in 1847, and in the preface we find: “Each 
denomination of the Evangelical Christians has received the mission of bringing into 
strong relief some special point of divine truth, either omitted or neglected by the 
others. It accrues then to the general good and to the glory of God that each 
Church should declare its belief, and mutually call attention to their respective 
creeds.” 

We think we can best enter into the views of the Presbyterian Council by 
quoting some extracts from some of those professions of faith which we have been 
able to procure (we will mention sixteen), choosing the articles which best answer 
the questions given by the Edinburgh Council. 

68 


1074 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


I. THE EVANGELICAL REFORMED CHURCH OF PARIS. 

[Aujourl hui Rue des Petils Hotels.') 

This Church, born of the refusal of the official synod, held September, 1848, to 
consider the Confession of Faith as the basis of the reconstruction of the Reformed 
Churches of France, published its Constitution in 1850. It declares in its preface, 
that “ above all it is .connected with the apostolic churches; but, through its faith 
and its affection, and, as much as circumstances will permit, through its constitution 
it is allied to the ancient Reformed churches of our country. Although this Church 
does not think it necessary to revive the Confession of Faith of 1559, called La 
Rochelle, that venerated monument of the faith and piety of our fathers, and 
although it has adopted a more modern and popular language for expressing the 
same distinctive and fundamental views of Christianity, yet it is confident that it is 
animated by the same spirit as were formerly the faithful confessors of the Reformed 
French Church, and it professes the same faith.” 

This Church has adopted as an expression of its faith the profession unanimously 
adopted by the constituent synod (Art. I., see p. 20). 

Any one may become a member of the Church by expressly stating (Art. II.), 
first, his intention of joining the Church ; second, his adherence to the Confession 
of Faith. This declaration must be made before two members of the presbytery and 
one member of the church who is to be chosen by them. Candidates are fettered 
neither in regard to age, a fixed time of year, nor catechetical instruction. This 
church does not receive its candidates collectively. 

II . EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF LA RUE DE PROVENCE. 

Paris — N^^pAle Taitbout.) 

This Church, whose foundation dates back many years, owes its origin not to doc- 
trinal reasons, but to the desire of renlizing the principle of separation between 
Church and State (see Art. 11 .) It published its Constitution in 1849. 

Article I. — Through its faith this Church is allied to the apostolic church, and 
to all the churches that profess the doctrines of Jesus Christ. 

In harmony with these churches, it proclaims the divine inspiration, authority, 
and all-sufficiency of the holy writings of the Old and New Testament. It believes 
in one God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It recognizes that in a condition of 
min, sin, and condemnation, there is for man one only means of salvation, namely, 
faith in Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, the only Mediator between God ancl 
man, who died for our sins, was raised for our justification, and is seated on the 
right hand ot God the Father. From thence he communicates with his own, 
chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, to be sanctified by the 
Holy Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ, and to have part in the sprinkling of his blood, 
and all grace necessary to repentance, regeneration and perseverance in faith and 
good works, while waiting till he shall appear to raise the dead, judge the world 
with justice, and receive his own into everlasting life. 

This is the faith professed by the creed of the Church, and also by the teaching 
of its pastors and the administration of baptism and the holy communion. In relif^- 
ious matters this church recognizes no other authority than that of Jesus Christ, the 
only and sovereign Head of the Church, which he governs through his Spirit ’and 
word ; and wishing to preserve the complete independence necessary for obeying its 
Divine Alastei, the Chuich foibids compromising this independence bv receiving' any 
subsidy from the Stale, under whatever name or in whatever form it may bet and 
provides for its ex]:)enses by voluntary subscription only. 

Art. 4* This Chuich must only be composed of persons who truly believe in 
Jesus Christ, and those who desire to join it must examine themselves seriously as 
to whether they are in the faith. In case they judge that they are able to testify to 
this, the)' must make known to one of the pastors that they desire to join the Church, 
And at the same time declare that they believe in the profession of faith expressed 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL.' ' 


1075 

by Article i ; also that they have resolved, with divine aid, to conform their lives 
to the gospel. This declaration must be forwarded to the council of the Church. 

Connection with the Church ceases when any one announces his withdrawal, or 
when he virtually withdraws by reason of no longer participating in the worship (Ti 
by leading a life not in accordance with the teachings of the gospel. In the latter, 
case, the sentence of dismissal must be announced by the council of the Church. 

III. EVANGELICAL CHURCH, RUE ST. MAUR, PARIS. 

The Constitution of this Church dates from the year 1856. 

Concerning the Doctrine. 

article I. God, who at sundry times and in divers places spake in time past 
unto our fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. 
The end of our faith is not then any novelty of human invention, but divine truth 
as revealed in the sacred writings of the Old and New Testament, that very truth 
which the apostolic churches of the first century professed, as well as the Reformed 
churches of the sixteenth, and all Christian communions which have preserved the 
gospel of Christ in its primitive purity. , 

In accordance with this holy testimony, we believe that all mankind has been 
brought into a state of sin and perdition by the fall of the first man, consequently in. 
the eyes of Infinite Purity there is no essential difference between man and man, 
seeing that all are sinful and lost beings. And no one can be justified by his own > 
merits or efface the guilt of his soul by any human endeavors. But what was im- 
possible for us, because of the infirmity of the flesh, God has done in reconciling us 
to himself by Christ, in whom are all treasures of wisdom and divine knowledge. 

We adore as our only Creator, Lord and Saviour, the Almighty God, Father, Son, , 
and Holy Ghost, by whom and for whom all things were created, visible and 
invisible. • 

Here follow some explanations on the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost. 

Concerning the Church. 

Art. 2. As the Church is a spiritual union, it must hold itself aloof from all which 
would endanger the independence which its duty to its Divine Master requires. For 
this reason, while professing entire obedience to civil authority in all which con- 
science allows, we recognize in our Church no religious authority save the word of 
Christ, and we maintain that the voluntary offerings of its members or friends should 
provide for all its needs. 

Art. 3. Every one should unite with the Church of his choice in pursuance of 
personal, serious and free conviction ; we oppose as contrary to these views, as well’ 
as to the spirituality of the Church, communion at a fixed age where conversion is 
replaced by a knowledge of the catechism ; and whilst we regard the religious in- 
struction of the young as one of the most important duties of the Church, we con- 
sider that for them as well as for adults the only sure way to enter the kingdom ©f 
God is by experiencing the new birth that takes place when the Holy Spirit has 
wrought his work within them. 

IV, EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF FAUBOURG ST. ANTOINE, PARIS. 

This Church was founded in 1855, and adopted a formal constitution in 1858. 

Its profession of faith, contained in nine short articles, is that of the “Churches 
of the Union.” It is very simple, and does not bear the stamp of Calvinism. It 
closes with these words: 

“Our creed declares that the end of our faith is no human invention, but divine 
truth as revealed in the sacred books of the Old and New Testament. It is the faith 
held by the apostolic churches of the first century, by the Reformed churches of the 
sixteenth, and by all Christian communions which have preserved the gospel of 
Christ in its purity.” 


1076 ^ THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

Concerning ihe Church. 

IV. We believe that the church should. obey only Jesus Christ; that it should 
only be governed by his word, and that it should only be supported by those w'ho 
hold its faith ; consequently, it must w'holly renounce the world, and all alliance 
with the State. 

V. No one can have a birthright membership in our church. Those wishing to 
enter its fold must share its faith, and hold themselves ready to confess it before 
men by their words and actions. We reject then the doctrine of early communion 
at a certain age, by which every one, believers or unbelievers, are brought into the 
church. 

(It is to be remarked that the feature .common to the constitutions of the Free 
churches is a personal profession of faith, and, consequently, the abolition of the 
custom of admitting catechumens without regard to individual character.) 

V. THE INDEPENDENT EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF VIGAN. 

{^Department of Card.) 

This Church had no written Confession of Faith until 1854. But at this time, other 
congregations having been organized in its vicinity, it seemed necessary to establish 
its position among the Churches, and it was deemed proper to publish an “ Exposi- 
tion of Principles,” at the head of which vye read; 

“ What follows is not properly an obligatory Confession of Faith which must be 
signed, but merely a summary of our Christian convictions.” 

The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, wholly inspired by God and 
interpreted by the Holy Spirit, have been and continue to be the law of our faith 
and life. The principal doctrines contained in this holy book have been professed 
by the true disciples of all ages and received by the Churches of the Reformation. 

Thus we believe that man fell in Adam’s fall, that we are born in sin, that our 
wills are perverted, that our hearts are* wicked, that we are dead in trespasses and 
sin, deserving of hatred and hating each other, children of wrath, slaves of sin and 
Satan, and consequently that we deserve eternal condemnation. 

We believe that “ God so loved the world that he gaye his only-begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” We 
believe that Jesus Christ is true God and true man, Emmanuel, the Word made 
flesh; that he willingly abased himself and became obedient even to the death of the 
cross ; that he suffered and died for us, that his sacrifice is a propitiation for our 
sins, that he is a perfect Redeemer, always able to save all those who come unto 
God by him; that he rejects no one, but calls all to repentance, and thus sinners are 
responsible for their own ruin. We believe that in order to come to him, we must 
be drawn by the Father, the work of grace in our hearts, and that the faith which 
unites us to Jesus is altogether the gift of God. Thus our salvation, from repent- 
ance to regeneration, justification, sanctification, and final preservation is all the 
work of divine grace. “ By grace are ye saved, through faith— it is the gift of 
God.” “We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works” 
(Eph. ii.) 

We believe in the efficacy of the Holy Spirit, and in his dwelling in the Church. 
He is the Supreme Teacher, the Comforter, who enlightens us, touches us, leads us* 
and unites us to Jesus, frees us from sin, and bears witness with our spirit that we 
are the children of God. It is he who seals us for the day of redemption, who 
comfons us in our weakness, and who will raise us in glory at the coming of Jesus 
Christ; whose coming from the heavens we await, for then shall be effected our 
entire deliverance and our reception into heaven. 

Concerning the Church. 

Considering that we are not born Christians, but become so by the new birth, we 
do not admit the .system of estimating a church by its numbers. Consequently^ we 
consider the collective and periodical receptions o^ catechumens as a custom dan- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL.' 


1077 


'gerous and liable to abuses, both in its effect 
scriptural idea of the Church. 


upon the soul and as giving an un- 


VI. THE FREE EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF ST. HIPPO LYTUSi , 
{Department of Card.) 

From 1857 till 1862, this Church had no written Confession of Faith. The fol- 
^wing creed was formed independently of the profession of the “ Union of the 
Churches,” and is Calvinistic. 

Art. 5, We believe that the faith which unites us to Jesus is the gift of God, and 
mat our entire salvation, from our repentance to final preservation, is the work of 
God’s grace. 

Art. 6, The Holy Spirit works in all the redeemed who are drawn by the Father 
and called according to the foreknowledge of God. 

Concerning Admission to the Church. , 

• Art. 10. Our Church differs from the world in that it is composed only of pro- 
fessing Christians. All those who profess with us one self-same hope in Jesus Christ, 
and whose lives do not belie their profession, may form a part of it. Such persons 
should m.ake inquiry and declare their willingness to conform to the established 
order of the Church. 

Art. 12. We do not allow of the collective and periodical receptions of catechu- 
mens. Children, instructed in the faith, can only be admitted as members of the 
Church on a free and voluntary profession of faith. 

Art. 16. We make no distinction between the clergy and laity, but we do not 
disregard the difference established by the Scriptures between those who teach and 
those who are taught. 

Art. 21. We follow the example of the apostolic Christians in partaking of the 
Lord’s Sup[)er on the first day of each week. 

Art. 24. The government of the Church is intrusted to the board of elders recog- 
nized by the Church. 

VII. THE FREE EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF SAINT JEAN DU GARD. 

Founded in 1856, this Church published, in 1876, its Confession of Faith and laws 
of church government, contained in sixty-one articles. 

Article i repeats the Confession of the Churches of the Union. 

Art. 2. By our faith we are linked above all to the Churches of the apostolic era, 
upon whose organization we wish to model our own, and then to those of all ages 
which have maintained true Christianity, and especially to the Ancient Reformed 
Churches of F'rance, which have suffered so much for the truth. 

Art. 3. We are closely connected by our principles with ail the Christian 
Churches that are independent of the State, and depend for support upon the per- 
sonal-profession of faith. 

Art. 18. We reject every ground of admission which does not rest upon a per- 
sonal, serious, and explicit profession of faith, a profession not openly contradicted 
by the lives of those holding it. But we cannot judge men’s hearts, we leave to 
them all the responsibility of their .profession, excepting, that if their conduct does 
not harmonize with this, we enforce the discipline ; thus the principles are main- 
tained. 

Art. 43. The Church sanctions the baptism of believers as in accordance with 
the Scriptures. Yet, if different views as to the time and mode of administering 
'baptism exist among its members, each one is free to act according to his convic- 
tions and on his own responsibility. Still, in whatever way this sacrament is re- 
garded, the Church requires baptism of those wishing to become members of its 
body. 

AR'r. 47. The general direction of the flock is intrusted to the Board of Elder;* 
recognized by the Church (Acts xi. 30; Acts xv. 6) 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


JoyS 

Art. 58. The necessity for the separation of Church and State arises from the 
difference in the nature of these two institutions as well as in their n^ode of influ- 
encing the world. 

VIII. FREE EVANGELICAL CHURCHES OF VERGISE {Card), AND 
OF MARSILLARGUES {Herault). 

This statement of principles, which cannot be properly styled a church constitu- 
tion, dates from the year 1861. The Church even prohibits the formation of a full 
Confession of Faith; “ We do not particularize,” it says, “ the different doctrines 
which, as a whole, constitute the Christian faith, for God having revealed the truth 
from time to time as his children could receive it, man has no right to express these 
truths by formulas, with the purpose of imposing them upon others as a rule of 
‘faith,” Yet we declare unequivocally the doctrine taught in our midst. (Here 
follows an exposition of the doctrines.) 

Art, 7. We are most strongly attached by our principles to all Christian Churches 
of our day, which are founded upon the basis of a personal profession of faith, and 
especially to the legitimate successors of the ancient Reformed Churches of P'rance, 
which put in practice the principles of Scripture, and are known under the name of 

Evangelical Churches of the Union.” 

• ( 

IX. EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF TOULOUSE. 

■' {^Upper Ga 7 -onne.') 

In 1850 this Church adopted fifteen constitutional articles. 

' Concerning the Confession of Faith. 

Art, 4, The Church adopts as its creed, the Confession of Faith of the Evangeli- 
. cal Synod, which may be expressed in the following manner: We believe in the 
full inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, the divinity and personality of the Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost, one God blessed forever; the atonement by the blood of 
Christ, and the free justification of the sinner through faith in his name; finally, the 
necessity of regeneration and sanctification accomplished by the Holy Spirit. AU 
the members of the Church must make the same profession. 

, Concerning Admission to the Church. 

Art, 9. To become a member of the Church it is necessary for the applicant to 
make a profession of his belief before two elders or deacons, who shall report to the 
council on admission. If this council, after carefully ntaking the necessary inves- 
tigations and apprizing the Church of the application, decides in favor of it, the ad- 
'mission is declared and inscribed on the pulflic register. 

Art, 10. In cases of admission to membership, the council must be careful that 
'the conduct of the applicant accords with his profession, according to the apostle’s 
words: “Conduct yourselves worthy of the gospel of Christ — for faith without 
works is dead.” 

X. EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF BORDEAUX. 

The Evangelical Church of Bordeaux accords, in its belief, with the Apostolic 
Church, and all those Churches which profess the doctrine of Jesus Christ, our only 
and complete Saviour. It is, however, more especially in harmony with the Evan- 
gelical Churches of the Union of P'rance, in whose Confession of Faith it concurs. 
'(Then follows the profession.) 

Art. 2. Only those who truly believe in Jesus Christ can rightfully belong to a 
Christian Church. 

Consequently those who wish to become members of the Church must, 

" I. E.xamine themselves seriously as to whether they are in the faith. 

2. In case they judge themselves able to bear testimony to this faith, they must 
make known their desire to the pastor, who, after receiving their adherence to the 


SECOND GENEEAL COUNCIL, 


1079 

Confession of Faith, as expressed in Article i of the present constitution, forwards 
it to the council. 

Art. 3. Having complied with these conditions, the pastor makes the presenta- 
tion to the Church at the next meeting. If no opposition is made, their names are 
placed upon the church register on the following Sabbath. In the contrary case, 
the delay may not exceed one month. No opposition has any weight unless founded 
upon facts. 

Art. 4. A person loses his membership in the Church either when he openly de- 
clares his withdrawal from it, or when he virtually withdraws by no longer sharing 
in the assemblies of the congregation, or, finally, when he either ceases to hold the 
faith of the Church or dishonors it by his conduct. 

Art. 5. The Church regards the table prepared in her midst, for the celebration 
of the Lord’s Supper, not as her own, but as belonging to the Lord. She joyfully 
receives in her communion, on their own responsibility, all who truly believe in 
Jesus Christ, to whatever church they may belong. 

XL EVANGELICAL CHURCHES OF ST. FOY {Gironde) AND 

ST. ANTOINE {Dordogne). 

In 1854 these two neighboring churches adopted a common constitution, from 
which we quote two articles, that which concerns their connection with other 
churches and that which contains their special profession of faith as distinct from 
that of the Churches of the Union. 

Concerning our Connection with other Churches. 

Art. 31. We hold spiritual communion with all churches of God which, in what- 
ever place or of whatever denomination they may be, rest upon the only safe foun- 
dation, Jesus Christ crucified. But we are most closely allied to the “ French 
Evangelical Churches of the Union,” as established by their first synod at Paris, in 
the year 1849. 

Concerning the Confession of Faith. 

Art. 2. The principal doctrines which we find revealed in the Old and New Tes- 
tament are those truths held in all ages by the Christian Church, and juoclaimed 
with such wonderful harmony by the different churches of the Reformation in their 
various Confessions of Faith, especially in that of the Reformed Churches of P'rance, 
composed in 1559. 

We present a summary of these doctrines on the following subjects: the full in- 
spiration of the Sacred Writings; the divinity and personality of the P'ather, Son, 
and Holy Ghost, one God blessed forever; the total depravity and just condemna- 
tion of man in his natural condition, in consequence of Adam’s fall ; the eternal 
election by divine grace; the incarnation of the Son of God, and redemption through 
his blood; his intercession for us as Sovereign High Priest; the free justification 
of the sinner by faith; the necessity of the operation of the Holy Spirit upon the 
heart for the regeneration and sanctification of the children of God ; their resurrec- 
tion or transformation for eternal life, when the Lord Jesus shall descend from 
heaven; finally, the everlasting punishment of the wicked. 

Art. 22. All officers of the Church are required to profess strict adherence to 
its doctrines in the presence of a general assembly. 

XII. EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF CLAIRAC. 

{Departtnent of Lot and Garonne.) 

This Church was established in 1850 “in order to confess its Lord and Saviour 
and to unite the brethren more closely by the bonds of Christian charity.” 

Art. 3. It adopts as an exposition of its faith the creed of the Churches of St. 
Foy and St. Antoine. 


io8o 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Art. 4. No one may belong to the church unless he professes faith in the Lord 
Jesus Christ conformably to this confession, and does not dishonor it by his life. 

Art. 10. The pastor, having for his special charge the j^reaching of the word 
and the general oversight of the spiritual interests of the Church, must also care for 
the education and religious instruction of the children of the congregation. 

Their education is properly under the care of their parents, who are responsible 
to God for them ; but the pastor should watch over them and see that they under- 
stand, in relation to the Church, their duty towards God and the commandments 
he has given them in his word, so that they may acquit themselves worthily. 

The children must receive religious instruction under the superintendence of the 
pastor, both from the lessons of their teacher and in the Sabbath-schools ; and this 
will^ be rendered more complete by especial lectures for those of riper years. 

This course of religious instruction is totally independent of the participation in 
the Lord’s Supper, so that the young people brought up in the Church wall, like 
other Christians, submit to the conditions set forth in the following Articles : 

Art. II. When a Christian desires to enter into membership with the Church, 
he must declare his intention to the Council either directly or through the medium • 
of some member of the Church. The Council will then charge the deacon of that 
section of which the applicant is a resident, to satisfy himself, with the assistance 
of two members of the Chuich appointed for that purpose, that he professes faith 
in the Loid Jesus, and that his life accords with his profession. Should the report 
of its delegates be favorable, the Council decides on his admission, and his name 
is inscribed on the church register (Ps. Ixxxviii. 6; i Tim. v. 9). 

One of the delegates, moreover, is specially charged to bring the newly-admitted 
member into brotherly connection with the other members of the Church. 


XIII. EVANGELICAL CHURCH D’ESPERANSSES. 

[Department oI Tarn.^ 

The constitution of this Church dates from 1855, and rests upon the double prin- 
ciple of a profession of faith and a disciplinary government. The Confession of 
Faith is that of the “ Churches of the Union.” 

Art. 2. All persons are admitted to the Church, on their own request, who ac- 
knowledge their state of wretchedness and condemnation in the sight of God, and 
accept as their only hope of salvation Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, the 
complete Saviour of all who believe in him. Every request for admission mus’t be 
addressed to the Elders and communicated to the Church. 

Art. 8. Whilst proclaiming the universal priesthood of believers, the Church 
according to the word of God, recognizes certain special church officers, whose ser- 
vices are needed both for its welfare and for the advancement of Christ’s reign upon 
earth. Amongst these officers it reckons the Elders and Deacons. 

Art. 16. The Church considers Baptism and Communion as divine institutions 

Art. 18. The government of the Church is vested in the Presbytery and General 
Assembly. ^ 

Art. 27. The doctrines propagated by the Church are watched over by the Pres- 
bytery and subject to the discipline. 


XIV. EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF CANNES. 

[Department of Far.) 

In' the year 1870 the constitution was approved by the Church Assembly The 
Confession of Faith is like that of the “ Churches of the Union,” with an addition 
respecting the resurrection of the just and the eternal punishment of the wicked 
Art. 4. Whoever, confessing himself a sinner condemned by his deeds professes 
with the Church one only hope in Jesus Christ, and does not disgrace his profession 
by his life, has a full title to memliership in the Church, and, on his request will be 
admitted to the Evangelical Church of Cannes. " ’ 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


io8i 

Chapter II. — Art. 6. The Church permits baptism to be administered either to 
adults or to children. 

The Church Officers. 

Art. 2. This Church has Pastors, Elders and Deacons. 

Additional Note . — If any officer of the Church, whether pastor, elder, or deacon, 
seriously departs from its Confession of Faith after having been sufficiently exhorted 
by the Church itself, he will cease to offer the pledges required of those employed 
in its service. 


XV. EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF NICE (1874). 

This Church has adopted the Confession of Faith of the “ Churches of the 
Union.” 

Art. 2. All persons who declare their adherence to this Confession of Faith, 
and are willing to bring their life into conformity with it, may be admitted as 
members. 

Art. 3. Those who have openly abandoned the faith, or publicly disgraced it by 
scandalous conduct, are no longer considered as belonging to the Church. 

XVI. EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF LYONS. 

This Church has no special Confession of Faith, but has adopted that of the 
“ Churches of the Union.” 

It does not, however, require an explicit adherence to this from either its mem- 
bers or elders, and it is, in fact, not even known to many members of the Church. 
Bui, on the ordination of a pastor, the committee on ordination satisfy themselves 
beforehand that the candidate holds to the Confession of Faith. 

Jean Monod. 


REFORMED CHURCH OF THE CANTON OF VAUD. 


By Prof. Viguet. 


I. The first symbolical movement of the Reformed Church of the Vaudois has 
for its foundation the ten theses upon which is based the controversy of Lausanne 
(1-8 October, 1536). » 

These are found in the History of the Reformation in Switzerland, by Ruchar 
(Vulliemos edition, 1837), vol. IV., pp. 174-176; modern French edition, pp. 
^05-507 (L-atin) ; and in the Brunswick edition of Calvin’s works, vol. IX., col. 
701, 702. 

It is true that these theses have formed no part in the subsequent historical devel- 
opment, and organization of the Vaudois Church. 

H. Immediately after their conquest by Francis I,, the Vaudois adopted the forms 
and followed the destinies of the Bernese Church. Their symbolical books of the 
sixteenth century were the conclusions of the Controversy ol Berne, 1528, the acts 
of the Synod of Berne, 1532; the first Helvetic Confession of 1536; and, above all, 
the Great Helvetic Confession (posterior) of 1556. To this list may be added the 
Heidelberg Catechism, a book of instruction, which is still known in their country 

as the “ Catechism of Berne.” ^ _ _ „ . , 

The famous “ Formula consensus Helvetici, re-edited by T. K. Heidegger, was 
adopted by Berne, June 14, 1675, and introduced into every district. About 1685 
Berne was active in redressing the troubles among the Vaudois.* On the 26 th ot 
December, 1699, to this famous confession was added an oath, known as the “Asso- 
ciation Oath,” the tenor of which is as follows :f 


* Concerning the Consensus, see Records of the troubles which occurred in Switzerland upon the 
issue of the Amsterdam Confession in 1726. Also the history of public instruction in the Vaudois 
country, by Andre Gindroz, Lausanne, 1853, pp. 59-121. 
j- Records, etc., 38, 39. 


Io 82 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Form of Oath. 

*‘A 11 those who are admitted to the holy ministry, as well as professors and 
school-masters in the cities of the country of the Vaudois, take oath.’’ 

“All those who are admitted to the holy ministry, as well as ail professors and 
schoolmasters in the cities of the country of the Vaudois, swear to maintain and de- 
fend the Holy Evangelical Reformed Religion and divine worship as they have 
been introduced by our sovereign lords, of the city and canton of Berne, and con- 
tained in the Helvetic Confession; and to oppose to their utmost all doctrines con- 
trary to the said religion, as Pietism, Socmianism, Armmianism, without in any 
W'ay supporting or countenancing, in this respect, those who are or may be infected 
by them. So help us God.” 

The troubles were revived and aggravated by the separation in 1716. It resulted 
in a decided conflict between the government of Berne and the Academy of Lau- 
sanne. The latter yielded completely, and submitted to the Formula Consensus in 
1723. 

Soon after this confession fell into disuse throughout all Switzerland. On April 
I 5 » 1746, the Bernese set aside the “Oath of Association,” and adopted in its place 
the following “ Oath of Religion ; ”* 

“All those who are admitted to the holy ministry swear and promise to conform 
to the Helvetic Confession, both in doctrine and worship, to support and defend it 
with all their powers against all and any, neither to preach nor spread any contrary 
dogma or sentiment, but to resist and oppose, conformably to the duties of their 
charge, all those who should undertake so to do, in public or in private; not to 
countenance such, directly or indirectly, but to prevent, and in case of resistance, 
denounce them before a competent judge.” 

This oath is set forth in the Ecclesiastical Ordinance of I773,f following 

words : 


Form of Oath 2uhich each one must take 7 uho is consecrated to the Holy Ministry. 

“All those who have entered the sacred ministry swear to conduct themselves, in 
regard to doctrine and divine service, according to the gospel of Christ, in con- 
formity with the Helvetic Confession ; to maintain it and neither to preach nor spread 
any dogma or new opinion contrary to it, and to prevent, as much as in their power, 
and conformable with their calling, all those who should undertake so to do; to de- 
nounce to the proper person, all those who persist in troubling the State or Church, 
and to grant no assistance to such persons, directly or indirectly.” 

This same edition of the “Ecclesiastical Ordinance for the Vaudois^’ (Berne), 
I773> which was the last, bears the following: 

Duty of Pastors in General.^ 

“Zealous to preserve our holy religion, in all its purity, pastors must take as the 
foundation of all their doctrines, the books of the Old and New Testament ; they 
must explain them according to the symbolical books, received by our Church, which 
are the Decisions of the Controversy of Berne of 1528, the Acts of the Synod of 
Berne of 1532, and the Helvetic Confession of 1566. Such is the ground-work of 
the Evangelical Doctrine and of the Christian Morality which the pastors must 
teach, and to which all their instructions must conform. 

IH. When the Vaudois were liberated from the power of the Bernese, by the 
revolution of January 28, 1798, they became part of the “ Helvetian Republic, one 
and inseparable,” proclaimed the following March. Then in February, 1803,’ was 
formed the “ Canton of Vaud,” whose first grand council was held April 4, 1803. 
The ecclesiastical rule was maintained without change, and the ecclesiastical ordi-* 
nance remained in force. 


*A. Gindroz, O. C., p. 120. 


t Ecclesiastical 
J Ecclesiastical Ordinance, p. 7. 


Ordinance, Berne, 1773, 


p. 76. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1083 


The constitution of 1814 continues: 

3 ^* “ The Evangelical Reformed Religion is the religion of the canton. 
Ihe constitution pledges to the Catholic and mixed parishes of Echalleurs, etc., the 
exercise of the Catholic religion, according to the present usage.” 

Art. 37. All the laws, decrees, resolutions, rules, and decisions actually in ex- 
istence, remain in force, until they are legally revoked. 

In virtue of this article 37, the Ecclesiastical Ordinances were then provisionally 
sustained ; this provision lasted until the ecclesiastical law of 1839. 

The revision of the Ecclesiastical Ordinances, prescribed by the constitution of 
1831, for a’space of ten years or more, met with opposition from the year 1832, and 
the support or rejection of the Helvetic Confession was one of the most important 
points in their debates. Nearly all the clergy and devout men were in favor of its 
continuance; while the radical party, which now assumes position and influence, 
was hostile to this measure. The Grand Council, in three sittings, 23d January, 
1839, 28Lh and 29th November, and December, 1839, rejected the conlession and 
all rule of teaching other than the word of God. 

The ecclesiastical law of the 14th of December, 1839, prescribes the oath which 
must be taken by every candidate for the ministry; and the religious part of this 
oath, which is the least extensive, is expressed in the following words: 

“ I swear to discharge conscientiously the duties which the National Reformed 
Evangelical Church imposes upon its ministers, and to preach the word of God in 
its purity and integrity, as it is contained in the Holy Scriptures” (Art. 12). 

When accusation is brought against any minister, on the ground of doctrine, the 
proceedings are distinctly marked ; but in reality it is simply required that “ The 
jurymen give a conscientious verdict” (Art. 163). 

Ihe ecclesiastical law of May 19, 1863, modified on some points of slight im- 
portance by a decree of December 2, 1874, added to the constitution and rule of 
teaching of the Church, the following provisions, which constitute its first two 
articles : 

“Art. I. The National Church of the Canton of Vaud professes the Christian 
religion according to the principles of the Reformed Evangelical communion ” 
(Constitutional Art. 10, first paragraph). 

“All persons are members of this Church who accept the principles and organized 
_ forms. 

“Art. 2. The Church of the Canton of Vaud, an integral part of the Universal 
Church, and at the same time a national institution, desires chiefly that its members 
should lead a Christian life. 

“ To this end she employs only spiritual means on the ground of religious liberty, 
admitting no other rule of instruction than the word of God contained in the Holy 
Scriptures.” 

The oath of consecration is the same, which is prescribed by the law of 1839. 

IV, The free Evangelical Church of the Canton of Vaud was organized by a 
representative synod, which adopted, March 12, 1847, the coiTStitution which still 
governs it. The profession of faith forms its Second Article, 

A commission, ot which Vinet was a member, prepared a constitution and a re- 
port; the form of the profession of faith, and part of the report there referred to, 
have been inserted in the works of Vinet, entitled : “ Religious Liberty and Eccle- 
siastical Questions.” Paris, 1854; pp. 638-659. 

The creed adopted by the .synod is the same as the given form with a few 
additions. 

The article of the constitution is worded thus : The General Assembly of each 
church is composed of all the mei\ belonging to said church who are twenty-one 
years of age, have fully comprehended its doctrines and institutions, and formally 
declared their adherence to it. 

The form of this declaration is regulated by each church. 

Beside, the candidates who wish their names entered in the register of the synod, 
as ministers and candidates for the holy ministry, are obliged to be examined as to 
their religious life, their calling to the ministry, their doctrine and their ecclesiastical 


1084 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


principles, by a committee composed of the synodical commission, with pastors and 
elders. At the close of this examination the candidate must “ declare his cordial 
adhesion to the doctrines and institutions of the P'ree Church ” (Constitution, Art. 
19). This pledge is verbal. 

The elders do not make any special declaration, since, chosen by the General 
Assembly from its body, they have already declared their adherence to the constitu- 
tion and Confession of Faith in becoming members of the General Assembly. 

Beside the works quoted in these notes, the reader may consult with profit an 
article of M. F. Chaponnidre, in the “ Encyclopedia of Religious Science,” by Mr. 
Lichtenberger, vol. vi., parts 26 and 27, pp. 150-162 (Paris, 1879), entitled, 
“ Helvetic Confessions.” rr j v 

Lausanne, Jzdy , 1879. 

INDEPENDENT EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF NEUCHATEL. 

BY M. JACOTTET. 

First Question, — A. The ancient Reformed Church of Neuchatel has never put 
forth any special Confession of Faith, and has even refused to admit the formula of 
the Helvetic consensus (assembly). The assembly of pastors, who were then the 
governing body of the Church, considered that the Holy Scripture, the forms used 
in baptism and the communion, and the Apostles’ Creed, were fully adequate to 
express the faith of the Church, and it remained under this rule without any serious 
schisms or errors of doctrine having arisen from the time of the Reformation until 
the political revolution of 1848. 

At this period the Church government passed from the hands of the Assembly 
into those of the Synod, composed of 315 lay members and 215 ministers. 

This Synod, to whom exclusively (according to Article 4 of the law) the admin- 
istration of the Church in spiritual matters was intrusted in May, 1851, in reply to“ 
a petition from a certain number of members of the Parish of Ponts, which inquired 
if an abridged Confession of Faith would not be advantageous and even necessary,' 
made the following decision : 

“ Our Church finds its rule of faith in the Holy Scriptures, and the simple Con- 
fession of Faith in the forms of baptism and the communion, and in the Apostles’ 
Creed.” 

B. On the 20th of May, 1873, the Grand Council of the Republic and Canton 
of Neuchatel passed a new law regulating the relation of Church and State. 

Article 12 is thus expressed: “ Liberty of conscience in matters of religion is in- 
violable; it may neither be fettered by regulations, vows, or promises, by disciplin- 
ary penalties, by formulas or a creed, nor by any measures whatsoever.” 

The promulgation of this law, which would have ruined the Church by depriving 
it of the pow<w- to maintain the preaching of a pure gospel, produced the movement 
in favor of separation which resulted in the organization of the Independent Evan- 
gelical Church of Neuchatel. 

The constitution adopted by the Constituent Synod in the session of January 15, 
1874? 3^*id afterwards submitted to the ratification of the parishes, by whom it was 
unanimously adopted, contains as Article 2 the following Confession of Faith ; 

Faithful to the holy truth which the apostles preached and the reformers have 
restored to light, the Evangelical Church of Neuchatel acknowledges as the only 
source and rule of its faith the sacred writings of the Old and New Testament, and 
proclaims, with all Christian churches, the great truths of salvation contained in the 
creed called the Apostles’ Creed : “ We believe in God the Father, who has saved 
us by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son, our 
only Lord, and who regeneratp us by the Holy Spirit, and we confess this faith by^ 
use of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper in obedience to the com- 
mandments of the Lord.” 

Second Question. — Until 1848 ihe ratification of the baptismal vow was con- 
sidered an indispensable act on entering the Church. . 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1085 


the Grand Council nor the Synod has explained what must be under- 
^he forms of the Protestant Church; so that it is sufficient in 
reality to be born members of the Protestant church, or to declare that one ac- 
cepts Its vie\\,s in order to enjoy the privileges of ecclesiastic electors. 

Un the other hand, the ministers, on their ordination, take the following oath ; 

Jidvance the honor and glory of God above all things. 

2. To risk life, body and property, if necessary to maintain his word. 

4. 10 be in unity with the brethren in the doctrines of religion and in the holy 

ministry. ** ^ 

5. To avoid all sectarianism and schism in the Church. 

thus^-^^^^ Question. Article 3 of the Constitution of the Independent Church reads 

All persons who have testified a desire to enter the Church and adhere to its con- 
stitution may become members of the Independent Evangelical Church of Neu- 
chatel, after receiving baptism and the communion. 

membership does not take place in the same manner in all the 
Churches, and there is no uniform way adopted by the Synod. 

In most cases it is not accomplished by signature, but members are also admitted 
on declarations made to a pastor, elder or member of the Church who certifies it. 

On their ordination the ministers take the same oath which was in use in the 
ancient Church (see second question). 

The pastors also promise, on the day of their installation, to acquit themselves 
faithfully and conscientiously of the duties of their office, in conformity with the 
constitution (Articles i, 2, 23).— Law of the Synod, June 9, 1875. 

^ The professors of theology declare on their installation that they adhere indi- 
vidually to the principles and profession of faith of the Church, and that they will 
conform in their teaching to this profession of faith.— (Law of the Synod June 

15. 1877.) 

The Elders engage on their entrance into office faithfully to perform their ser- 
vices in accordance with the Holy Scriptures and the Church Constitution. (Law 
of the Synod of June 25, 1879, simply confirming the custom.) 

Leopold Jacottet, 

July, 1879. Pastor of Chaux-de-Fonds, 

Neuchatel. 

THE REFORMED CHURCH OF GENEVA. 

Reply for the Canton of Geneva to the questions of the Co 7 m 7 iittee 
CLppohited by the Pa7t-Presbyteria7i Coimcil, to report on the Co 7 ifes- 
sions of Faith of the Refor77ied Church throughout the world. 

1ST Question. — What Confessions of Faith have bee 7 t adopted successively by the 
Kefor 7 ned Churches of Geneva ? 

Reply. 


1st and 2d. — First Catechism of Calvin, entitled, “ Instruction and Confession of 
Faith used in the Church of Geneva,” published, in French, at Geneva, in February, 
1537; in Latin, at Basle, in March, 1538. 

First Confession of Faith of Calvin, entitled, “Confession of Faith, which all 
inhabitants of the city of Geneva and inhabitants of the country must swear to guard 
and hold ; extract of the instructions which are in use in the Church of the said 
city,” published in French, at Gen,eva, in April, 1537. 

The first Confession of Faith of Geneva has, for a long time, been supposed to be 
the work of Farel. M. Alb. Rilliet has proved, through several historians, that it 
was composed by Calvin, and presented by Farel, who was then the chief minister 
of the Lower Council of the Republic. 

These two documents have been published in French by M. M. Alb. Rilliet 
and Theoph. Dufour, edited by M. Georg, Geneva, 1878; in Latin, in Calvin’s 


io86 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


work edited by Baum, Reuss, and Cunitz, Brunswick, 1863, and following years, 
Vol. \ ., pp. 3^3~3^2. The confession alone is found in this last work in Frencti, 
\ ol. IX., pp. 693-700. M. Schaff mentions the two documents in his “ Creeds of 
Christendom,” Vol. I., pp. 467 and 468. 

3 ^^‘ ‘Second Catechism ol Calvin, entitled, “The Catechism of the Cliurch of 
Geneva, that is to say, the (ormula for instructing children in Christianity ; this is in 
the style of a dialogue, where the minister questions and the child responds; and 
in Latin, Catechismus Ecclesiae Genevensis hoc est. Formula audiendi jiueros in. 
doctrina Christi. Autore Joanne Cal vino.” Published in P'rance, between 1542 
and 1545 ‘s not known whether there was an edition 1545); in Latin in 1545. 
Ke-prinied in two languages in Calvin’s works, edited by Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss,, 
Vol. VI., ]ip. 1-160; in Latin in Niemeyer’s “ Collectio Conlessionum,” Leipsic, 

PP* *25—190. Analyzed in Schafif’s “ Creeds of Christendom,” Vol. I , no 
486-9. ’ * 

We find at the end of the Catechism, since 1553, a formula for the reception of 
the holy Communion, entitled, “The manner of questioning children who wish to 
receive the Communion of N. C. J. C.,” followed by a “Review of the Catechism,” 
which the child must recite solemnly. 

This rhume comprises the Apostles’ Creed, beside the Ten Commandments and 
the Lord’s Prayer. 

In the Baptismal Liturgy the Apostles’ Creed is recited by the minister as a 
summary of Christian doctrine. 

The formula spoken of, whose wording in the Catechism, the New Testament 
and the Psalter of 1562 is .slightly different and more finished in style, appears in 
various forms in Calvin’s works, edited by Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss Vol VI 
pp. 147-160. > • 

^ 4th. Cmisensus Tigurinus, entitled, “Consensio mutua in re Sacramentaria min- 
istrorum Tigurinae Ecclesiae et J. Calvini ministri Genevensis ecclesise jam nunc ab 
ipsis autoiibus edita,” published in Latin at Zurich, 1549. 

There are twenty-six articles fixed at Zurich in an interview between Calvin, 

i Calvin’s works, edited by Baum, Cunitz, 

and Reuss Vol. \II., pp. 689-748, and also in Niemeyer, pp. 191-217. They are 
explained in Schaff, Vol. I., p. 471. z » v 1 uey are 

Sth Consensus Genevensis, entitled, “ De jeterna Dei prredestinatione qua in salu- 
tem alios ex hominibus elegit, alios suo exitio reliquit: item, de providentia qua res 
humanes gubernat Consensus pastorum Genevensis Ecclesite a Jo. Calvino ex- 
positus published in Latin in Geneva in 1552. Drawn up by Cah’in immediately 
after the attack by Bolsec. This document was reprinted in Calyin’s works, Vok 
Vlll., pp. 249-366, also in Niemeyer, 218—310. 

Jf'-'Iii'n Church of Geneva.-This document which treated 

Sait Mats 8'-" 

It occupi^ nearly a page in an octavo volume. It is published in French in 
Gabarel’s “ History of the Geneva Church,” Vol. IL, pp. Ls, 226* in Italimi and 
Lmrn in Calvin’s works, edited by Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, col. 384, 388, Geneva, 

of Faith'to “Fotumtla of Confession 

ot faith to uhich the scholars must assent, in the hands of the Rector; ” in Latin 

srh I ^ Confessionis fidei cui de adstringere tenentur omnes studios publicEe 
scholas coram rectore,” published in 1559. puuiicse 

This Confession, arranged by Calvin, occupies eight full pages in octavo and 
comprises twentyone paragraphs. It is found reprodSced in two languagesln Cal 
vin s works, edited by Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, Vol. X., p 6! ® ® 

«Ui Oalhcan Confession, entitled, in Latin, “Gallicarum Ecclesiarum Confessio 
IX. regi anno MDLXI. exhibta.” 

1 a"! Confession was prepared by Calvin for the Church in Paris in ici;? amended 

by Ant de Chandieu, and adopted at the First National Synod of pLis’ i era re 

feri fil ftinmir c6'^'‘'!s r' '57'- The Latin tSt! printed 

nrst time in 1566, is found in Niemeyer, pp. 327- 339. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1087 


‘‘ Conress^on^o/Fa^h^^mn 1^^ Recension of Paris (thirty-five articles) is entitled, 
te--ed ihrou-h by the Churches which arescat- 

1 he French translation of the Recension of La Rochelle (forty articles) is entitled 
(Confession of haith made with mutual consent by the Chu^che whV de re 

ve™:fo": Vo'- “I- PP- 356-382, and also in 

Confession, entitled, “ Confess io et exposito simplex Gr- 
ab EccLi^‘'rhrfs‘?f*M-'”’'l Lathohcorum syncerce Religionis Chrisiian^e Concorditer 
ittentur fi^lcbb^ Mmistns, qui sunt in Helvetia . . . ed.ta in hoc. ut universis 
estentur hddibus, quod in imitate verse et antiquse Christi Ecclesise perstent, neque 
uUa nova aut erronea dogmata spargant, atque icleo etiam nihil consortii; cum ullis 
s.ctis aut haere«ibus habeant.” Compiled at Zurich in 1566 by Bullinaer It is 
Engllh’vj;;"^"’ and in Schaff, Vol. III., pp. 233-306, with an 

Dordrecht, entitled, “Sententia, de Divina Prmdestinatione, et 
Annexis et Capitibus, quam Synodus Dordrechtana Verbo Dei consentaneam, atque 
^<^o™atis hactenus receptam esse, judicat, quibusdam Articulis ex- 
posita Fixed by the National Synod of the Reformed Churches of the Low Coun- 
”■ c’u L;yli-echt, in i6i8 and 1619. It is found in Niemeyer, 690-728, and 

in Schaff, \ f)l. III., pp, 55*^~5^c>, with an English version. 

nth. Anli-Armiman Theses of 1649.— There are five paragraphs, comprising 
fifteen ^ positive articles and ten negative articles, bearing upon original sin re- 
demption, grace, etc., and prepared at the request of the Lower Council, by an 
as.semb y of pastors, after six months’ discussion. This document is reproduced in 
Gabarel s “ History of the Geneva Church,” Vol. HI., 1862, pp. 121-123, note. 

1 2th. Consensus Helvetique, entitled, “Formula Consensus Ecclesiarum Helveti- 
carum Reformatarum, circa Doctrinam de Gratia universali et connexa, aliaque non- 
nulla capita.” ^ 

This document, compiled in 1675 by Heidegger, assisted by Francis Turretin, was 
printed in Latin and German, at Zurich, in 1714. It is found in Latin in “Nie- 
meyer,” pp. 729-739. 

13th. Cathecism de la Venerable Compagnie, entitled, “Catechism intended par- 
ticularly for the use of Young People who are preparing to participate in the Floly 
Communion;” published first at Geneva, in 1788. (The Larger Catechism was 
competed by a Small Catechism for children, neither so important, nor of so mmch 
authority.) 


A revision of the Larger Catechism, including seven important changes (in 
the latitudinarian and utilitarian sense), was published in 1810, after long delibera- 
tions. The committee appointed by the Assembly of pastors held eighty-five ses- 
sions. Ihe Catechism of 1810 was directed as a simple revision of the Catechism 
of 1788, and consequently they were spared the annoyance of submitting it to the 
sanction of the PTench government, of which the Church of Geneva was then a 
dependent. 

A new revision of the “Catechism” was published in 1817, but the changes it 
contained were established without repeal by the committee appointed by the Assem- 
bly, without the Assembly itself and the Councils of State being called to examine 
and sanction them. 

14th. Declaration of the principles of 1849, set forth by the First Consistory, 
elected according to the forms prescribed by the Geneva Constitution of 1847, and 
placed at the head of the “ Original Law for the National Protestant Church of 
Geneva,” definitely adopted June 7, 1849. 

The document is Avorded thus : 

Article i. The National Protestant Church of Geneva receives as the Avord of 
God, and as divinely inspired, the Holy Scriptures of the Old and NeAv Testaments. 
She makes it the foundation and only infallible and entirely sufficient rule of faith 
and life. 


io88 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 

Art. 2. Established on this basis, she acknowledges in all her members the right 

of free inquiry. c c' a v. 

‘Art. 3. This Church, instituted for the advancement of the Kingdom ot Cod, by 
faith in Jesus Christ, has for its special mission to provide for the interests of the 

members who compose it. . , 1 • r 1 

Art. 4. She admits as her only rule of instruction, the teaching ot Cod con- 
tained in the revealed books. 

Art. 5. She is united in a spiritual communion, by a bond of Christian brother- 
hood, to the Evangelical Churches founded on the authority of the word of God. 

(Cf. F. Chaponniere, “ The question of the Confessions of Faith m the body of 
contemporaneous Protestantism'.” Genoa, 1867, Vol. L, examination of facts, ^155.) 

15th. Declaration of the principles and profession of the Evangelical Church 
(Free) of Geneva, founded in 1849. 

The text (a preamble and seventeen articles) has been reproduced by ^apon- 
niere, in the works already cited, Vol. I., page 161-163, and by Schaft (woiks 
noted), Vol. III., p. 781-786 (with an English version). 

[Note. — The Church of the Testimony, founded in 1820, by Dr. Caesar Malan, 
joined to the Secession Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Church called 
du Bourg de Tour, founded 1877, was Congregational, not Presbyterian — it had no 
Confession of Faith.] 

• 

2d Question. — What have been, or are still, the forms or methods of adhesion in 
the Confessions of Faith above mentioned ? 

Reply. 

National Protestant Church of Geneva, 

May 24, 1536. General and Collective Declaration of the General Council. 

The citizens assembled in General Council in the Cathedral of St. Peter, swear, 
with one voice, with uplifted hands, “ that they wish to live in accordance with the 
Holy Scriptural law.” However, many of the citizens protested beforehand against 
the measures of religious unification which restricts their liberty of conscience. 

1537. The general and personal adherence, obligatory upon all citizens, to the 
Confession of Faith of Calvin. 

In April, the Lower Council authorized the publication of this Confession of 
Faith, which begins with the following words : “All the citizens of the city of Gen- 
eva, and the subjects of the country, must swear to guard and hold it.” All the 
members of the Lower Council (save one) at St. Peter’s, swear fidelity to this con- 
fession. The Lower Council ordered further, that the magistrates of districts must 
spread copies of the confession in their districts, then go from house to house to re- 
ceive promises. A part of the population resisted ; the indifferent ones thought the 
measure superfluous; the crypto-Catholics, the Anabaptists, and the Free-thinkers 
thought it excessive. 

July 29, 1537. The Lower Council decided to administer first, the oath to the 
magistrates, the rebellious ones having already been dismissed ; then to invite the 
magistrates successively to bring to St. Peters those from their districts to whom the 
oath should be administered, the refractory ones being excommunicated and banished 
from the district. This arrangement proved to be impossible, entire streets refusing 
the oath. The troubles foreseen among the rebels are not mentioned. 

1538. Reaction. January, 1538, the Lower Council decided that the preachers 
ought to refuse the communion to no one, not even to those who refused the oath, 
and in April, 1538, Calvin and Farel were themselves banished. 

In 1539 the citizens going to the public hall took back the original act of the 
Confession of Faith of Calvin, and struck out from it ail the pages reading thus 
(with the consent of the magistrates) : that they considered themselves relieved from 
the oath of 1537. 

1541. System of Ecclesiastical Ordinances. November 20, two thousand citizens 
of Geneva, assembled in General Council at Geneva, approve, by a majority of 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1089 


opm“uirof loSe opposition of many pro.ninent citizens and the secret 

had been nreoared Iw f'^l ‘"enibers) the Ecclesiastical Ordinances wliidi 

months hi Efe lembl';.’ 

iste^s^d^raifd k?mer «>-• 

revive andTetnThf' !='“=os of the Ordinances, they must promise “to 

[Sd"rGenerdVo,?„cT’;°'''='‘ ‘'’'= Church.” This text bfing exain- 

ronhe ts anTm osde? \ '. 576 , they promise to hold the doctrine of the 

ircSne (conHnnes^^^^^ IS comprised m the Old and New Testament, of w hich 
Amnni ti ^ formula) we have a summary in our Catechism. 

firstr„TeSrdinat:r ^ " ---ter, heresy apiwtars 

ihiVim churches (initiated in 1546), it is stated 

vance .nv to see - whether tlie resident minister had ad- 

vanced any new doctrine opposed to the purity of the gospel:” 

nntir pledges (fixed by the Ordinances revised in 1561) were not dog- 

of the lay professors ^ Confessional form established for the benefit 

"^d'^^tted to the Holy Communion before having 
made a profession of faith before the Church, and recited all the Catechism, as it 
was arranged in 1553 (m a loud voice). We have not been able to decide the exact 
period at which this custom fell into disuse. 

Every year the pastors should visit the families, examining each one as to his 
should assemble their parishioners in the churches, before 
the celebration of the communion, and question them' on the Catechism. (This 
custorn lasted until the seventeenth century, at which period it lost its dogmatic and 
disciplinary character.) 

Ihe parishioners whose belief was found not to be orthodox were exhorted, and 
in serious cases excommunicated. Excommunication was suppressed in 1766. 

Heretics or sectarians, who propagated their principles, fell under the laws of 
Frederick II. They were summoned before the Consistory; if they were amen- 
able, they were sent away without scandal ; if they were opinionated, they ‘were 
admonished, then excommunicated, and sent to the magistrates, who could con- 
demn them to the whip, banishment, or even to death. (This rule was modified 
in 1632.) 

1549. The Church of Geneva adopted the “ Consensus Tigurinus.” 

1552. The pastors in office ought to sign the - Consensus Genevensis,” called 
forth by the opposition of Bolsec ; but it is intended that this doctrine shall not be 
binding on future generations. November 9th, the Lower Council ordered that the 
•doctrine of the - Christian Institution ” (of Calvin) is - the doctrine of God,” and 
that none ought to be allowed to contradict it. 

1556. Calvin requested that the excommunicated should be banished, but this 
was not granted. 

^ 557 - The 22d of November, the Grand Council condemned to a year’s banisli- 
ment those who stayed away from the communion, from indifference, or who, beino 
excommunicated, refused to humble themselves before the Consistory. ** 

1558. It was decided that the members of the Italian Church of Geneva'should 
sign the Italian Confession. Those who refused their signature should be banished; 
those wl>3, after having signed, withdrew their support, should be put to death! 
(This special confession fell later into disuse.) 

1559. It was deckled that the students should subscribe in future, in the 
hands of the rector, to the - Special Confession of the Students.” (Abolished in 

1576.) 

1566. Geneva sanctioned the - Second Helvetic Confession.” 

1576, The subscribing by the students to the Confession of Faith from the - Pas- 
tor’s Book,” is abolished at the request of a number of jiastors, because this formal- 
ity prevented the Lutherans and the Catholics from coming to study at Geneva, and 


1090 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


“ that it is unreasonable to press a young conscience, still irresolute, to sign that 
which it does not yet understand.” 

1620. March 17th, the Assembly of Pastors sanctions, without any opposition, 
the “ Canons of Dordrecht.” 

1632. At this time, the government of Geneva ceased to apply strictly the Anti- 
lleretic Code. Those who teach false dogmas are not put to death or even ban- 
ished ; but their writings are suppressed, and they are forbidden to speak, and are 
virtually cut off from intercourse with their neighbors. 

1647. Disputes between Calvinism and Arminianism. 

1647. August 6th, the Assembly, alarmed at the progress of Arminianism, 
decided to require from every candidate for the ministry the following promise : 
“ to teach in conformity with the Synod of Dordrecht, and to reject the doctrine of 
the universality of grace, and the non-imputation of Adam’s sin.” 

1649. The Assembly proposed, at the request of the Council, “Anti-Arminian 
Theses.” (See above.) 

The moderator and secretary of the Assembly signed these theses, June ist, in the 
name of all the members, wnth the following words, “ Sic sentio, sic docebo, et nil 
contranum hisce docebo, vel publice vel privatim.” 

Alexander Morris, Professor of Theology, Avho leaned to the ideas of Saumur, 
must also sign these theses with the formula, “ Sic sensi, sic sentio.” He imme- 
diately set out for Holland of his own accord. 

165*9. The Assembly decided that all its members (pastors of churches and pro- 
fessors in academies) should make the following promise : “ You promise to avoid 
the innovations of the doctrine of the universality of grace, and the non-imputation 
of Adam’s sin. You will teach nothing that does not conform to the ‘ Confession 
of Faith of the Refonned Churches of France,’ and the decisions of the Synod of 
Dordrecht and to our Catechism.” 

This promise was imposed on Professor de Rodon in- 1663, and in 1667 on 
Rogere, the divinity .student. 

1669. Professor Mestrezat and pastor Louis Fronchin, having declared themselves, 
in the Assembly, favorable to the ideas of Saumur, the Lower Council ordered (June 
25th) pastors and professors to conform themselves to the previous dogmatic regula- 
tions, but “ to abstain from combating opposing opinions.” This restriction was 
withdrawn (August 4th) at the request of the majority of the Assembly. August 
13th, the Assembly decide that all candidates for the holy ministry should sign the 
“ Theses of 1649,” with the formula “ Sic docebo et nil contrarium hisce docebo vel 
publice, vel privatim.” August 28th, seven members of the Assembly who had not 
yet signed the said Theses, are forced to do so by the Assembly and Council. Sep- 
tember 17th, Robert Chouet, Profe.ssor of Philosophy, is forced to sign, not the 
Theses of 1649, but the promise to teach, if occasion so offers, conformably with 
these Theses. December loth, the Grand Council of Two Hundred decide that, 
in future, the said Theses will be signed w-ith this formula : “ Sic sentio, sic profiteer, 
sic docebo, et non contrarium docebo.” This decision remained in force until 
1706. 

1671. The old pastor Mussard gave up his right of membership in the Assembly, 
because he had not signed the Theses of 1649. 

1683. The celebrated J. Le Clerc, being refused the chair on account of his 
Arminian ideas, went to live in Holland. 

1678. February 15th and 22d, after twelve sessions, during which there was much 
discussion, the Assembly adopted the Helvetic Consensus, with strictures on some 
grounds of this formula. 

1679. January 3d, the Council having ratified the vote of the Assembly, it is de- 
cided that the Moderator and Secretary of the Assembly shall sign the Consensus in 
ihc name of all the pastors and professors, and that in the future every candidate for 
the holy ministry shall sign it with the formula of subscription of December loth, 
1659. (This decision remained in force until 1706.) 

1706. April 23d, the Assembly decide to permit, by way of exception, the stu- 
dents of divinity, who signed the old Confessions of Faith with the formula “ Sic 


SECOND GENEEAL COUNCIL. 


1091 


>'>e fo'-mula “ Conlrarium non docebo, pacem Ec 
ciesicc promovcbo on, non turbabo.” 

A decl^rt this decision contrary to the rules, and invite the 

Assembly to deliberate again on the subject. 

The Assembly decide that the formula of subscription to the Con - 
~ ^ a e as follovys : “ Sic docebo et contrarium non docebo, scilicet quoties 

hanc niaieriam tractandam (on hoc argumentum) suscipiam, sive ore, sive calamo, 
sue pnvatim, sive public.” . The purport of the “ Canons of Dordrecht” will be a 
sirnilar Promise. The Council of Two Hundred (May 19) allow the new signature, 
but request the Assembly to consider the matter further. 

August 27th. After long discussion and contradictory resolutions, the Assembly 
finally unanimously decide to abolish all signatures which have formerly been 
reqimed, and substitute a new consecration oath, which reads as follows : 

“ You protest and swear before God, to believe and profess your belief in the Holy 
Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which are the only and true rule of our 
laith. 


r to teach nothing which does not conform to the Confes.sion 

ot h aith and to the Catechism of this Church, as containing a summary of what is 
taught us in the Holy Scriptures. ’ 

You aie exhorted to teach nothing in the Church or Academy contrary to the 
Canons of the Synod of Dordrecht, or to the rules of this venerable Assembly, and 
the Churches of Switzerland ; which will promote peace, and preserve a uniformity 
in teaching. 

“ Do you all promise this ? ” 

Reply . — “ I promise.” 

September 6th. At the Council of Two Hundred, the opinions are divided on the 
hew formula. 

September loth. The Lower Council decide to allow the new formula. 

June 17th, 1725* All the Assembly except two decide to abolish the oath of con- 
secration established in 1 706; and return to the pure and simple oath provided by 
the Ecclesiastical Ordinance of 1576. The oath is thus worded: “You swear to 
hold the doctrine of the holy prophets and apostles, as it is contained in the books 
of the Old and New Testaments, of which doctrine our Catechism is a summary?” 
(This oath was in force until 1806.) 

It was asserted in the discussion that no one .should be forced to follow entirely 
Calvin s Catechism. It is further expected that the candidates for the ministry 
should be requested not to discuss in the pulpit any striking or useless matter, which 
might tend to disturb the peace. 

At this time the Confession of Faith of the seventeenth century was abolished to 
return to that of the sixteenth century, interpreting the latter with much freedom. 

The Lower Council ratified this decision, but ordered the Assembly to keep the 
most absolute silence upon this subject, especially in the presence of strangers. 

1788. The Assembly adopted a new catechism (see above). The authority 
given by the oath of ministers to the official catechism of the Church was by this 
act transferred from the Orthodox Catechism of Calvin to the Catechism (much less 
orthodox) of the Assembly. 

The Lower Council gave its sanction to the new catechism. 

January 23d, 1806. The Assembly and the Consistory substituted for the old 
oath of consecration of ministers, the following pledge : 

“ You promise to teach divine truth as it i§ contained in the books of the Old and 
New Testament, of which we have an abridgment in the Apostles’ Creed.” The 
Apostles’ Creed thus replaced the catechism as a rule of teaching. 

This formula was in force until the year 1810. 

1810. Revision of the catechism in a latitudinarian and utilitarian sense (see 
above). 

The A.ssembly and Consistory modifies, in the following manner, the pledge of, 
the ministers; 

“ You promise ... to preach, in its purity, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; 


1092 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


to recognize as the only infallible rule of faith and conduct, the word Qf God, as it 
is contained in the sacred books of the Old and New Testament.” (The mention 
of the Apostles’ Creed disappears.) 

1813. At this time the religious revival gave rise to numerous discussions, and 
it was thought advisable to add the following words to the pledge of the ministers : 
“You promise to abstain from all sectarian spirit, to avoid all that which would 
create any schism and break the union of the Church,” etc. (Addition suppressed 
towards 1850.) 

1817, May 3d. The dogmatic debates stirred up by the reappearance of Calvin- 
istic orthodoxy, being of a sharp character, the Assembly published a prohtlniory 
rule, exacting from all pastors, ministers, and divinity students, the following pledge: 

“ We promise to abstain, so long as we live, and while we preach in the churches 
of the Canton of Geneva, to establish, either in an entire discourse, or in a part of 
our discourse, directed to this end, our opinion: — 1st. On the manner of the union 
of the divine and human nature in the person of Jesus Christ. 2d. On original sin. 
3d. On the manner in which grace operates, or on saving grace. 4th. Predestina- 
tion. We promise not to combat, in public discourses, the opinion of any pastors 
or ministers on these matters. 

“ Finally, we engage, if we are led to give utterance to our thoughts, on any one 
of the subjects, to rlo so without too much positiveness, to avoid expressions foreign 
to the Holy Scriptures, and to use, as much as possible, the terms which they em- 
ploy.” 

Some of the candidates for the ministry withdrew on account of this rule, and a 
dissenting church was formed. It was of short duration. 

1847, May 24th. The citizens accept a new political constitution, of which Act 
X., chapter 1st, grants the organization of the Protestant worship. 

According to Article 114 of this constitution, “the national Protestant Church is 
composed of all the Genevans who accept the organized forms of this Church, as 
may be established hereafter.” (These organized forms established by the consti- 
tution, are pure administrative forms, w'hich do not effect, in the slightest degree, 
faith and Christian life. Since 1847 one could be a member of the church without 
having been regularly admitted as a catechumen.) 

According to Article 117 “All Protestants of the canton, enjoying their political 
rights,” are ecclesiastical electors. 

According to Article 123, No one can be called pastor if he has not been conse- 
crated to the holy ministry in the National Church of Geneva. 

According to Article 126, The Assembly of pastors decide as to the admission 
and consecration of candidates for the holy ministry. 

1849, June 7th. The Consistory called after the forms fixed by the new constitu- 
tion, adopted an organic rule for the National Protestant Church of Geneva, which 
rule includes the following: 

Articles 1—5 constitute a sort of declaration of principles spoken of above. The 
adherence to these principles is not, however, required of the electors, elders, or 
even of the ministers of the church. 

According to Article ii. No catechism can be employed in religious teaching 
w'ilhout the authority of the Consistory. 

According to Article 52, The official and ecclesiastical liturgy should be intro- 
duced without any modification. 

According to Article 74, The functionaries of the church may be subjected to dis*. 
cipline, in case “of teaching, preaching, or publicly professing any doctrine that 
might bring scandal upon the church.” 

1858. It is decided that each pastor should have liberty to use the catechism of 
his choice, provided this manual has the sanction of the Consistory. 

1861. The Consistory published a revision of the obligatory liturgy. The new 
liturgy allows the Apostles’ Creed to be used in the prayer, which each Sunday 
closes the principal service of the morning. 

The promise of the ministers is stated there as fonows (this part is dogmatic) ; 
the ministers promising “ to preach the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, conscien- 


SECOJVD GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1093 

tiously and with fidelity; and to take for the only and infallible rule of faith and 
conduct, the word of God as it is set forth in the sacred books of the Old and New 
1 estaments.” 

1874, April 26. The citizens ratify a constitutional law modifying the first chap- 
ter of the tenth act of the constitution. 

According to Article 114, direct from the revised constitution, the National Prot- 
estant Church is composed of Swiss Protestants who accept the organized forms of 
this church. ^ 

According to Article ii’j,nezv, “All the Protestant Swiss citizens, enjoying politi- 
cal rights in the Canton of Geneva,” are ecclesiastical electors. 

According to Articles 123 and 126, The consecration to the holy ministry by the 
Assembly of pastors, no longer renders such person eligible to the pastoral functions. 

hinally, in Article 123, in a new paragraph, we find the following: “Each pas- 
tor teaches and preaches freely on his own responsibility. No restraint can be put 
upon this liberty either by the Confessions of Faith or the liturgic formulas.” 

1874, Oct. 3. ^ The State Council promulgated a new organic law concerning 
Protestant worship, in virtue of which a pastor can either be suspended or dismissed 
by the Consistory or Council of State for dogmatic motives. 

1875. The new general rules adopted by the Consistory immediately after the 

vote on the Constitutional Law of 1874, suppressed the Declaration of Principles of 
1849. pastor obtained the right to use, in his religious teaching, any catecheti- 

cal manual which he preferred, not forgetting to inform the Consistory of his choice. 
The use of the liturgical prayers, published by the Consistory, became optional. 

The promise of the pastors is changed, under the dogmatical report, to the 
following words : 

They must declare before God “ that they will teach and preach conscientiously, 
according to their lights and faith, the Christian truth contained in our holy books.” 

The liturgical collection published (in 1875) ^7 ^he Consistory, contains two series 
of formulas, expressed in a dogmatic sense on the one hand, and in a liberal sense 
on the other. (The Apostles’ Creed was optional.) 

The two formulas for baptism require the relations who present the child, god- 
father or god-mother, to understand Christian truth as it is contained in our holy 
books. 

The formula for the reception of catechumens includes the following question, to 
which the catechumens must respond affirmatively ; 

“ Have you a sincere faith in the truths of the gospel, and are you so fully per- 
suaded of these truths, that you are ready to suffer everything rather than abandon 
your profession ? ” 

The other questions are more moral and spiritual in their character than dogmatic. 

FREE EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF GENEVA. 

We have mentioned before the Profession of Faith made in 1849. 

The Church only demanded a formal adherence to this Profession of Faith, from 
the elders (among whom figure the ministers of the word), and the deacons. Some 
of these officers have even been permitted to hold certain reserves on such or such 
article. 

As to the laymen, the article which arranges for their admission into the church 
has been fixed as follows : “Whosoever acknowledges himself a transgressor, and in 
a state of condemnation, professes, with the church, a hope in Jesus Christ, God 
manifest in the flesh, the transgressor’s only refuge, and conforms his life to his pro- 
fession, has full right to membership in this church.” However, a simple member 
of the church, who should propagate openly doctrines compatible with this summary 
profession of faith, but incompatible with the profession of faith in its development, 
could without doubt be excluded from the religious body. 

Francis Chaponniere, 

Assistant Pastor in the National Protestant Church of Geneva, 

and Editor of the Religious Weekly. 


1094 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


GERMANIC SWITZERLAND. 

Berne, October 9, 1879. 

Sir and Very Honored Friend: — Here is, I believe, ihe complete list ol the 
symbolical writings of Germanic Switzerland ; I have them all, with the exception of 
the “ Confessio Rhaetica,” right here. Professor Schaff, of Rhetien origin, no doubt, 
has that, as well as the other writings. I had the pleasure ot seeing him at Basle in 
September, and hope my manuscript may serve his end. However, I cannot feel 
sure of it. 

One cannot read these confessions without admiring the firmness and clearness of 
faith shown by our reformers. The Holy Ghost poured down floods ol light upon 
so heroic a generation. How shattered we find the theological world to-day ! 
What dogmatic Nihilism ! Each doctrine might be compared to a stake driven into 
a marsh, and this marsh but a morbid subjectivism. 

May God bring back to his church days of strength and health ! May the Pres- 
byterian Council of 1880 bear fruits of benediction ! One must admit that the 
Journal (Catholic Presbyterian), edited by Dr. Blaikie, breathes health and life. 

With heartfelt salutation and respect, Bernard, Pastor. 

To M. Jean Monod. 

The following is also from Mr. Bernard to Mr. J. Monocl ; 

Concerning the Confession, I must add that, formerly, both pastors and profes- 
sors were bound by oath — they only, however, not the laity. After the expulsion of 
the pietists in 1699, the Berne government prescribed an association oath, which em- 
braced the concensus (against the Amyraldiens of Lausanne), and by which the laity 
were also bound, but it very soon fell into disuse.” 

As'the Protestant churches of to-day in Germanic Switzerland have abolished all 
Confessions of Faith, my answer to the three questions proposed by the Presbyterian 
Council of Edinburgh must be entirely historical. It shall^ also, be concise, since 
the learned and dear Dr. Philip Schaff is perfectly conversant upon the matter, and 
needs but dates and principal names in order to arrange the work which he will have 
to read at the Philadelphia Council in 1880. May God still continue to him life, 
health, vigor of mind and the grace which he will need for the success of the great 
meetings of next year ! 

I. The Sixty-seven Articles of Zwingli, 29//; January^ 

Zwingli’s four years of work in Zurich had greatly stirred up the city. The 
bishops of Constance and Lausanne demand the expulsion of the reformer. The 
government, friendly towards Zwingli, orders that a “disputation” shall take place 
between him and Faber, the delegate of the bishop of Constance. The I'eformer 
draws up sixty-seven theses which he offers to prove by Scripture. 

These articles form the first Confession of Faith adopted in Switzerland, and act 
as a supplement to Luther’s theses (1517). 

A few of these propositions will suffice to show what light the Holy Spirit had 
poured into the mind of this solitary and still young reformer of thirty-eight years 
of age : 

“ Summa Evangelii est quod Christus, Filius Dei vivi, notefecit nobis voluntatem 
Patris coelestis, et quod innocentia sua nos de morte oeterna redemit et Deo 
reconciliavit.” 

“ Hinc sequitur Christum esse unicam viam ad salutem omnium qui fuerunt sunt 
et erunt.” 

“ Quicumque aluid ostium vel quaerit vel ostendit errat quin animarum latro est et 
fur.” 

These sixty-seven articles are found in Niemeyer, Collectio Confessionum in 
ecclesiis reformatis publicatarum, Lipsise, 1840. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1095 


II. The Ten Articles of Berne ^ yanuciry, 1528. 

After a lengthy hesitation the government of Berne, at the solicitation of Franpois 
Kolb and Berchtold Haller, both reformed preachers, ordered a “ disputation,” that 
the step of introducing the Reformation into the canton might be taken if it were 
proved that it was in conformity with the Bible. The month of January, 1528, was 
fixed upon as the tune for this great encounter. Zwingli had come from Zurich to 
be present. The ten conclusions drawn up by Kolb and Haller were passed with- 
out much opposition. The government, now convinced, introduced the Reformatioti 
into parish after parish. Henceforth, the ten conclusions formed the rule of faith for 
the Bernoise Church (Niemeyer, page 15). 

III. Zwinglii Fidei Ratio, July yl, 1530. 

It is a fact well known that, at the Augsburg Diet, the Lutherans presented their 
celebrated Confession, drawn up by Melanchthon, to the emperor, Charles V. Four 
free cities of the empire — Strasburg, Cofislance, Memmingen and Lindau — also ad- 
dressed the confessio tetrapolitana to him. Zwingli, not wishing to be behindhand, 
and yet, with insufficient time at his command to call together a synod, sent his per- 
sonal confession to the emperor, under the title of Fidei Ratio. This courageous, 
chivalrous, and most edifying document was barely hmked at by Charles V., aiid 
violently attacked by the warlike Dr. Eck (Niemeyer, page i6 and following). 

IV. Zwinglii Christianas Fidei Expositio, ad Franciscum, Francortim Regem, 1531. 

A few days before perishing on the field of battle, at Cappel, iith October, 1531, 
the Zurich reformer composed this last writing which he addressed to Francis I., 
enemy of Charles V. On the eve of a bloody war, Zwingli had hoped to find aid 
and support for the cause of the reformers through an alliance with France. States- 
man as much as theologian, patriot as well as Christian, he dreamed of a politico- 
religious revival in Europe. From this sprang the firm and positive tone of his Ex- 
positio, which, he thought, must surely convince the “ very Christian ” king 
(Niemeyer, page 36 and following). 

V. Doings of the Synod of Berne, 1532* 

The Reformation edict of 1528 had not started the work in the canton of Berne. 
Four years later — January, 1532 — the government convoked a meeting of the two 
hundred and thirty pastors of the country. These met in synod to organize public 
worship and determine upon pastoral duties. The worthy Capiton, of Strasburg. 
wrote the result of these deliberations in a most inimitable style, full of unction and 
cordiality. The Count of Zinzendorf’s admiration was highly excited by this great 
masterpiece, which is one of the finest monuments of the Reformation. (It is not 
found in Niemeyer.) 

VI. First Basle Confession {Basileensis prior Confessio fidei), 

Jamiary 2 ist, 1534 - 

The Reformation had been introduced into the city of Basle in 1529, through 
CEcolampadius. Five years later, the Town Council, representing civil authority, 
proclaimed the existence of the new faith in the face of accusations of impiety and 
apostasy, hurled against the Reformers by the Catholics. This Confession was origin- 
ally drawn up in German, and translated later into Latin. (It is found in Niemeyer, 
page 78, and foil.) 

VII. First Confession of Helvetic Faith, also called Second Basle Confession. 

{^Helvetica prior sive Basileensis posterio Conjessio fidei), 153^- 

Until now, the Reformers of Germanic Switzerland, although in accord as to their 
'principles, had not formed themselves into any ecclesiastical body. Each canton 
kept to itself. Outside dangers, Luther’s more peaceful attitude, and the conciliatory 


1096 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


efforts of Bucer and Capito, now induced the Swiss to send both clerical and lay 
delegates to Basle, in order to draw up a Confession of Faith, held in common by 
all the Reformed Cantons. On the 30th of Januar)% 1536, Bullinger and Leo Judae 
arrived from Zurich, Megander (Grossmann) from Berne, and these, aided also by 
Grynoeus and Myconius of Basle, prepared that excellent Confession of Twenty- 
eight Articles, endeavoring especially, notwithstanding the presence of the Stras- 
burgians, to show the worth of the Reformed principles touching the sacraments, 
although in a somewhat modified fonn. The governments of Zurich, Berne, Basle, 
Strasburg, Constance, St. Gall, Schafhouse, Mulhouse (then an allied city of Swit- 
zerland), and Bienne. (See Niemeyer, page 105, and foil.; Herzog’s “Encyclo- 
pedia,” page* 71 2, and foil.) 

Vni. Heidelberg Catechism, 1563. 

This “ Catechesis Palatina,” drawn up by Gaspard Olevianus, disciple of Calvin, 
and Zacharie Ursinus, friend of Melanclithon, both professors at Heidelberg (by 
order of Frederic HI., Palatine Elector, and patron of the Reformation), was 
received as a creed-book in all the Swiss Churches, and retained its power of uncon- 
tested authority for a long time. This excellent book, which the Swiss children for 
several generations learned by heart, was a source of great blessing to our country. 
One still finds old people who, on their death-beds, find themselves strengthened by 
reciting over the first question and answer of their venerated Catechism : “ What is 
thy sole consolation in life and death? ” “ That I belong to Jesus Christ, my faith- 

ful Saviour.” (See Niemeyer, page 390, and foil.) 

IX. Confession of the Helvetic Faith {Confessio Helvetica posterior), 

March \st, 1566. 

Bullinger had composed this admirable book in a time of loss and great distress. 
Looking forward to his approaching death, he thought to bequeath it to the govern- 
ment as bis will. Frederic HI., Prince Elector, having been informed of this, had 
It translated into German. The Swiss, threatened and accused of heresy, gathered 
round this new and perfect expression of their faith. And it is thus that Zurich, 
Berne, Schafhouse, St. Gall, Glaris, Appenzel, Thurgovia, Grisons, Bienne, Mul- 
house, Basle, and Neuchatel after some delay, Geneva from the beginning, grouped 
themselves under this banner, the Helvetic Confession, par excellence, signed latei 
by the Hungarian Reformers at Debreczen, the Polish, the Scotch, etc. It forms a 
sequel to the Augsburg Confession. (See Niemeyer, page 462, and foil.) 


X. Confessio Rheetica, 1558. 

I forgot to mention this Confession of the Rhetien Churches (the Grisons) the 
existence of whidi I have knowledge of, but which I cannot lay hands upon’ the 
copies have become so rare, owing to its having been superseded by the Helvetic 
Confpion, admitted into Rhetia eight years later. (Niemeyer appears to have 
wholly Ignored it.) 


XI. Canones Synodi Dordrechtance, 1618. 

The resolutions of the Dordrecht Synod were signed by five Swiss delegates, and 
admitted as one of the symbolical books of our cantons. (Niemeyer, page ^o.) 

XII. Formula Consensus. 

(EcdesiarumHelveticarum refonnatarum, circa doctrinam de Gratia universali ct 
connexa, aliaque nonnulla Capita), 1675. 

It Avas asserted that the Dordrecht Synod had pushed the doctrine of Predestination 
beyond the biblical teaching. A reaction declared itself at the Saumur school, 


1097 


C OND GENERAL CO UNCIL. 

oklCTwirsSss'’" T"hT!’”“’ Testard, and L. Cappel taught the- 

and I Tusanne and' na , of Saumur spread themsSves in Geneva 

Tit ‘ in Zurich and Basle. 

Zurich ivat?“’‘ conferences were organized, and Heidegger of 

aDDroteJhv th‘ t refutation of the Saunuir errors. Twfw’ork 

is tile last smbolic^ri '“"derates received the name of Formula Consensus. It’ 
fects of schools anH the Churches of Germanic Switzerland. Pastors, pre- 

Much trouWe^r^^^^^ compelled to sign this documLt. 

•'hniit ^nor^ ^ ^ ^sp^cially at Lausanne; and it is only since 

nniTP ^ said Formula Consensus has been discarded. (See Niemeyer 

page 729, and foil., and TrechsePs Article in the Herzog Encyclopedia ) ^ ’ 


nnffo? the symbolical writings of Germanic Switzerland. For centuries the 
fielvetirFTitW^^' although it is true that the Second Confession of 

'frn^y^ tL K Fomiuk Consensus was exacted only temporarily. It has been only 
Wp b^ of this century that, under the influence of rationalism, pastors 

merely according to the of the 

manic SwS confession of faith abolished in our Ger- 

manic Swiss Churches Pastors preach what pleases them. Chosen by the parishes 

IctLrbTasDhemv Th """ doctrines. Some push their negations to 

of the fnbW f symbolical writings are ignored. These sublime evidences 
t the faith of our fathers are, in the eyes of many, but historical souvenirs of convic- 
tions without any positive value. I know not if this state of things can last. A church 
without a common faith seems wanting in sense. As long as Church and state are 
united, government will interdict all confession. A reason for rejoicing at the advent 
of liberty would be the fact that believers, as well as sceptics, could not fail to be 
benefited thereby. Bernard, Pastor. 

Berne, October^ 1879. 


REFORMED CHURCH OF BOHEMIA AND MORAVIA. 


Dear Sir : 


June i^th, 1878. 


As a nmmber of the Committee on Confessions, I enclose a short statement 
about the Confessipns and formulas existing in our Reformed Church in Bohemia and 
Moravia. Helvetica H. and the Heidelberg Catechism, to be sure, are the creeds 
of all the small Reformed Churches in the whole Austrian empire, as for instance in 
Hungary; but regarding Hungary, Mr. Balogh, of Debreczin, will send you a 
report. 

I am, reverend sir, yours most truly, 

F. CiSAR, Pa.stor, 

At Klobouk, near Briinn, Moravia, Austria. 


The Confes-sion of Faith accepted by the present Reformed Church of Bohemia 
and Moravia is the Second Helvetic Confession, or the Con/. Helvetica Posterior. 
This creed had been accepted by all the Reformed Protestants of Hungary in the 
year 1567, but by the Protestants in the other parts of the Austrian empire not until 
after the Toleration Edict of Joseph H., i. e., after the year 1781. 

Before the battle on the White Mountain (1620), which was, as it were, the death- 
stroke to Bohemian Protestantism, there had been two creeds chiefly: Confessio 
Bohemica from the year 1575, used by the Calixtines, and Confessio Fra trum from 
the year 1535. The latter had been presented to the Emperor Maximilian IL, at 
Vienna, in November, 1535, by those noblemen of the kingdom of Bohemia who 
belonged to the community of Bohemian Brethren (Unitas Fratrum). 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


1098 

That the Bohemian Brethren already have agreed with the Helvetica Posterior, 
we know from the following : 

At the wSynod of Sandomir, in 1570, where all the three Protestant communities 
of Poland united, the delegate of the Bohemian Brethren, named lurnovsky, gave 
this testimony : “After having read the Confession of Zurich attentively myself, I 
have acknowledged this creed as true and as a creed of our own, for it is merely 
ampler and more distinctly written than ours” (viz., from the year 1535)- 

That this word of Turnovsky’s expressed the opinion of his whole community, 
is evident from the fact that Reformed Protestants and Bohemian Brethren in Poland 
united into one community at the Synods of Ostrorog, in the years 1620 and 1627, 
when the “Unitas Fratrum” in Bohemia and Moravia had been cruelly abol- 
ished by the anti-Reformation under the Emperor Perdinand II. 

Between 1627 and 1781 there were no Protestants at all in Bohemia and Mora- 
via ; one part of them died on the scaffold, or under the most severe persecutions, 
another emigrated, and some, few cases excepting, joined foreign Protestant churches, 
and only few of them remained and became “ secrete ” Protestants. In the long 
period of persecutions, which lasted 154 years, and even longer, even the Bible could 
have been read only at the risk of life. No wonder, therefore, that the descendants 
of the “secrete” Protestants, namely, those who left the Popish Church in conse- 
quence of the Toleration Edict of Joseph II., had only a very indistinct idea of 
what a confession of faith was. Accordingly, when Joseph II. left no other choice 
than to accept either the Conf. Augustana, or the Helvetica Posterior, our fathers de- 
sired to get the old “ Unitas PTatrum ” restored, saying their confession was that of 
the Lamb. The restoration of the old Boh. National Protestantism having been not 
permitted, those who left the Popish Church mostly acknowledged the Helvetica II. 
as their creed. And since that time, viz., since 1781, our Reformed Church in Bo- 
hemia and Moravia holds the Helvetica as her creed, together with the Catechism of 
Heidelberg (written by Olevianus and Ursinus, for Frederic III. the Pious, printed 
for the first time in 1563). The Bohemian editions of this Catechism are — before 
the Toleration and in the Exile — by James Acomtides, in 1619, then the same re- 
published in 1723. After the Toleration in Bohemia, and for the use of our present 
Reformed Church, the Heidelberg Catechism has been printed pretty often already, 
the last time in 1867. 

Helvetica Posterior experienced till now no modification nor change with us, and 
is acknowledged word for word as in Bullinger’s original. 

The Heidelberg Catechism has also not been modified nor changed in any word 
by our Church ; one year ago, however, the government of Austria prohibited to 
teach the eightieth question of our Catechism, which question declares the popisPi 
mass to be a “ damned abomination.” The government requires to cut out this 
eightieth question, or at least the last two words, from all the printed exemplars of 
the Heidelberg Catechism, and threatens to prosecute such teaching as an offence 
against the Roman Catholic Church. Our Church does everything in her power in 
order to save the eightieth question, yet there is no hope of prevailing against the 
Ultramontane tendencies of the Roman Catholic government. 

There is only one for 77 iula of subscription in our Church. It is demanded from 
licentiates and pastors, when they are called to a congregation, and its signature is a 
conditio sine qtia non to be ordained, or to be permitted to accept a call from 
a congregation. This formula, however, is demanded, not by the Church, but by the 
government, viz., the “ Oberkirchenrath in Vienna,” which is only a department in 
the “ ministerium ” for ecclesiastical matters in general. Though the Reformed 
Church of Bohemia and Moravia is a self-supporting Church, and has the right of 
choosing her ministers herself, the government, on the other hand, has the right of 
“ veto ” nearly in all things concerning our Church. We have our Synods, but 
all the resolutions must be approved by the government. Our congregations may 
elect for their ministers any of our licentiates ; their election, however, must be ap- 
proved by the government. As often as a minister changes his congregation, the 
call of tlie new congregation sent to him must always be submitted to the approval 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 1099 

of the government, and the elected minister must repeatedly sign the following 
formula : 

“ 1 , the undersigned, being called for the charge of a minister of the Reformed 
congregation at . . , , do hereby promise solemnly to perform all the duties of my 
charge, with God’s merciful help, diligently and faithfully, according to my best pos- 
sibility and conscience ; to preach the doctrine of Holy Scriptures, according to the 
Confession of Faith of my Church, and so set a good example to my congregation 
by an exemplary Christian intercourse. I do also hereby warrant and promise to his 
royal and imperial majesty, my most serene prince and lord, and after his majesty, 
to the heirs of his house and blood and succession, my inviolable loyalty and obedi- 
ence.” 

“ I do promise further to observe faithfully the fundamental laws of the State, and 
to be obedient to the laws in general, especially to the Imperial Edict,* from the 8th 
April, i86i, and to the Constitution of the Protestant Church,” etc., etc. 

“ Lastly, I do warrant that I am not, and never shall be, a member of any foreign 
political society.” 

“ Which all I hereby do confirm in the place of an oath, by the draft and signa- 
ture of my own hand.” (Date) Name. 

[L.S.] 

At the reception of new communicants [confu- 7 ?inndi) from the new members the 
question is to be answered, if they promise to remain all their life in the Reformed 
Church, “ according to the Helvetica H.” The same answer is to be asked from 
converts from the Roman Catholic Church to our Church. 

The elders are to be presented before the whole congregation at the public wor- 
ship, and then to give orally the following promise : 

“ I promise solemnly before God to guard and maintain, in my quality as elder, the 
inner and outward welfare of this evangelical congregation, and to fix my mind upon 
that, that the Church in all parts may grow into Him, who is the Head, in Christ.” 


HUNGARIAN REFORMED CHURCH. 

First Section. — Origin and History. 

The Reformation in Hungary owes its rise to Luther and Melanchthon. Between 
1522 and 1560, the year of Melanchthon’s death, Wittemberg University was attended 
by nearly five hundred regular theological students from Hungary, who, after their 
return home, became pastors, teachers, and professors, and at the same time the first 
Reformers. In the year 1 545 were held the first two Synods ( Erdod and Medgyes, 
towns), in which the Augsburg Confession was adopted and Lutheranism fixed. 
Hungary being a neighboring country to Germany, no wonder that the Saxonic 
Reformation was here first established among all the nations dwelling in that king- 
dom, viz., Magyars, Germans, Slavons. 

The Reformation of Helvetic origin came later in, and, in spite of fixed Luther- 
anism, overpowered the mind both of pastors and people, like a second reformation, 
gained the Magyars, who, renouncing the Lutheran creed, embraced with vigor and 
enthusiasm the Calvinistie form of religion. 

The same Mathias Devuy, the greatest and first Hungarian reformer (acted from 
1^30-1547,), zealous follower of Luther and Melanchthon, after having paid a visit to 
Basel (1537), whither he went for publishing his work against I. Faber, Bishop of 
Wien, and where he became acquainted with S. Grinaeus, formerly professor of 
Budapest, changed his opinions about the Lord’s Supper. Having returned to Hun- 
gary, he began to preach the Reformation in a Helvetic sense. The Lutheran pastors 
accused him (1543) before Luther for sacramentarian views. 


* Proclaiming the Protestants to be citizens of the Austrian Empire, equally with the Roman 
Catholics, and permitting to build Protestant churches and meeting-houses without any restriction. 


IIOO 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


The great struggle between Lutheranism and Calvinism began openly with the 
year 1555, when a pastor of Debreczen, Martin Kalmancsai, popularized the con- 
ception of the Lord’s Supper, in the meaning of Calvin, and preached against the 
images left in the churches. He left Debreczen, went to Kolosvar (in Transyl- 
vania), in that chief town, and in his evangelistic tour among the Magyar inhabi- 
tants of Transylvania, moved the minds of the people and caused such an agitation 
that the people of Kolosvar (its Latin name, Claudiopolis) withheld itself, during 
four years, from participating in the Lord’s Supper, refusing to take it as a true body. 

In the room- of the learned Kalmancsai, who died 1558, at Debreczen, came forth 
Peter Melius.* Melius finished his studies at Wittenberg, became teacher and pas- 
tor in 1558, at Debreczen. Privately discussing in letter with Stephen Szegedi, pas- 
tor of Lasko, the most learned reformer of Southern Hungary, Melius yielded 
to the arguments of Szegedi regarding the Lord’s Supper, became the most zealous 
leader of the Reformation of Helvetic origin, who worthily merited to be honored 
by the succeeding generation with the name of “ Hungarian Calvin.” 

Political circumstances and events favored the rapid introduction of Calvinism. 
The eastern part of Hungary, viz., Transylvania, with the neighboring large terri- 
tories as far as the inland river Tisza (Theiss), was separated by a revolution from 
the house of Hapsburg, and constituted itself as an independent principality (1556) 
under the widow Queen Isabella, and her son John the Second, a native Hungarian 
prince; thus Ferdinand I., king of Hungary, lost a part of his kingdom. As the 
Austrian P'erdinand relied mostly upon the pope and the Roman Catholics, the new 
principality (Transylvania) favored Protestantism. Under the benignant rays of 
national liberty and freedom, as a shelter, was brought forth Calvinism, but still 
not without struggles. In the first year of independency, in the year of 1557, was 
proclaimed by the Transylvanian Diet, the equal right and freedom of Lutherans 
with the Roman Catholics, without mentioning anything — any word on behalf of the 
then beginning Helvetic Reformation, towards which, however, many pastors, pro- 
fessors, and nobles were inclined. Calvinism wanted only freedom; having ob- 
tained a free ground in the political situation, it made progress and spread 
with great force. So with disputations, pamphlets, and Synods, commenced the 
process of separation of the two Protestant tendencies, till new confessions and 
creed were produced by the national spirit consolidating the Helvetic shape of 
the Reformation. 

Several conferences and synods were held in the year 1559 at the more populous 
cities of Varad (Varadinum), Kolosvar, Vasarhely and Debreczen (Debrecinum) ; 
in these gatherings and colloquia were laid down the first lineaments of the Hun- 
garian confessions by the foremost pastors, Melius, Czegledi and David. 

First Confession. 

A small synod, consisting of nine pastors, convened at Varad, August l8, 1559, 
where Melius and David, with their colleagues, drew up a “ Sententia” concerning 
the Eucharist. It was published in the same year at Kolosvar (Claudiopolis), 
whence was called ^^Confessio Claudiopolitana'’’ In the defence of that first short 
confession David wrote and published “ Defensio Orthodoxce Sententise de ccena 
Domini Ministrorum Ecclesise Claudiopolitanae et reliquorum recte docentium in 
Ecclesiis Transylvanicis ” (Claudiopoli, 1559, in quarto). In this work it is strongly 
denied that the followers of the orthodox sentence maintain “ sacramentarian 
doctrines,” while they take the Christ’s body by heart and faith, and they cannot 
imagine a greater folly than the Lutheran doctrine of eating by mouth the body 
of Christ. 

It is a pity that both the “Sententia Orthodoxa” and the “Defensio” of it are 
lost. It is curious that in Article 5 of the Diet of Thorda (June 4, 1564), giving 
full liberty of existence to the Reformed, these latter are called by the law as “the 


* His family name in Hungarian was luhasz, or Ihasz, which means a sheep-keeper - according to 
the Humanist age custom he Greased it to Pydeios, given in Latin Melius. 


I lOI 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 

followers of the Claudiopolitan Confession,” which fact clearly shows that the re- 
tormed religion was introduced into Transylvania by this first short creed. 

Second Confession. 

A second confession was drawn up at the Synod of Vasarhely (in Transylvania), 
held November 2, 1559, which is essentially the same as the “ Claudiopolitana,” 
Imt being written m the Hungarian tongue, a greater interest attaches itself to it; in 
this regard it is unique and the sole creed styled in national language before the 
separation. One copy exists from the original edition, which is kept in the National 
Museum Library at Budapest, from which it was published recently in a monthly 
scientific paper, Magyar Kbnijo Szeinle (Hungarian Book Review), November 
0, 1878. ^ 

title is as follows : “Az Urnak Vacsorajavol valo Kozonseges 
Keresztigeni vailas (Common Christian Confession, from the Lord’s Supper, which 
was made and edited by the Christian doctors both from Hungary and Transylvania, 
at the Holy Synod of Vasarhely. Printed at Kolosvar, 1559; 7 pages in large 
8vo). The whole treats solely of the Lord’s Supper. According to its own staie- 

e t, T'he eatin^ of Jesus Christ’s body and the drinking of his blood is nothing 
else than to believe and trust, with full hope of the heart, that his body was bruised 
on our behalf for the forgiveness of our sins, and that we are saved for the eternal 
life only because of his body and blood sacrifice. Thus we partake by faith in 
Jesus Christ’s body and blood. The eating of Christ’s body happens spiritually, and 
not in a bodily manner.” Generally, the short creed regards the doctrine of the 
Eucharist as the foundation of immortality. 

Third (“ Confessio Hungarorum ”). 

According to the first Calvinistic Conference of Varad, Melius and his colleague^ 
prepared, with great study, another large confession, which was discussed and 
. adopted publicly in several synods in 1560 and 1561. This is the famous Confes- 
sio Debrecinensis. 

The preface opens with that inscription, “ Pastores Ecclesiae in Debreczen 
Georgius Szegedi et Petros Melius de Somogy. . . . Magnifico Domino Francisco 
Nemeti Patrono Ecclesiae Dei et omnibus Christi fidelibus” (six pages), dated 
Debrecini, Aug. 27, 1562. We cite from this dedicatorial preface the following 
lines : “ Ergo nos ad Lydium lapidem ad coelestem doctrinam et Patrum con- 
fessionem orthodoxam, conferentes ex fontibus sacris Scripturae juxta normam 
divinorum eloquiorurn confessionein ttosiram edidimus, quam publice in Synodis 
exhibuimus, et nunc earn suis omnibus offerimus, et obtes tamur omnes veritatis 
amatores, ut suis et aequis auribus confessionem nostrum legant.” 

The title is : 

‘■^Confessio Ecclesice Debrecmensis de praecipuis articalis et quaestionil^us quiljus- 
dam, ad consulendum turbatis conscientiis, exhibita ut testimonium doctrinae et fidei 
contra calumniatores sanac doctrinae.” Debrecini, 1562. 4to, 380 pages. 

The pastor of the Reformed Church at Varad subscribed to this confession, July 
19, 1561. 

This is the first general confession, because it embraces not only the one doctrine 
of the Lord’s Supper, but also the other dogmas. It is really Puritan and Calvin- 
istic in its tenor; it throws away the auricular confession, the altar, the clergy’s 
uniform dress, the kneeling down, the use of organs, and extends grace only to 
the elect. Of the body and blood of Jesus Christ it teaches “ non adsunt propter 
panem in pane, sub pane, sed propter promissionem et in promissione, non corpo- 
raliter corpori caro Christi communicatur sed animse spiritualiter ” (page 50). 
One copy is kept in the college library of Debreczen, as an excellent monument 
from the age of the Reformation. 

At that period Debreczen and Varad, two great cities, belonged to Transylvania, 
and were ruled by a Hungarian prince, John II. ; while the city and fortress of Egef 


I 102 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


belonged to that part of Hungary which was annexed to the realm of Ferdinand I., 
tne king elect of Hungary and emperor of Germany. Under that Austrian monarch 
was sent, as chief captain of the fortress, to Eger the Roman Catholic Bishop An- 
tonins Verancz; when he arrived at his new post, he found all the people, peasants, 
nobles and soldiers, entirely imbued with Protestant tenets, led by a Protestant 
minister. The bishop tried to snforce the soldiers to dismiss their minister. The 
heroic soldiers did not obey ; the minister and teacher were imprisoned. The sol- 
diers and the nobility petitioned the king, but at the same time made a solemn 
alliance, and took oath never to renounce their faith, which they accepted with good 
conscience — in the case of faith no bishop or king having right to interfere — and 
demanded to give back their pastor, otherwise they would leave the fortress. As the 
bishop falsely informed the king, describing the soldiers as conspirators, these wrote 
humbly to their king, “ confederationem nostram non contra Sacratiss. Majestatem 
Vestram factam esse, sed in causa fidei et salutis, pro vera religione doctrina et salute 
animarum nostrarum.” 

On this occasion the population wishing to show the king whnt true faith they were 
keeping, accepted the Confession of Debreczen, February 6, 1562, and sent it up to 
the king. 

Melius, the pastor primarius of Debreczen, procured the copies of the Debreczen 
Confession for the inhabitants of Eger, ordered to be printed a new title-page before 
it, followed by a new preface to the king, and thus was the confession sent up to the 
king, the first reformed confession which an Austrian monarch had received. It bears 
the bold title, Confessio Catholical because the doctrines contained in it may be 
verified by ancient and catholic sources, which were cited largely and by the 
page, as the preface enumerates the sources : “ Si quibus hoec inaudita videntur, 
oramus ut fontes imprimis, hoc est Biblia sacra, hinc Patres prasserim August., 
Hieronym., Ambro., Chrys., Cyril, Cypr., Lombardum, Tertio Saniora Concilia, 
Rapsodius Gratiani et fideles commentarios recentium, unde haec post Sacra non 
sine labore collegimus.” 

The whole and new title of the confession is: 

“ Confessio Catholica de prsscipius fidei articulis exhibita sacratissimo et CathoUco 
Romanorum imperatori P^erdinando et Filio suae majestatis, D. reg Maximiliano, 
ab universe exercitu equitum et peditum S. R. M. a nobilibus item et incolis totius 
VallVs Agrmce in nomine sanctae Trinitatis ad foedus Dei custodiendum juramento 
fidei copulalorum et decertandum pro vera fide et religione, in Christo et Scripiuris 
Sacris fundata.” A. D. 1562. Debrecini, 380 pp. in qto. 

The dedicatorial address, on five pages, to the kings has a sublime tone, asking 
that “nobis fideliter et dementer annuant et concedant in vera et catholica fide 
permanere, pastures alere et habere pascentes nos purissimo Dei verbo.” The sub- 
-scription runs thus: “V. M. S. Humiltimi et obsequentissimi subditi fideles 
exercibus equitum et peditum ac totius civitalis inhabitatores, nobiles et ignobiles 
Agrienses.” 

This very extensive confession treats copiously of all doctrine, rites, modes of 
worship, disciplines, church rights and laws, in 226 separate heads on 352 
pages, in 410. 

Stephan Melotai, superintendent, wrote a Hungarian “Agenda,” 1621, which 
reached several editions, being in common use in the liturgy, quotes, along with 
Calvin’s Institution, ten times the “ Confessio Catholica” under the title, “ Confessio 
Hungarorum,” It is called by subsequent synods also “ Confessio Nostra.” 

The chief Hungarian confession, adopted by the first three Calvinistic churches 
and cities of Debreczen, Varad and Eger, bears two distinct titles ; the text is in 
both the same, without any alteration and change. 

In the article “ De Oratione ” (eight pages), are treated separately all parts of the 
Oratio Dominica, as also the ten commandments. 

Let us quote some theses from the article “ De Prtedestinatione.” “ Ex eadem 
massa hominum per lapsum peccatorum vincalis obligatorum secundum praescien- 
liam astci nam, cui omnia sunt prsesentia, futura et prseterita, ex peccatoribus quos 
voluit beneplacitum in sese elegit, et prtedefiniit ad vitam aeternam ex morte 
aeterna” (E. 4). 


1103 


SECOJVD GENERAL COUNCIL. 


“Alios Deus secundum justitian suam ex peccatoribus propter peccatum elegit, 
prKdehniit seu decgait ad interritum eeiernum, ut potentiam, iram in eis osterderet ” 
I). 

“ Ervaret qui dicunt nos electas ideo quia Deus olim futuram fidem, bona opera 
nostra praevident.” “ Inique docent sic: ideo electus es, quia credis, bona opera 

facis, audis^verbum Dei. Imo ideo credis, audis, sancte vivis, quia electus es ab 
aelerno” (F. 2). 

The king, berdinand I., left unmolested the supplicants, absolved the bishop upon 
his own demand from the commandant office of the fortress, nominated in his stead 
D. Magocsi, a Hungarian lord, patron and promoter of the Reformed churches, and 
noble Inend of Melius, and under his commandantship Calvinism took strong 
spiead around Eger till 1596, when the fierce Turks occupied the city, haviiif^ kept 
It under their subjugation nearly a hundred years. Melius dedicated his postilles 

rlungarian Sermons” (Magyar praedilatiok) to G. Magocsi as “to his good lord 
and patron,” in 1563 (printed at Debreczen, 592 pp., 8vo). 

All conjectures testily that Melius was the author of the “Confessio Catholica, or 
Debrecinensis. He says, in his Postillae, that these were taken not only from tPe 
wiiiings of prophets and apostles, but from the commentaries of the ancient doctors, 
as Origen, Chrysostom, Theophilactus, Ambrosius, Hieronymus, Augustinus, and 
especially from the works of the scholars of Geneva. These ancient doctors are 
cited in the confession under hand. Melius, in one ot his later works, “ Sermons 
upon the Apocalypsis” (Debreczen, 1568. 4to, 568 pp.), in a beautiful prayer, 
gives thanks to God that he gave to the Church and schools such pursers as 
Magocsi, etc. 

Melius introduced, first, Calvin’s catechism into the Hungarian schools in the 
same year as the “Confessio Catholica” (commonly called also “ Confessio agri- 
vallensis ”) appeared. The interesting book’s title is, “ Catechismus.” “ Foundation 
and Somme of the whole Christian science, according to the writing of J. Calvinus,” 
dedicated to Fr. Nemets, commandant of Tokaj, to wffiom is dedicated the Confes- 
sion of Debreczen. The second edition appeared in 1569, also at Debreczen. 

Kemaik. — Melius’s catechism is not literally a translation of Calvin’s catechism, 
but an adaptation and free elaboration of it, for the use of schools, in 152 pages. 
The strict translation of Calvin’s catechism appeared in Hungarian, in 1695. "1 he 

glorious reformed Prince of Transylvania, George Rakdezy I., ordered a valactrian 
(Roman) translation, “ Catechismula Calvinescu,” which appeared at Gyula Feheruar 
(Alba Julia), 1642; the second edition, 1656; the third edition at Szeben 
(Cibinii) in 1879. 

Fourth Confession. 

In the sixteenth century Hungary was divided among three rulers, (a) Transyl- 
vania — the eastern part of Hungary — and its adjacent territories bordered mostly by 
the great inland river Tisza. Theiss (in Latin, Tibiscus) formed an independent 
national principality, whose sovereign prince bore sometimes the title of elect king 
also ; to that principality belonged Debreczen and Varad, but not Eger, (b j Hungary 
proper (Hungaria Superior), mostly the northern, western, and partially the miildle 
parts of the kingdom, under the Habsburg dynasty, (c) The southern and middle 
j)art of Hungary suffered under the Turkish yoke. 

The Hungarian Calvinism stept over the boundaries of Transylvania when the 
common people, the nobility and army of Eger and its environ, adopted the “ Con- 
fessio Debrecinensis,” which was presented to the strong Catholic king under a 
favorable title (Confessio Catholico) in order to testify, that the Reformed are not 
heretics because they agree in the chief things with the ancient early Church, stand- 
ing on the same foot, which was marl>!Ped by Theodosius the Great, when he sanctioned 
the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitanum symbolum, what is embraced also by Melius and 
the Reformed. Melius developed a great prudence when addressing the first Cal- 
vinistic Confession for himself to a foreign ruler, who was also Emperor of Ger- 
many, he not only styled it as “ Catholic ” Confession, but even went so far as saying 
in the article of “De conciliis ” (page 200) “sicut Nicenum de trinitate et Christi 


1104 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


deitate, Mileviternuin, Arausicanum de peccato, lapsu, gratia, liboro arbitrio, fide, et 
Christ! nierito. Tridlutinuin anno 1547 et 1546 celebratuin de justificatione, de 
fide, operibus, recipimus.” This statement of the “ Confessio Catholica” is, per- 
haps, a most peculiar and extraordinary feature of the confession of Debreczen and 
Eger. And because that confession was introduced into both Hungaries (viz. : to 
Transylvania and Hungary proper), was it called, I think, “ Confessio Hungaro- 
rum,” as adopted by the Hungarians in both kingdoms. 

Besides the “ Confessio Catholica,” there is yet another which originated in 
the kingdom of Ferdinand in Hungary, which fact shows clearly that Calvinism 
advanced from Transylvania over and beyond the river Tisza among the Hungarians 
living under the Austrian monarchs. 

As the Hungarian Protestant ministers were nearly all the disciples of Melanchthon, 
the praeceptor’s conciliatory mind and mild spirit towards the Helvetic direction was 
silently transplanted to his Magyar (Hungarian) hearers, while those inhabitants of 
Hungary who belong to tlie Slavonic and German nation more rigidly adhered to 
the exclusive spirit of Luther; so it happened that among the Lutheran ministers 
beyond the river Tisza, there were some Magyar pastors who inclined to the Hel- 
vetic tendance. Some ministers assembled, in 1562, in the town of Tarczal, not 
far from Tokaj, the renowned city from its best wine. In that region of Hungary 
ruled by Ferdinand L, the pastor of Sajo Szent Peter, named Paul Tury, was 
a most learned scholar, who, while visiting the foreign universities, had been 
acquainted with the Institutes of Calvin ; having a poetical mind, he solemnized 
the magnificent work with a distinction which since is retained and repeated in our 
literature : 

“ Praeter Apostolicas, post Christi tempora, chartas 
Iluic* peperere libro, secula nulla parem.” 

The majority of the Synod of Tarczal declared on the side of Helvetic reforma- 
tion, deserted, by a disruption, the Augustan Confession, and, in order to show 
whence they would receive for future religious direction, adopted, the first time, a 
foreign creed, that is, the Confession of Beza, according to the Latin text of 1560, 
wrongly called in our ancient documents “ Confessio Genevensis.” 

Gabriel Pereneji, magnate, chief political officer of two counties, fervent protector 
of Protestantism, excited by the instigation of the Lutheran pastors, summoned 
a new synod at Uj-hely, in 1563, in order to prevent the further conquest of the 
Genevian creed, sent a deputation to the universities of Wittenberg and Leipsic, 
asking advice from thence what to do. 

The answer of these Lutheran universities condemned the Confession of Beza and 
warned Pereneji to adhere most firmly to the Confession of Augsburg. 

The strict Lutheran Pereneji called another synod at Terebes, in 1564; he cited 
before it the narrator P. Tury (Turius), wishing to expel him, after condemnation, 
from his territory. Tury absented himself, left the region as a fugitive, and went 
over to Transylvania, where he received a pastoral charge at Szanto (in the county 
of Zihar), and remained undisturbed till his death in 1575, being there also a 
strong promoter and defender of Calvinism. 

The Lutherans, allied to Pereneji, under the leadership of Michael Radaschin, 
German pastor of Bartfa, surely made a representation to the new king of Upper 
Hungary, to the Austrian Maximilian, in consequence of which appeared a royal 
edict, in 1566, ordering the towns to withhold themselves from all sort of commu- 
nications and contact with the Arians (Unitarians), and with the Sacramentarians, 
that is, with the Calvinists. Thus, although but for a short time, the Helvetic faith 
was arrested in that part of Hungary. But this hindrance, made by constraint, 
c.uised a more fresh outbreak. 

Meanwhile, in Transylvania all means w-ere tried to keep fogether both the 
Lutherans and Calvinists. The State Diet, in 1566, summoned both par- 
ties. 1 hereiore, the pastors and elders w’^ere convened in 1561, Feb. 6, to Megyes, in 


Viz. : Calvin’s Institution. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 1105 

order to come to concord in the matter of the Lord’s Supper. There the Saxon minis- 
lers (all Lutherans, speaKing German), compiled in fourteen heads a confession, 
sent It to the German Lutheran universities and to the Saxon elector, while the 
Hungarian Gahnnisis maintained the former Confession of Clausenburg and Vasar- 
nely. ihe othcial replies of foreign universities of Wittenberg and of Francfort 
weie read in the strict Lutheran Synod of Szeben in 1562, March 2. The synod 
hrmly upheld the Lutheran creed and hostilely called the Reformed brethren 
“ Sacramentanans.” 

Under the example of the Lutherans, who proved their standing by appealing to 
foreign authorities, the Calvinists were also morally forced to call on foreign counte- 
nance; thei'efore, holding a separate synod at the Transylvanian town of Torda, in 
^ 5 ® 3 > 28, they adopted the Confession of Tarczal, viz.: the Confession of 

lie^. By this act the valor and bearing of that foreign confession extended to 
l^th parts of Hungary, and received the common appellation : Confessio Tarczal- 
Tordensis. 

It was printed at the order and expense of Susanna Lovantfy, the pious widow 
of the great prince of Transylvania, G. Rakoczy L, in the year 1655, in both lan- 
guages, Hungarian and Latin, in one volume; the left page gives the Latin text, the 
right, the Hungarian translation. The title page is: 

Coinpendni 77 i Doctrines Christianae, quam omnes pastores et ministri ecclesiarum 
Dei in tota Ungaria et Transylvania, quae incorruptum Jesu Christi Evangelium am- 
plexae sunt, docent ac protirentur. In publicis Synodis Tartzaliensi et '] hordensi 
editum et publicatum Annis Domini 1562 et 1563- Patakini, typis celsissinae prin- 
cipis excudit Georgius Renius, anno 1655.” 8vo., 471 pp. 

After a shore preface come (.7) Symbolum Apostolorum, (/;) Symbolum Nicenum, 
(c) Constantinopolitanum, {L) Confessio fidei Ephesinae Synodi, (e) Conf, fidei" 
Chalcedonensis Synodi, all in two languages. Then follow the confessio itself : 

De Sancta Trinitate, I. caput, in 3 articles. 

De Deo Patre, H. caput, 1-4 articles. 

De Jesu Christo unico,Dei filio, HI. caput, 1-26 articles. 

De Sancto Spiritu, IV. caput, 1-52 articles. 

De Ecclesia, V. caput, 1-33 articles. 

De Ultimo Judicio, VI. caput, i article. 

The whole is concluded with the symbol of Athenase. 

This confession is the same as that of Beza, which was written first in French, 
edited in Latin in 1560, second edition in 1570, third edition in 1577; it was trans- 
lated into Italian in 1560; into English in 1563. 

We can state the differences between the Confession of Tarczal-Torda and that of 
Beza, in the subsequent points, (a) the first four capita accord entirely, f) the 5th 
caput of Beza consist of forty-five articles, while the Confessio of Tarczal-Torda 
numbers only tw'^enty-seven articles; therefore, some articles have been left out in 
the Hungarian synod’s text. The 7th caput of Beza with fifteen sections are en- 
tirely wanting. 

Beza was in correspondence with Melius, pastor of Debreczen. We may suppose 
that his confession came by this way into H ungaria. His authority and favor lasted' 
beyond a century, w^hich is testified by the fact that the publishing of it was orderedi 
from a high sphere, from the prince’s court. Beza’s Confession was the first for- 
eign creed adopted by the Hungarian Churches; the first golden link uniting 
Hungarians with Geneva, bringing nearer the nationally separated bodies of 
the Reformed Churches, preparing the w'ay for the idea of general Presbyterian 
Alliance. 

The consequences of the two confessions (Confessio Catholica and Tarczal - 
Thordensis) received by the Hungarians were very important in the history of the 
Hungarian Church — they prepared the way for the independency of the Reformed 
Church. 

As in Transylvania chiefly the Magyars approached the Calvinistic creed ; the 
Saxons, on the contrary, maintained rigidly the sway of the Augustan Confession. 
The creed question became a national one, dividing the inhabitants into two divi- 

70 


iio6 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


sions according to the language. The State diet of 1563 niade, by prudence, some 
concession to both parties, namely, the congregations got the freedom of distributing 
the Holy Supper according to the wishes of people and ministers, so that this might 
happen without any turbulence. Many Hungarian congregations, therefore, freely 
partook the Lord’s Supper in the Calvinistic manner. 

At last the spirit of Calvinism overtook the mind of the ruling circles. The young 
Prince of Transylvania, Sigismond John (John H.) son of Tz[)olyar, the first king of 
the Principality, with his nobles, yielding to the popular opinion, came every day 
nearer to the Helvetic conception, so that the Transylvanian Diet of 1564 20), 

judged it to be convenient to convoke a common public discussion upon the burning 
question of the real presence and of symbolical presence of Christ’s body in the Holy 
Supper. 

According to the political decision, a general national synod was convoked in 
Enged, in 1564, April 9. The Saxon Lutherans and the Magyar Calvinists came 
lastly together by the king’s permission. All attempts to make peace and concord 
between the two parties were in vain. The separation into two denominations was 
]ironounced, having each its own existence and distinction. The following State 
Diet in 1564, June 12, sanctioned officially and forever the separation. Thus re- 
ceived full liberty and existence, the Reformed Church and religion in Transylvania 
and in the neighboring territories — as, for instance, in Debreczen. All these were 
accomplished a few days after the death of the great Calvin. 

Fifth Confession. 

The Synod of Tarczal in 1562 made yet another important advanc^ towards Cal- 
vinism. As already above mentioned. Melius edited in Hungarian in the same year 
a catechism for the use of schools, according to Calvin’s Catechism. We may rightly 
suppose that through this book was popularized among us the great refcrmator’s 
conception, so fitr as the Synod adopted also as a standard work Calvin’s Catechism, 
which was later yet more strongly approved. 

Under the freer spirit pervading the eastern part of Hungary (that is Transyl- 
vania), the rigid resistance of Pereneji and Radaschin in the northern parts of Hun- 
gary proved fruitless. The Hungarian-speaking congregations around the city of 
Kassa were convened by Casper Karoli, pastor of Gonez, and senior (president of the 
confraternitate) ; and the term of Synod was fixed January 22, 1566, in the town of 
Gonez. The “ Epistola Convocatoria ” mentions the object for which the Synod was 
to be held ; “yEquum est, ut confessio synodi, quas fere ante duos annos Tarczalini 
convocata erat, in qua de praecipuis vel fere omnibus Christianae religiones articulis 
consensus fuerat institutus renovetur, et denuo confirrnitur.” 

The pastors of Cis-Tibiscan congregations under the moderatorship of C. Karoli 
(the translator of the Hungarian Bible), have drawn up tw^enty-two articles, the so- 
called “Articuli Gonocienses,” with common concord and unanimity. For our 
purpose is highly important the Third Article, in the following words : 

“Quia jam induabus synodis subscriptum est Confessioni Ecclesia Genevcnsis con- 
scriptae diligenter a Theodora Beza, ministro ecclesiae illius, illamque confessionem 
studeant sibi comparare eamque legere et discere (scilicet ministri). Non quia id a 
Beza dictum sit, sed quia conveniat cum sacris litteris. Catechesin quaque Calvini 
quae in priore synodo sufifragio communi recepta est, faciant sibi familiarem.” 

The Catechesis referred to was written by Calvin, December i, 1545. 

The synod of Gonez addressed an elegant letter, “Ad bh'atres Trans-Tibiscanos,” 
to those of Debreczen, Varad, etc., who belonged to other crowns, in which they 
•v\u ote,“Cum autem, ut scetis pro communi confessione Genevensis Ecclesiae Confessio 
fuerit recepta, et ab omnibus nobis approbala, illi hoc quoque tempore subscripsimus.” 

The synod, like that of Tarczal, put aside the use of wafer, stigmatizing it as 
“ panis nefarius.” In the address a noble testimonial was given in favor of PrTury, 
escaped formerly to Transylvania, because he could not break “ panem a nobis ex- 
pulsum,” viz.: “Panem asymum, Melius enim esse judicarunt Paulum Thurinum 
clam discedere, quam vel ad mortom redire, vel neferium panem usurpare.” They 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


1107 


Melius circulated this letter 


extol also with satisfaction the zeal of Petrus Thelius. 
among his colleagues. 

The synod of Gonez may be regarded in northern Hungary as the concluding one 
which settled the question of separation. The inhabitants of the north districts 
above Kassa remained till this day faithful to the Augustan Confession ; those, on 

Kassa, southward, kept, grasped and maintained forever the 
Helvetic form of reformation. 

Some hesitations have been experienced in the wafer’s use. A new populous 
synod was held at Szikszo, January 6, 1568, where many Cis and Trans-Tibiscan 
lethien from eighteen countries were present, accompanied by the nobility. 
Lastly, they decided as follows : r / 

“ Postquarn enim variis ac variis cum difficultatibus per complures annos collucta- 
tas fuissent Ecc.esiae Reformatoe Hungarioe propter panis azymi in Sacramento 
euchaiibtic® abrogationem tandem anno 1568, in Synodo Szikszoviensi, communi 
decreto ecclesiarum onmium cis et ultra-Tibiscanarum ejus abrogatio, et loco arbicu- 
laris hostiae, panis vulgaris in sacramentum coenae Domini, usus, publica authoritate 
sancitus et confirmatus est” (Historia Ecclesise Reformatse in Hungaria et Transyl- 
vania, a Pnd. Ad. Lampe,* 1718, vide page 178), 


Sixth Confession. 

In the phase of evolution of the Calvinistic system, a very important and lasting 
consequence flowed out of the measure taken by the Saxon Lutherans. The do<y- 
matic disputation of Megyes, February 6, 1561, ordered to be convened by the 
prince John II. (ruled 1559-1571) for peace sake, ended by making a sum of 
Lutheran faith in fourteen articles, subscribed by all pastors present, and directed to 
four foreign universities. Mathias Hebler, chief Lutheran pastor of Szeben, and 
superintendent of Transylvania, was the director of these measures. In the docu- 
ment sent abroad the Calvinistic new movement was accused heavily. Debreczen 
and its Thelius was charged and denigrated. From Wittenberg George Major cor- 
responded with the prince’s chancellor in Transylvania, 1561. The Calvinist 
preachers left the cited disputation with the firm declaration that the body of Christ 
is taken in the eucharist, “ Non ore sed corde.” 

First was Melius, who took the pen against the assailants in two remarkable 
pamphlets, the one having the title, ^Apologia et abstersio Ecclesise Debreci- 
nensis a colummis, quibus temere apud academias et principes accusatur” (Debre- 
cini, 1563. ■8vo., 36 pp.) The other is, Refutatio Confessionis de coena Domini 
Matthias Hebler, Dionisii Alesii et his conjunctorum, una cum judiciis quatuor Aca- 
demiarum Wittenbergensis, Lipsiensis, Mostochiensis et Francofurtiensis, qua Sax- 
onibus Transylvanicus diplomatis papolis instar missa sunt Anno Dom. 1561 ” 
(Debrecini, 1564. 8vo., 88 pp.) 

In a second line the Calvinist preachers and professors of Kolosvar wrote an elo- 
quent letter to the theologians of Heidelberg, annexing the writings of Hebler, ask- 
ing advice and arguments against the Lutheran stand-points. Thus both contending 
parties appealed to foreign authorities. 

The professors of the Heidelberg University directed September i, 1564, a beauti- 
ful answer to their brethren of Kolosvar, and joined the very recently appeared Cate- 
chistn of Heidelberg as a standard work in which all arguments against the Lutheran 
conception was to be found. So came into Hungary the Palatinate Catechism, 
which afterwards conquered an unheard of popularity in all parts of Hungary, and 
became by-and-by, through a common adherence, one of the most notable symbolical 
books in our country. 

Basilius Fabricius Szikszai, professor of Kolosvar (1563-1567), after having been 
called professor in the college of Patak, took with him a copy of the Heidelberg 


* Lampe was only the editor of that large history ; the author of it was Paulus Ember, pastor of 
several places, viz. ; Debreczen, Patak, Liszka; died, 1710, 


iio8 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Catechism, and, as a famous teacher, made it known among his hearers, in the realm 
of Ferdinand. 

David Husrr, son of the famous reformer. Callus Husrr, translated it first into 
Flungarian at Papa, 1577, also in the realm of Maximilian. 

i. Francis Szaraszi, the reformed pastor of Del)reczen, gave to it a better translation, 
and printed at Debreczen, 1604 (4V0., 132 pp.), for the use of schools and churches. 
It was reprinted at Amsterdam in 1650 (in i2mo., 246 pp.), with the addition of 
the Belgica Confessio in Hungarian. 

Albertus Melior Srenczi, the great Hungarian scholar, the finest translator of 
the psalms — still in use in our worship — best token of its popularity and beau- 
tifulness, translated anew in a condensed shape, edited by Herbornse, 1607 (i2mo., 
69 pp.) And secondly at Oppenheim, 1612, it was added to his Hungarian Bible 
edition as an appendix. This famed Catechism has been printed many times and 
in many places; for instance, at Basel, in 1754, in 2,900 copies, at the operation 
of Debreczen. 

The greatest national synod of the Hungarian Reformed Church, held at Szatmar, 
on June 10, 1646, in its second conclusion sanctioned the common authority of the 

Catechesis Palatina” with the sentence: “ Retineatur ac docetur.” 

This book, as most popular text-books, could not evade persecution from the side 
of the Roman Catholic hierarchy; and government, Stephan Hatvani, a reputed 
professor of the college of Debreczen, was trusted by the Presbytery of Debre- 
czen to cause the printing of it at Basel, because the typography of Debreczen was 
prohibited* to work. The prohibition of the “ Palatina Catechesis ” was in Iiun^ 
gary, by government intimations, effected when the Austrian dynasty conquered 
under its sceptre the whole of Hungary. The Catechism was classed among the 
most pernicious books and was arrested. The royal edicts are dated in 1748, 1749, 
and 1757, the catechism being in these styled as “ Sanctis Dei princibus ecclesiasticis 
et ssecularibus, toti Christiano populo et catholicae religioni gravissime injurii,” 

Under the domination of the illuminated Joseph IL, official steps were taken by 
the superintendency around Debreczen, January 8, 1781, asking permission for the 
printing and editing of the Catechism of Heidelberg. After many vexations the 
king, Joseph H., gave permission on the condition that some omission should be 
made in the questions 30, 57 and 80. 

Since, with the omission and abbreviation — leaving out some hard words against 
Roman Catholicism — the Catechism has been several times printed at Debreczen and 
elsewhere, being used as a class-book for religious teaching, even in recent days, in 
our Gymnasia. 

This sole catechism survived all other catechisms. It may be, therefore, ranked 
among the Hungarian creeds, and as a link which binds us to our foreign reformed 
brethren and to the Presbyterian churches of the world. The faithfulness to the 
Helvetic reformation during three centuries may be counted to this book, keeping 
alive the reformed conscience in the bosoms of the new generations succeeding each 
after each till the present day. The blessings of this religious book are innumerable 
in Hungary. 

SeveTith Confession, 

The Hungarian Reformed Church being entirely separated from the Lutherans in 
the year 1561 at Debreczen and Varad, in 1562 at Eger and Tarczol, in 1563 and 
1564 at Torda and Enyed, and again in 1566 at Gonez, a new danger threatened 
the newly consolidated church : the Unitarianism preached first by Slancaro, Lucas 
Agriensis, Blandrata, and lastly by the great Hungarian hero of it, Francis David, 
pastor of Kolosvar, who was formerly a high promoter of Calvinism, but afterwards 
#^educed from it by his chameleon nature. 

The eloquent David resigned the first Calvinist superintendential office in Tran- 
sylvania, and commenced to assail, in 1566, March 15th, the doctrine of the Trinity. 


* By the queen, Theresa-Maria. 


1109 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


^ v ^ ^ ^ (Fehernar) in 1566, April 24th, where the Prince of Tran- 

nn r also present Peter Melius publicly defended the doctrine of Trinity, 

and bianded openly the dubious statements of David as “ mendacium serveticum.” 

as legan the great struggle in Hungary with the Unitarians, whose tenets were 
styled from their birthplace “ Transylvanian Creed.” The once so powerful Cal- 
vmistic city of Kolosvar, capital of Transylvania, ten hours distant from Varad, 
yielded to the contagious eloquence of its famous and bold pastor, David, court- 
preacher of the prince, and to his secret friend, the court’s physician, G. Blandrata, 
«njopng the king s favor, adopted the Unitarian Creed. 

When the new creed seemed to creep in everywhere, the intrepid Melius stood 
aheari as a chanipion to defend the Evangelical Confessions, called a great synod in 
Deoreczen,\x\. which both the Trans and cis-Tibiscan brethren were present, represent- 
ing together seventeen presbyteries or seniorates, called in our church style 
“ tractus.” • •' 

The most important synod of Debreczen (convened in February 29, 1567) drew 
up a new confession directed against the Unitarians. 

The first Hungarian Confession lanced against the Hungarian Unitarians by Hun- 
ganan mind, appeared at Debreczen under the following title : Confessio 

Pasiontm ad synodum Debrecii celebratam, 24, 25, 26, et 27 Februar, a. D. 1567, 
convocatorum ” (1567, quarto 72 pp.) Dedicated to John IT, Prince and kin<r of 
Transylvania. 


On the head of the conclusions in the text, the inscription runs thus: ^^Sunima 
Confessionis et conclusionum synodi Debrecinum ad 24 Februarii convocatge, ubi 
ordine Sabellii et Serveti, Arii, Fotini, Manichteorum hgereses, et falsa dogiWta 
Stancari, psychomacaristarum, sordium Antichrist! defendsorum, et purissimo Dei 
verb as refutata et damnata sunt.” 


The essential part of this confession is the “ responsio ad argumenta Servetico- 
rum,” and the “responsio Catholica,” with eight arguments against the Unitarians, 
called Servetici, and also “ antitriadici ” in the text. 

The “ responsio ad Argumenta ” opens thus : “ Licet pluribus ordine singula Ser- 
veticorum argumenta refutata sint, tamen omnium eorum argumenta brevitates causa 
in octo capita contraximus.” 

The content and style of this confession is one of the mo?t fierce, bitter and 
vehement, because the Unitarians prepared already their own confession and cate- 
chism. The orthodox party, influenced by the strong language of Calvin, called 
the followers of David “ Servenci canes” and “ Serveti cse sues.” The emotions 
were enhanced by the like injurious terms of the Unitarians, and by their bold 
negations of all principal dogmas, saint to the orthodox. The confession alludes 
to the versatile manners of the Unitarians once having been Lutherans, later Cal- 
vinists, describing them thus: “ Ecce arundines quovis vento agitatse, obliii horum 
omnium (enumerated above in the text their variations), nunc nova mendacia finxe- 
runt et tuentur. Negant triadem, negant Christ! Deitatem subsistentem, negant 
Spiritus Sancti Deitatem.” 

As the Uiiitarianism made a rapid progress even among the people, Melius saw good 
to publish “ the short confession of pastors” in Hungarian, and in more popular 
style and form, so it appeared in the same year in a new and developed Hungarian 
edition, under the title Debreczeinbe dszregyult Kereseiydn prcedikdiorohiak igaz 
es szent-irds suvint vald valldsokP (True and scriptural confession of the Christian 
preachers assembled at Debreczen,) 56 pages. 

It is dedicated by Melius to “the pious and Christian merchants” in several 
towns of the country, in order “ to be capable to dig the mouths of heretics in 
everywhere.” 

It is sure that the Hungarian edition is not a literary translation, but a new work, 
m some parts more short, and redacted in another order, divided in more chapters, 
omitting the scholarly method. 

It is to be remarked that this original confession, in both tongue and form, treats 
not only from the tenets of Unitarianism, but comprehends also all reformed dogmas, 
refuting the papal conceptions. For instance, it treats of the sin, of the soul, of the 


mo 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


wafer’s use, of the singing, of the dress of ministers, of the chapels, of the election, 
of freewill, of the Lord’s Supper, of the burial, etc. All these doctrines are pre- 
sented to the people in true reformed spirit, in powerful language, with very origi- 
nal Ilungaiianism. The Hungarian edition shows the dogmatic style of our lan- 
guage, and is the best specimen of our ancient literature. 

With any doubt the writer of these confessions was Melius, the lines being glow- 
ing by his fire and consuming zeal. 

Eighth Confession. 

The Epoch-maker Synod of Debreczen (1567), proves to be, for the Hungarian 
Reformed Churcii, in many more points, of unsurpassed importance and of lasting 
consequences. Here begins the definitive consolidation and organization, it was 
the crowning of the edifice of the Reformed Church. 

Here were prepared, statuted and approved the first “ canones ” along with the 
discipline. “ That was necessitated by the heavy times and circumstances, being 
the new church forced to defend its pale, assailed and menaced by three enemies, 
viz. : the Roman Catholics, Lutherans and Unitarians.” 

The first laws and discipline bear the title : 

^^Artictdi ex verbo Dei et lege naturte compositi ad conservandam foHtians eccle- 
siasticam, et conformandam vitam Cliristianam in omnibus ordinibus necessarian!. ” 
(Printed at Debreczen, 1567, quarto, 68 pages, reprinted at Debreczen, 1591, 4to, 
68 pages, being called “Articuli Majores,” resanctioned in the General Synod of 
Varad, in the year 159I, June 6th.) It contains 74 articuli. 

The synod had laid down the basis of church-organization by adopting these 
“Articuli,” at the same time re adopted and confirmed the first general confession, 
originated at Debreczen in 1560, the so-called “ Confessio Debrecinensis,” denom- 
inating it as their own confession with these very words (taken, cited from the in- 
frascription of the “Articuli ” dated 1st September, 1567), “Omnes Ecclesite niin- 
istn qui in conventu sacro ad 24th P'ebruarii, Anno Domini 1567, Debrecinum 
convocato, cis et ultra Tibiscum His Articulis, et eojifessioni nostra . . . subscrip- 
serunt.” By that act of synod the confession of Debreczen and Varad, adopted by 
the city of Eger, and presented to the Kings of Habsburg dynasty under the new 
title as “ Confessio* Catholica,” became verily the “Confessio Hungarorum.” 

At last the same synod with unanimity accepted with solemn decision the second 
Heh/etic Conjessioti as a standard symbol, as may be seen in the last, id est, 74lh 
Articulus, which ends thus: “ subscriptimus Helveticie Confessioni, A. D. 1566 
editm, cui et Ecclcsise Genevansis Ministri subscripserunt, Et quicunque confessionem 
nostrum in synodes confirmatam, et hanc confessionem Helvetica?)! Tiguri editam, 
aut Articnlus hos, et verbo Dei, lemere rejecerit, solverit et contrarium docuerit, 
jurisdictione ecclesiastica puniendam statuimus.” 

With this confirmation was inarticulated as a permanent symbol the Helvetic 
Confession, which must be kept and taught. From that International Confession 
are the Hungarian Reformed, officially called “ Followers of Helvetic Confession.” 
Our ancestors showed through this legal act, that we are connected with the Euro- 
pean sister-churches and completing members of the universal Reformed Church 
family. 

The Helvetic Confession was first translated into Hungarian by Peter Czene, 
pastor of Ersek-Ujvar, later on superintendent, and edited at Oppenheim, 1616 (8vo. 
192 pages), it IS dedicated to the Church of Hungary and Transylvania. The sec- 
ond edition, along with the Latin text, appeared at Debreczen, 1616 (8vo., 392 
pages), it is dedicated to Fr. Rhedei, Captain of the Fortress of Varad. The third 
edition, at the order of the Prince G. Rakoczy’s widow, was printed at Patak, 1654 
(8vo., 296 pages). Afterwards it was edited, till the recent times, at many times, 
and is still reappearing. 

In the religious peace of Lincz (1645, September i6th), concluded between 
George Rakbczy I., Great Prince of Transylvania; and Ferdinand HI., King of 
Hungary, was confirmed the religious liberty, which was enacted in the State diet 


nil 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


of 1647, in the fifth law article. In that fundamental law occurs, first time officially 
and legally used, the denomination for the Hungarian Reformed, the expression, 
those of Helvetic Confession.” In the subsequent law-terms and style both Pro- 
testants are called “evangehei ulriusque confessionis,” understood always the 
ConfSon) Augsburg Confession), and the Calvinists (those of Helvetic 

Churches have had, and have still the denominational 
name, “ hoilowers of Helvetic Confession.” 

^ In Danubian part of Hungary, subjected to the House of Plabsburg, was held a 
great syiod at the town of Komjat, in the year 1626, where “ Canones Ecclesiastici ” 
were laid down “ communi suffragio Ministrorum Dei,” by which are governed till 
now, the presbyteries. In that fundamental canons only the Helvetic Confession 
was adopted and sanctioned. These canones are distributed in five classes; Servia 
Claris, canon IV., runs thus; “Ad ministerium ecclesiasticum nemo debet ordinari, 
nisi qui mediociem cognitionem Articulorum fidei orthodoxse, secundum confessionem 
nostram Helveticam, habere probatus est in examine publico” . . . etc. 

The same canons were adopted by the superintendency around Budapest, and 
edited in Hungarian tongue at Varad in the year 1642. Finally the great National 
Synod at Szatmar (1646), afresh expressed its consensus with the Helvetic Con- 
fession, ordeiing in its second conclusion “aequissimum Sanctse Synodo visum est, 
et publica aliqua confessio, Apostolicae et Helveticse correspondens breviter con- 
cipiatur.” 1 he demanded “aliqua confessio” never was made, but remained in 
vigor the ancient Helvetic Confession. In the nineteenth conclusion the licentiates 
are commanded and advised to teach according to the Helvetic Confession. The 
whole of Hungary, at its every part, legally and formally adopted the Helvetic 
Confession, which therefore is the general common confession of the Hungarians 
till to-day. ** 


Ninth Confession. 

The great battle began to be fought between the Calvinists and Unitarians after 
the great Synod of Debreczen, where the orthodoxes stood on firm and rocky basis, 
viz., upon Christ’s divinity clearly propounded in their own creed, and in the Hel- 
vetic Confession, and in the organization’s articles. 

Fr. David wTote a philippic against Melius, with the inscription, “Refutatio 
scripti P. Melii” (September, 1567), dedicating it to John II., asking in it the freest 
possible discussion and freedom in religious matters, in order to propagate his Uni- 
tarian tenets. By the instrumentality of some friends in the court of the Prince, 
David got a printing-press, the property of state. Henceforward many assailing and 
stormy pamphlets, full of “ horrendis et abominandis imaginabus,” traiting, depicting 
the Holy Trinity, came to light from the Unitarian press. Many leading political 
men around the young and wavering Prince favored the new movement, and the 
State Diet of Torda (January 6th, 1568) empowered the congregations to hold such 
a pastor whose preaching pleases and satisfies their opinions. The Unitarians got 
by that elastic law' the conviction that they are unhindered and free to work in spread- 
ing their tenets. Tacitly it was so. 

Lucas Agriensis, pastor of Ungvar, was the promoter of Unitarianism in Upper 
Hungary, who explained in twenty-seven articles his Unitarian views, similarly to 
those of David. To hinder its spread, the Synod of Kassa w'as convened January 
27th, 1568, in the territory of King Maximilian, by the pastor of Kassa, Thomas 
Hilarius, under the protection of Lazarus Schvendi, chief captain of the royal army, 
who himself was a Lutheran. The assembled orthodox pastors gave in their “Re- 
sponsio” likewnse in twenty-seven theses, refuting those of Lucas. 

Lucas was by overw'helming majority damned as heretic, and at the same time a 
short creed was drawn up by this Synod in two heads, under the title ^'■Confessio 
Ecclesiarum orthodoxai-um superioris HungarieE in synodo Cassoviensi conscripta et 
publicata.” The short creed or symbol, tw'o pages only in seventy has been pre- 
served in the “ Historia Ecclesiae Reformatse,” edited by Lampe, pages 211-213. 
The conclusion is “ Huic ver?e et orthodoxae confession! omnes ministri ecclesiarum 


III2 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


superioris Hungarice in eadem synodo congregati bona fide subscripserant.” In all 
subscribed to it forty-five pastors, whose names are conserved in the “ Historia” 
edited by Lampe (page 214). From among the subscribers we cite Hilarius, the 
president; Dr. I, Vitus, pastor of Patak; Basilius P'rabricius Sziksrai, rector scholse 
Patak; Michael Henesi, pastor and senior of Miskoloz, etc. 

Lucas Agriensis, cum a serveticis suis opinionibus quam quam Hasreseos manifeste 
convictus, recedere nullet . . . tan quam Hasreseos publice convictus in carcerem 
projectus ac ultra quinquennium fere in captivitate detentus ferit.” The arrestation 
was caused by General L. Schwendi. The severe measure may be explained by thq 
situation, that the scene of working of Lucas fell under the dominion of the Austrian 
house, led by Romanism, where even the Protestants had never enjoyed such a 
liberty than in Transylvania and in the neighboring Hungarian territories subjected 
to Protestant princes. This is the origin of the ^^Cojifessio Cassoviensis.'^ 


Tenth Confession. 


Meanwhile the Unitarianism of David made in Transylvania proper a rapid pro- 
gress and conquest. The churches and consciences were shaken and perturlied. 
Therefore the Prince, John 11 . , ordered to be held a common disputation at Fehervar 
(Alba Julia), in the year 1568, March 8th, which lasted ten days, being opened and 
continued in the royal palace. The Prince with his court was jiresent, and took 
lively interest in it. Melius and David, chief champions, stood against each other. 
According to Melius’s opinion, the outcome of this disputation caused “more ruins 
than edification.” Each party adhered firmly and tenaciously to its respective stand- 
point ; the court and many nobility were inclined to the side of David. At last the 
IVince dissolved the dispute, giving free course and career to debate further in the 
literary field. 

Melius and the true orthodox allies saw, with some depression and marked sad- 
ness, that the Prince and his counsellers — among whom seven were Unitarians 

favored the Unitarian principles. The capital of Transylvania, Kolosvar, embraced, 
by the operation of its pastor, Fr. David, the Unitarian profession, who, as a court 
preacher, was elected for the first superintendent of Unitarians. David, in his new 
office, convoked, by the will of the ITince, a second great disputation to the strong 
city of Farad, in I 5 b 9 > October 10, to be held in Hungarian tongue, in order to 
popularize the new faith. In the letter of convocation, David sneered at Melius’ 
party, saying that the Reformed party confess in the Deity a “ quintitas,” while they 
(Unitarians) confess “unitas,” and branded the dogma of Trinity as a mere human 
fiction. David brought forth for discussion “nine propositions,” against which a 
thorough refutation (“Argumenta adversus propositiones F. Davidus et G. Bland- 
ratae”) was objected by Melius’ party. 

The most serious dispute lasted six days. The presidency — called officially 
model atorship was trusted royally to G. Bekes, chief-in-time counseller of the 
Prince, a layman and grand proprietor. The Prince being present, took personally 
part in the discussion, like Blandrata too. ^ 

Melius defended with great heroism the Trinity against the majority, aided by the 
splendid favor of the court. Finally the orthodox ministers concentrated their 
creed m a ^‘sententia eathoiieaf containing six points, confessing truly and clearly 
t^he Holy Trinity. Subscribed to it sixty pastors from Transylvania and Hungary 
fi.r instance as Melius and his colleague from Debreczen, Peter Karoli from vJrad 
G. Karoli from Goncz, M. Henesi from Miskoloz, Valentin Hellopteus (the first 
Hungarian hearer of Calvin’s Academy at Geneva, in 1566), Paulus Turi from 


' The result of the Varad disputation, the “sententia catholica,” was followed by a 
new confession, termed ‘^Confessio pastorum totius ecclesue orikodoxa c.s et ultra 
1 ibiscum, eoruni omnium qui in synodo Varadina hsereticis sese uno spiritu oppo- 
suerunt (two pages in 4to). This brief confession was called, two centuries later, 
by the great historian, Peter Bod, “confessio pulcherrima,” and may be found printed 
in Lampe s “ Historia,” pp. 250-252. By the text itself it is styled also “ confessio 


III3 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

party defending the Trinity in the disputation bore the name 
“Catholics,” m face of Unitarians. 

The separate and independent position of the Unitarians was forever effected at 
me disputative Synod of Varad, since never came together with the Calvinists and 
.Lutherans. The prince, in heart already Unitarian, who named in one of his inter- 
locutions in Synod the Unitarian profession a “true religion,” dismissed the Synod 
with open favor and grace with these princely words : “ I wish that freedom should 
in my realm everywhere reign.” That is, no hindrance shall be put to religious 
opinion whatever. Melius foresaw the dangerous consequences, notwithstanding he 
has been ready to appear in the Synod in order, as he expressed, “ to defend the 
honor and deity of Christ.” And he did it wdth utmost fidelity and admirable vigor 
and intrepid courage, not terrified by the antipathy of Prince and his counsellers. 
“ He never feared the face of man.” Nothing shows more clearly the intention of 
the Prince, than the fact that he nominated for moderator of the Synod Casper 
Bekesi, most powerful protector of the Unitarians. 

Note. — The Hungarian theological students at the University of Wittenberg, 
having been touched by the fierce contest at home, prepared with enthusiastic ardor 
an “orthodox confession of XVI points,” submitted it to the judgment of their pro- 
fessors. From among them George Major took a lively interest in the Hungarian 
dogmatic controversies, in so far as he himself wrote a refutation against the state- 
ments of David and his followers made in the Synod of Alba Julia. 

All the XVI theological students, along with their senior, accepted and subscribed, 
taking oath, “se in harum thesium sententia perpetpo permansurus.” At the same 
occurrence the zealous students made a statute or regula for their coetus, that for the 
future nobody shall be incorporated as member of the Hungarian Society without 
accepting by subscription and oath the Trinitarian Confession of Students. This 
Confession may be read in Lampe’s “Historia,” pp. 257-263, and is directed espe- 
cially against Blandrata’s and David’s teaching. 

Eleventh Confession. 

After the decision and steps of the Synod of Varad, many Reformed authors came 
forth for defending with their pens the orthodox doctrine. Stephen Szegedi, one 
of the most learned Hungarian reformators, pastor of Keve and superintendent, 
wrote in 1570 “Assertio vera de trinitate” (otherwise “libellus contra Arianus ”), 
which, handed over to Beza, was printed at Geneva in 1573 (one copy of which 
exists in the British Museum’s library at London). Valentin Hellopseus, pastor of 
Eger, finally Melius’ successor at Debreczen, wrote “ Tractatus contra antitrinitarios,” 
edited by G. Major, at Wittenberg, 1570. Peter Karoli, professor of Hebrew and 
Greek at Kolosvar, afterwards pastor at Varad, addressed two works against the 
Transylvanian Unitarians (1570 and 1571). Melius wrote three works, the one in 
Hungarian, the other also, but in verse, in order to popularize the orthodox views, 
the third in Latin (“Principia immota,” 1570). 

These were not remained without reply by the other side. Some foreign scholars 
paid also attention and interest to the affairs then going on in Hungary, for instance. 
Wolf, Simler, Beza, Bullinger, Christophorus Threcius, friend of Beza, Lubieniecius, 
afforded the orthodox party in some or other forms of aid, letters, encouragements, 
editing. 

Melius wrote a letter to Bullinger (April 27th, 1569), in which he said “nos stantes 
in praslio singulis horis cum Antitriadicis,” and sent to him (Bullinger) for editing his, 
refutation of the “ Serveto — Biandriciti; ” wrote also against the “ Rabbinorum blas- 
phemias Parisii editas,” because some rabbins, as Joseph Rabbi, felt themselves encour- 
aged to assail the Christianity, seeing that from the bosom of it arose new deniers of 
Christ’s divinity. Melius has been in correspondence also with Beza, whose two letters 
to Melius are yet extant, writing in the first (March 9th, 1570), alluding to the work 
sent in Geneva, “ judico enim et recte et diligenter a te confutatos perditissimorum 
Lstorum blasphemias, et hos tuos labores ecclesise admodum utiles futures. ” In the 
other letter Beza answered (dated June i8th, 1570), “primum omnium, mi Meli, 


III4 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


fortem hunc aninium tibi a Domino, confirmandse reliquorum fratrum fidei causa con- 
cessum, gratula,” and promised his works will be printed. 

In order to bring to end the disputation, interrupted at Varad by the prince’s de- 
parture, Melius summoned a new Synod to Csenger (in Hungary), to 26th July of 
1570, preparing and publishing beforehand the propositions lor discussion in fifty- 
one theses. 

David and his associates did not appear, the prince having interdicted to extend the 
dispute beyond Transylvania’s proper boundaries. Thus this Synod of Csenger was 
solely held by the orthodox Calvinists. There was spoken out the last word against 
the Unitarians in the lifetime of Melius, without a prince’s heavy partiality, freely 
pronouncing the firm protest against all anti-trinitarian tenets. Thus originated the 
Confessio Czengei ina, which was printed at Debreczen, 1570, and dedicated to the 
prince, John II., in a strong dedicatorial letter by Melius, August 10, 1570, precede 
ing the confessio proper. 

We delineate the description of the first edition. 

Title, ^‘Confessio vera ex verbo Dei sumpta, et in Synodo Czengerhia uno consensu 
exhibita et declarata.” 

The heads are : 

I. De uno et solo deo. 

II. De unigenito Dei Filio ab teterno. 

III. De spiritu sancto vero et solo Deo et domin® subsistente et in se vitam hab- 
ente. 

IV. De vocabulis et phrasibus quibus Spiritus S. utitur de Deo per Prophetas et 
apostolos. 

V. De regulis explicantibus phrases loquendi de Deo. 

VI. De lege et evangelio in ecclesia. 

VII. De vitibus et sacramentis ecclesise, de baptismo infantium et de coena 
Domini. 

VIII. De libertate Christiana in cibo, potu vestitu, et de locis conventus ecclesite. 

IX. De aprosopolepsia in deo, sum hos saluat, illos indurat. 

X. De causa peccati : de mediatore Filio Dei. 

XI. De tollendis foedis hsereticis et Antichristis, cum litteris Theodori Bezte ad 
Ungaros scriptis. 

Debrecini (excusa ab Andrea Lupino), A. D. 1570. 4to. 28 pp. 

We cite one passage from the article “ De sacramentariis : ” “ Rejicimus et eorum 
delirium qui coenam Domini vacuum signum vel Christ! absentis tantum memoriam 
his signis recoli docent.” 

As to the construction of this confession, we must remark that, to the eleventh 
capitula put to the front, does not correspond the single inscriptions in the text, 
where the theses of the capitula are divided into several small pieces, but the con- 
tent fully agrees, so that the eleventh capitula may be taken as an epitome, or sum- 
marized statements, except the eleventh “ de tollendis hsereticis,” because in that topic 
no decision may be found in the context, being left out from the confession, perhaps 
for prudence sake. 

It must also bear to mind that, before the Synod fifty-two theses were laid down, 
and only the twelve final theses are provided with expressly mentioned answers, the 
other forty theses, probably from the affinities of objects, are more briefly treated and 
incorporated in fewer articles. For preface there is inserted two arguments against 
the deniers of Trinity. The style of that confession is far less elevated than that of 
the preceding ones, the vigor and force of mind being exhausted in the great dis- 
putes and in the special pamphlets. 

The confession of Csenger had entered into the collection of the European creeds, 
but erroneously titled “polonica.” Sec “Corpus syntagma Confessionum Fidei” 
(1612, quarto), the pages 186-200. The edition inserted into the “ Syntagma ” 
must be corrected as “ Confessio Hungarica,” may be regarded as the second edi- 
tion, taken from the Debreczen edition. The ^'‘Confessio Czengerina,'’’ recently was 
translated into Hungarian by Ajon Vriss, Reformed pastor at Porcsalma, and edited 
at Budapest, 1877, 8vo. 


Number, 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 




CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE^OF^THE COOTESSIONS OF THE HUNGARIAN 


The Names of Confessions, Place, and Time of 
ADOF iioN, Readoption, ok Sanction. 


II 


^ 559 , Aug. i8, orSenten- 
Domini. Probably the same as 
^ Apology is also lost, or at 

Confessw ^ Vdsarhely, Vasarhely, 1559, Nov. 2. The 
text IS Hungarian, with the title “ Az Urnak Vacsora- 
jarvl, reprinted at Budapest, 1878, 8vo., 7 pp. Discov- 
ered recently. (Both against the Lutherans.) 

Cov/essio Debreczinensis, Debreczen, 1560, Varad. is6i 
whence its other title, “ Confessio Catholica,”’ 
Agnvallensis ; ” it is also and worthily 
called Lonfe-ssio Hungarorum,” and “Confessio Nos- 
tra. Sanctioned again at Debreczen, 1567 

Confessio Tai^zal-Tordensis, Tarczal, 1562, Torda, is6v 
otherwise, Confessio Genevensis, or Confessio of Beza • 
the edition of Patak bears the name “ Compendium Doc- 
trmae edited in one volume, both in Latin and Hunga- 
rian (hrst foreign confession adhered to) 

Catechism ^ Calvin, Tarczal, 1562, Goncz, 1566. Second 
edition Debreczen, 1569, 4to. Third edition, Kolosvar 
^095, i6mo , III pp. Valachian edition at Gyula Feher- 
''T Julia, in Transylvania), in 1642, and again, ibid- 
em, 1656 ; and again from only literary point at Szeben, 

1879. Second foreign creed approved by Hungarians 

Catechism of Heicivlberg, or Palatinate, came in use from 
^5D4i alluded to in the Synod of 1567, sanctioned at Szat- 
mar-Nemeti, National Synod in 1646. Second corrected 
edition at Debreczen, 1604, 4to., 132 pp. Herbornse, 1607, 
i2mo., pp. Oppenhcim, 1612. Afterwards printed in- 
numerable times. (Third foreign creed) 

Brevis Confessio Pastorum, Debreczen, 1567. Idem in j 
Hungarian, in a cnnci.sed form, with the title “A Debrec- I 
zenbe oszvegyult Keresztyen prediratoroknak . . . valla- | 
snk ” Printed separately at Debreczen, 1567, 4to., 64 pp. | 

First confession made against the Unitarians , 

8 Helvetic Confession, Debreczen, 1567, Feb. 24; Kornjat, 
1626 ; Szatmar, 1646. There are many editions, viz. , Op- 
penheim, 1616, 8vo., 192 pp. ; Patak, 1654, 8vo., 296 pp. ; 
Kolosvar, 1755, 8vo., 291 pp., with both Latin and Hunga- 
rian texts, to which added the “ Formula Consensus Eccle- 
siarum Helveticarum,” also with two languages ; Debrec- 
zen, 1791, 8vo., 199 pp. (Fourth foreign and general con- 
fession) 

Confessio Cassoviensis, Kassa, 1568, or “ Confessio Superi- 
oris Hungarise ” against the Unitarians ; it did not appear 
separately, but preserved in Lampe’s “Historia” (Tra- 
jecti ad Rhenum, 1728, 4to., 919 pp.), on pages 211-213.... 
Confessio Varadinensis , Viirad, 1569, Oct. xo; or Confessio 
pastorum cis et ultra Tibiscum ; or Confessio Catholica 
(Confessio pulcherrima), preceded with the “ Sententia 
Catholica;’’ it was not printed separately, but preserved 
and may be read in Lampe’s “ Historia,’’ on pages 250- 
252. See ibidem, 246-249 pp. Prepared.against the Uni- 
tarians. It may be joined to it the “ Confessio Studioso- 
rum Theologiae Wittebergaecongregatorum.’’ See Lampe’s 

“Historia,” 257-263 pp 

Confessio Czengerina, Czenger, 1570, July 26; or, Confessio 
vera; or, Confessio Hungarica. Second edition Gene- 
vae, 1612, 4to., in the “Corpus et Syntagma Confession- 
urn,” from 18^200 pp. Third edition in Hungarian trans- 
lation, at Budapest, 1877, Svo., 21 pp. Directed princi- 
pally against the Unitarians, but at the same time contain- 
ing the whole peculiar tenets of the Helvetic Reformed 
tendency 


Debreczen. 


■ Place of 
Edition or 
Printing. 

Year of 

Edition. 

Size. 

Pages. 

Kolosvar. 

1559 

lost. 


Kolosvar. 

1559 

Svo. 

16 

Debreczen. 

1562 

4to. 

380 

Patak. 

1655 

Svo. 

471 

Debreczen. 

1562 

Svo. 

152 

Papa. 

1577 

Svo. 

36 r 

Debreczen. 

1567 

4to. 

72 

Debreczen. 

1616 

Svo. 

392 


1570 4to. 


28 


iii6 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


The Transylvanian Unitarianism reached its apogee when the prince declared him- 
self also to belong to the Unitarian creed, and in the State Diet of Vasarhely, in 1571, 
January 5, enacted the full freedom for the Unitarians, with these words: “ For his 
confession, nobody should’ be injured, neither preacher nor people.” The rapid 
flourishing state, however, lasted not long, the disastrous days began to cloud the 
sky of the Unitarians ; the prince — to whom they owed so much — died in the same 
year, March 19, “the first and last Unitarian king.” The following princes 

were at first Roman Catholic, later on Reformed, and withheld all protection. Their 
second chief protector, G. Bekes, daring to rouse a revolution for the crown of 
I'ransylvania, was beaten and exiled. The once famous David, their reformator, 
the Hungarian Arius, went to the extreme, to the denying the worship of Christ, and 
so lost the support of Blandrata and P’austus. Socinus, who visited Kolosvar in 1578, 
did not approve the new advance of David, as dangerous; and David accused 
by his own friends, was cited before State tribunal, and, as a fiction teacher, blas- 
phemator, was judged to imprisonment for life at the fortress of Torda, where 
he died, troubled in mind, not long after, in 1579, November 15. There exist in 
Transylvania at the present day about 53,000 Unitarian inhabitants, divided into 106 
congregations. 

Melius, who rescued with his never-wavering mind and firmness, the Cal- 
vinistic, as well as the orthodox doctrines in the districts of this side and yonder 
side of Tisza, so that after three centuries elapsed, not any one congregation of 
Unitarians can be here found, died at Debreczen in the year 1572, December 15. 

The Church of Debreczen decreed in its session to commemorate his achievings 
on the tercentenary day of his regretted death; the ‘beautiful commemorative ad- 
dress was held by Fmmerick Renesz, learned pastor of Debreczen, in 1872, Decem- 
ber 15. A memorial ode (in verse) was also circulated by a professor of theology 
of the college of Debreczen, where the theological students held also a solemn gath- 
ering, remembering the victorious hero of their church. 

That the Calvinistic creed came victoriously out from the Romanist, Imtheran, 
and Unitarian battle-field, the chief merit — humanly speaking — for it ought to be 
counted to Peter Melius, whom Beza, in his letter dated 1573, September 18, and 
addressed to a Hungarian lord, Baron Nicolaus Telegdi, mentions with due honor, 
remembering him (Melius) with Szegedi, as “veteran! et fortissimi aeternaque me- 
moria dignRsimi athletce.” Lampe’s “ Historia,” p. 274.* 

In somme, the Hungarian Reformed Church have had eleven creeds or confessions 
created or introduced from 1559-1570. Of this number seven were made in Hun- 
gary, the most noteworthy, the Confessio Debreczinensis and Czengerina; two were 
written in Hungarian tongue, four in Latin, two in both languages; four were intro- 
duced and appropriated from abroad. 

These home confessions — made according to the occurrences — by and by lost 
their authority and binding vigor, the Confessio Hungarorum (or Debrecinensis) had 
the longest duration; as far as in 1621 it was cited regularly by Milotai in his 
“Agenda,” as proof for the Reformed liturgy, but the Synods do not mention them 
in the seventeenth century. 

Second Section. — The Survived Confessions and ihei'r Value, 

Only the Helvetic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism remained firm in 
public mind, and even acquired the ever-growing importance, so far as they have 
been regarded as our “Libri Symbolic!.” The causes of that state of things have 
been several, viz. : first, that these two confessions and creeds expressed more fully 
and perfectly the doctrines of the Reformed tendency than those of the confessions 
written at home and occasionally; second, the Reformed, willingly and by prudence, 
arranged themselves under the standards of the two foreign symbols, in opposing 


^ * See the interesting essay of E. Sayous “ upon Melius.” I’etablissement de la Reformeen Hongrie,” 
in the “ Bulletin” of the French Protestant Historical Society, 1873, No. 5. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 1117 

them to the Augustan Confession, which was solely adopted by their Lutheran breth- 
^ seemed therefore necepary to adhere to such a valuable confession as was 
the Helvetic one; third, the primary national confessions could not be remodelled 
or revised being surpassed by the foreign creeds agreed to; fourth, being the Hun- 
garian Reformed Churches, under separate political governments, and severed one 
lioin another, to avoid the confusion, they deemed more advisable to show the in- 
waid unity, to approach each other by adopting one common confession. For these 
reasons new confessions did never more appear. 

In the first religious war against the Austrian government, the Protestant party, 
under the leadership of the great hero of Hungarian Calvinists, Stephen Bocskay, 
demanded the leligiuus liberty for the Augustan and Helvetic Confessions in i6ot;, 
November 21. ^ 

The Danubian Superintendency— following the example of the Tibiscan district, 
whi^h fiist sanctioned, in 1^67, the Helvetic Confession — held an important Synod 
at Kornjat, in 1626, September 13, giving to itself the denomination of Helvetic 
cis the C 3 .nons there 3 .clopted, with evidence testify for it, they were first 
printed in Latin and Hungarian, under the title “Canones Ecclesiastici in quinoue 
classes distributi, quibus Ecclesia Helveticam Confessionem amplexcC . . . reguntur” 
(Varadini, 1642, 8vo., 87 pp.) The most recent edition with the same title at Pest, 
1864, 8vo., 67 pp. 

The “Canones Kornjatini” testify clearly the authority and weight of the Helvetic 

Confession. For instance, in the Canon VII., Class L, the superintendent elect 

called episcopus — is obliged by law to buy a copy of Helvetic Confession (“Sumlo 
Bibliorum codice, et Confessione Helvetica”); Canon VHL, the formula juramenti 
begins thus : Ego, ministrorum Dei et Ecclesiarum, Helveticam Confessionem am- 
^ plectentium, legitime electus episcopus,”* testa . . . etc. The Canon IV., Class III., 
speaks of the pastor’§ ordination with these terms: “ Adminislerium ecclesiasticum 
nemo debet ordinari, nisi qui mediocrem cognitionem Articulorum fidei orthodox^e, 
secundum Confessionem nostram Helveticam, habere probatus est.” Canon VHL 
in forma juramenti, the pastor, before ordination, swears, “Salam fidem catholicam, 
libris canonicis Prophetarum ac Apostolorum comprehensam, secundum expositionenl 
Helveticae nostrae Confessionis, praedicaturus.” 

In the district of four united Presbyteries around Patak, in the Synod of Ujhely 
(1630, June 5), we have a description from the“Ordo Agendorum Synodalium,” 
the tenth point delineates what must be done before the ordination, viz., the senior 
(moderator) had the duty to ask some questions to be answered by the candidate; 
the fourth question was, “Verbum Dei num juxta exegesim Helveticae Confessionis, 
et Catechismi Palatinatis interpretaturas es?” And afterwards followed the impo- 
sition of hands. The formula juramenti was this : “ Ego . . . juro . . . doctrin- 
am puram, quse a Sanctis Dei Prophetis, et Apostolis Jesu Christi in nos derivasa, 
sacris Bibliis comprehensa, in Helvetica Confessione et Catechismo Palatinati ex- 
posita est, et interpretatur, pro mensura doni nihi a Deo dati, docebo” (Lampe’s 
“ Historia,” 725 p.) Paulus Ember, the author of the “ Historia,” edited by 
Lampe, was ordained “secundum hunc vitum,” for the ministry of Patak, in 1683, 
June 12. 

The great movements of English Puritans and Independents resounded in Hun- 
gary, causing much agitation here. 

Stephen Talnai, a talented and eloquent licentiate, after having spent six years in 
London, came back full of the spirit of Puritanism and Independentism, and stood 
forth as a nf>vator, being appointed professor to the college of Patak. The superin- 
tendent of the Tibiscan district, Stephen Keresszegi, pastor of Debreczen, for pre- 
venting the disturbances likely to be raised, summoned a general synod of both Ti- 
biscan districts to Debreczen on September 22, 1638, laid down the decree, that 
henceforward no person will be admitted “ Ad ullam functionem ecclesiasticam vel 


* It was in use, and still it prevails, from the beginning, that the official name of superintendent 
sometimes are changing for “ Episcopus,” a mere title, being the Reformed in Hungary very Pres- 
byterians. 


II i8 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


scholasticam,” till he does not make a profession from his orthodox views, and does 
not promise obedience to his ecclesiastical superiors. 

According to this decision the senior of the presbytery of Zemplen held a special 
synod at Patak, November lo, 1638, decreeing in eight points the propositions which 
must be subscribed and confirmed by oath by all persons to be introduced in office, 
ecclesiastical or scholastical. The second point runs thus: “Quod Confossionem 
Helveticam et Catechesin Ileidelbergensem sine admixtione omni alienee doctrinee in 
schola et ecclesia docebit” (the licentiate or candidate). 

Stephen Talnai, against whom was directed the above measure, had been forced 
to subscribe to the eight points. But he did not cease to spread his views against 
the authority of moderators, so the struggles rolled on, till it ended in the great na- 
tional synod of Szatmar, June 10, 1646, by sanctioning the church discipline and 
confession in one hundred canons and thirty conclusions, and gave a stability to the 
reformed church, both inwardly and outwardly. The one consequence of the Hun- 
garian Puritan and independent movement led at last to the severe maintenance of 
the Helvetic Confession. 

The greatest national synod of Szatmar convened under the protectorship of the 
Transylvanian prince, George Rakoczi I., and under the presidency of Stephen 
Katona Gelei, commonly approved and adopted as standard creeds both the fleidel- 
bergensis Catechesis and the Helvetic Confession. 

Let us see some questions from the “Acta Synodi Nationalis.” The second con- 
clusion says : “ Eadem ubique Catechesis Heidelbergensis sen Palatina retineatur ac 
doceatur.” The nineteenth conclusion binds the licentiates that they “ Propheticam 
et Apostolicam, quse in Confessione Helvetica, ac Catechesi Heidelbergensi compre- 
henditur, sententiam addiscent, eandemque et non aliam quandam docebunt.” 

The twelfth conclusion obliges the ministers that “ Si non frequentius, saltern die- 
bus Dominicis a meridie conciones catecheticas, juxta seriem Dominicarum in quas 
Heidelbergensis Catechesis est distributa, et quodem Canonicae Scripturae loco as- 
sumto, habeant.” This last conclusion took such a lasting force that even in present 
days, at every Sunday afternoon, the questions of the Heidelberg Catechism continue 
to lie explained in chair to the people. Suitable hymns had been prepared, distributed 
in fifty-two Sundays throughout the year, following the content of the Heidelberg 
Catechism. These catechetical hymns are revised and introduced into the new 
Psalter (came in common use from the common accord of the four Hungarian super- 
intendencies August 24, 1806. See also the Fiftieth Edition, Debreczen, 1877, 8vo., 
491 pp., viz. : the hymns from 80 to 137.) Our church remained faithful to the 
ordinations of the national synod. 

All these facts most evidently verify that only two foreign standard books survived. 
The year 1646 marks the final decay of all previous confessions, which were legally 
and formally replaced by two. They became verily the “ libri symbolici.” We may 
justly call the year and the synod of Szatmar an epoch-making one. The leader of 
the orthodox party, the living expression of the age, was the great superintendent, 
St. Katona Geleji (l>orn 1589, died 1649), who studied two years at Heidelberg, was 
a friend of D. Paraeus, from hence he derives his predilection to the Heidelberg 
Catechism. The hundred canons which perpetuated his great name being called 
also “ Canones Gelejiani.” The great characteristic feature of the Hungarian 
reformed church is the conservatimism which got a telling expression in the A^cts of 
the epochal synod. - 

Henceforward all sorts of state papers and edicts use for official denomination the 
confessional one. The state diet of Sopron, April 24, i6Sr, “ De libero religionis 
exercitio,” Auriculus XXV., says: “ Neque Augustanae et Helveticae Confession! 
addicti ad caeremonias confessioni suae contrarias compel luntur.” 

The fundamental stale law of 1790' 9 L Article XXVI., on which repose the re- 
ligious liberty of the Hungarian Protestants, uses always the appellation, “ Evan- 
gelici utriusque confessionis,” naming also distinctly in the preamble, which 
precisely describes the free religious exercise, “ Regnicalarum Evangelicorum tarn 
Augustanae, quam Helvelicae Confessioni addictorum.” 

T. he supeiintendency around Debreczen, sending his deputies to the great synod 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1119 


of Buda, September 8, 1791, gives some instructions and commissions to them, one 
ot which is as follows: “Contra veritatem revelationis et Christianse religionis con- 
tra llelveticam Confessionem,” “ in tlie public church schools no teaching should be 
used (kevesz: Figyebinezo, 1875, 152 pp.) 

Count Samuel Tellki, chiel patron of the reformed church, in his letter Aucrust 
29, 1806, congratulates Michael Benedek, pastor of Debreczen, when the latter was 
elected as superintendent, urging specially that “the pure religious teaching must be 
to the accredited symbolical books,” alluding to the Catechism of 
Heidelberg and to the Helvetic Confession. 

The general conference of four reformed superintendencies convened at Pest in 
1822, fixed anew the formulas juramenti of new pastors, binding them in their 
teaching to the Helvetic Confession. 

^ The Danubian superintendency around Budapest, consisting of eight presbyteries, 
in Its particular synod in 1839, revised the ancient formula of oath. According to 
the new text the superintendent (moderator) shall take oath with the terms that “ he 
will watch over the purity of the evangelical holy doctrine as it is exposed accordincr 
to the Holy Writ in the Helvetic Confession. Similar oath is required from the 
chief-curator and aid-curator (co president, elder-moderator), as well as from the 
senior and from the single ministers. A later particular synod. May i, 1863, ordered 
to publish the “ Canones quinque classium,” with the Statutes brought since 1796, 
and with the formulas juramenti spoken of above (Canones Ecclesiastic!, edited by 
M. Polgar, Pest, 1867. 8vo., 108 pp.) ^ 

Approaching the ter-centenary anniversary of the Helvetic Confession, the Trans- 
Tibiscan superinlendency, in his Assembly of Debreczen, approved the overture that 
the reformed college of Debreczen shall keep a school-feast for the commemoration 
of the Helvetic Confession adopted February 24, 1567, in Melius’ age, at Debreczen. 
Accordingly, the solemn school-feast w'as held February 24, 1867, in the spacious 
oratorium of the college in the presence of the professors, elders of Debreczen 
Church, superintendential officials, as for instance, Peter Balogh, the superintend- 
ent, and students. A professor of Pastoral Theology held the speech, giving the 
History of the Confession, saying, “It is convenient and due that the Helvetic Con- 
fession should be also to-day kept in respect and remembrance as a token and seal 
of the Hungarian Reformation.” The speech was edited; the income from the 
price had been set apart for a memorial to be erected for Melius. The other four 
superintendencies made nothing in this respect. 


As Regards the Questions. 

T. What are the existing creeds or confessions composing the Presbyterian 
Alliance ? 

We may answer : The previous creeds and formulas and confessions are enumer- 
ated above in successive series, with their respective origin and brief history. Nei- 
ther of them have passed through any later modification, because all the home 
confessions have been put aside between the year 1626 and 1646, being legally sub-, 
stituted by the only survival of two, viz. : the Helvetic Confession and the Catechism 
of Heidelberg. 

2. What are the existing formulas of subscription, and what have been the previous 
ones ? 

The previous formulas of subscription w^ere : (a) the subscription and oath from 
the part of pastors, and (h) decrees of adoption formally made in synods by the 
present members. Presently the manner of subscription wholly disappeared from 
use, and nothing else exists than the official oath from the part of pastors, seniors, 
.superintendents and professors when they are ordained or installed to their respective 
office or sphere of action. 

3. How' far has individual adherence to these creeds been required ? 

Only the ministers, and sometimes the chief and aid-curators (curator-supremus, 
co-adjutor-curator) from among the elders, are bound to give oath for the maintenance 
of the Helvetic Confession, but the private individuals become members of the church 


1120 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE, 


by the pure receiving of baptism, and by the act of first communion of the Lord’s 
table, preceded by a catechetical teaching and instruction in their low age, mostly in 
twelve years of age, which preparative instruction and introduction to the Lord’s 
table is called confirmation. The teachings are given to the youth at some places by 
the school teachers, at other places by the ministers of the parish, ended by the exam- 
ination, where the minister and the parents are present. Individual or personal 
professions are wholly unknown. The catechetical sermons every Sunday afternoon 
in the churches keep alive in the common members both the sense of the reformed 
doctrines and the faithfulness and the Protestant conscience. Similar effect is pro- 
duced by the schools, where not only the teaching of Protestant church history, but 
specially the teaching of the Heidelberg Catechism, according to which are con- 
ducted the dogmatical lessens — keep flaming the feeling and conviction towards the 
reformed church’s evangelical principles. So it happens that neither ritualistic ten- 
dency, neither the giving of the reformed religion occurs but exceptionally and 
very rarely in Hungary. 

In Conclusion 

we cannot omit the new constellation. In the Superintendency beyond the Tisza, 
a particular synod was held at Debreczen, in 1871, where an important and marking 
step was taken regarding the value of our symbolical books, taking in order of day 
the revision of the former formulas of oath, and the subject was resolved by the 
advice of a special revision-committee, whose leading members were, among others, 
Emerick Revesz, Pastor of Debreczen, most learned investigator of Hungarian 
Church History and Rights; and Solomon Tisza, who now is Prime Minister of 
State, and Chief Curator of a superintendency. 

In this Assembly it occurred, the first time, after three centuries existence, that the 
distinct mentioning of Helvetic Confession, or any other symbol, was omitted from, 
or at least tacitly understood in the solemn engagement by oath of all kind of office- 
bearers. Namely, in the revised and confirmed formulas of oath only general state- 
ments are to be found. Looking to the part of official oath treating the denomina- 
tional engagement, the formula juramenti is thus termed: “I (the superintendent) 
shall watch for the maintenance of the purity of evangelical doctrine and of the prin- 
ciples of our religion.” The senior (moderator of a tractus or presbytery) swears 
thus: “ I . . . shall faithfully watch for the maintenance of the doctrinal principles 
established by our holy mother church.” The professors of theology ancl in other 
branches, swear: “ never to hurt in their teaching the pure Protestant Christianity.” 

It is true and evident, that in these formulas the symbols are expressly not men- 
tioned, but they are not abrogated in the use of public worship, looking at the cate- 
chetical sermons, at the contents of hymn-books, and at the schools. On the other 
hand, when in the formulas of oath of moderators is spoken of, of the maintenance 
of doctrinal principles as “established by the Church” openly is avowed, that the 
accredited and existing denominational doctrines are understood tacitly, never being 
altered, changed, revised the official symbols. The right of revising, defining and 
establishing the specific doctrines in creed belong to the church, but she does not as 
yet see the time arrived at to do any alteration of it. 

What steps are to be taken for the future by a National General Synod, and when 
will it be assembled ? nobody can say prematurely. There is now in project and 
serious preparation the scheme of such a great synod, for the purpose of uniting all 
the five separate superintendencies of the whole Hungarian Reformed Church. 
(See “ The Catholic Presbyterian,” No. XHL, “ Recent Proceedings in the Hun- 
garian Reformed Church.”) But, regarding the wavering of mind, hesitations and 
unfavorable agitations of our own moving epochs, all dogmatical questions are 
beforehand excluded from out the first General National Synod, which fact shows, 
that thus far no intention exists to change the creed or confession of the Reformed 
Church. 

There are here and there voices and signs of wishing to revise the old confession, 
our symbolical books, or of letting them fall down, but there are strong convictions, 
too, to maintain them. F'rancis Balogh, 

Professor of Church History in the Reformed College of Debreczen. 


1121 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

SPAIN. 

The Pan-Presbj^terian Synod, met in Edinburgh, in July, 1877, agreed that a re- 
port should be drawn up of the existing Confessions of b ailh, or of those which have 
existed in other times in the countries where there are or have been Reformed 
Churches which have followed the Presbyterian form, in order to give an exact and 
detailed account, as far as possible, in the General Report which the Rev. Dr. 
Schaff will present in the approaching synod to be held in Philadelphia, United 
States, in 1880. We shall here answer, although very briefly, in the order in which 
they are proposed, the questions which bear upon confessions in Spain. 

First Question. — What are or ■were the Confessions of Faith of the Refor7)ied 
or Calvinisiic Churches of Spam ? 

This question is answered by saying that there have been in all three, that of the 
sixteenth century, that of 1869, and that of 1872. 

With regard to the first, that of the sixteenth century, I am able to say very little, 
as I have not a copy of it in my possession. I have heard that Senor Valkspinosa, 
once pastor in Barcelona, in the years immediately succeeding the Revolutions of 
1868, but whose actual residence I have not been able to find out, had a copy; I 
myself have been unable, in spite of diligent search in libraries, both public and 
private, to come across a copy of it. 

All that I have been able to find out about this confession is the following: 

The Spanish Protestants resident in England made and published a Confession of 
Faith which was received by their brethren in other lands. 

According to references found in several authors, whose works I have carefully 
examined, the title of this confession is the following: 

“ Confession of Christian P'aith made by some believing Spaniards, who, fleeing 
from the abuses of the Romish Church and the cruelty of the Spanish Inquisition, 
abandoned their country in order to be received as brethren in Christ by the Church 
of the Faithful.” 

Gerdes says that it was published in London in 1559 (Florilegium Libr. Rar. 
page 87, ed. 1763. Scriniun Antiq., vol. I., page 151). The s^me Gerdes gives 
extracts from this Confession of Faith in his Scriniun Antiquarium, vol. I., page 
149, 150. . , I 

It was published in Spanish and German, in Cassel, in 1601. It was also pub- 
lished in German by Joaquim Ursino, in Antwerp, in 1611. 

The articles of this confession (which, I believe, was Arminian) were twenty- 
one, and I have reason to believe that Casiodoro de la Rema helped in its forma- 
tion. 

The second Confession of Faith, in Spanish, was drawn up in Sevilla, in 1869 [I 
have reason to believe that part, if not all, was drafted in Gibraltar by a meeting of 
Spaniards before the Revolution. — J. Jameson], at the instance of the then pastor 
of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Dr. Juan Cabrera, and was accepted by his 
church in Sevilla, and also by the churches of Cordova, Granada, Malaga, Cadiz, 
and Huelva, whose pastors formed then the Assembly of the then-called Spanish 
Reformed Church, and assisted in the formation of the confession. 

This, confession contains twenty-five chapters, and at the foot of each page are the 
proof-texts. [This confession is based on the Westminster Confession, and is in 
many cases a literal translation. — J. J.] 

The title of this confession is : 

“ Confession of Faith of the Reformed Spanish Church, approved by the General 
Assembly, in 1869.” 

There is a seal on the title-page which bears the following inscription : “ Central 
Consistory of the Reformed Church of Spain,” and below Dios es A?ftor (God is 
love). 

This confession, a copy of which accompanies this report, fell into disuse when 
the Confession of ihe Spanish Christian Church was adopted by the General Assem- 
bly at Madiid in 1872. 

71 


1122 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


The third Spanish Confession of Faith was made in Madrid, in 1872, and adopted, 
as I have said above, by the General Assembly of the Spanish Christian Church, in 
which were represented four congregalions of Madrid [those of Madera Baja, Cala- 
brara, Limon (now Leganitor), and Permelus], and those of the Holy Trinity in 
Savilla, Cordova, Malaga, Granada, Cadiz, Huelva, Jerez, Cartagena, Comunas, 
Barcelona, Zaragoza, Valladolid, Comunas, Santander, Mahon (Island of Minorca), 
and later on (in 1874) by the new congregation of San Fernando. 

At present several of these churches have ceased to recognize that confession, 
having been transferred to other missions, or having voluntarily transferred their 
allegiance to others. Such are the congregations of Santander, Zaragoza, Barce- 
lona, Malaga, Mahon, and Madera Baja of Madrid. 

This confession has its title as follows: 

“ Confession of Faith of the Spanish Christian Church, adopted by the General 
Assembly of the same, held in Madrid, in April, 1872,” It consists of twenty three 
chapters. When it was first published it had no proof-texts, but later a new edition 
was published as part of the periodical “ La Suz,” with the texts. 

It now is the recognized confession of all the congregations still forming part of 
the Spanish Christian Church, and has suffered no alteration since its first forma- 
tion, 

in addition to these three Confessions of Faith, there existed at one time, in the 
Church of Madera Baja, Madrid, a kind of confession or code of discipline (and I 
call it so as I do not find any special name more suitable), which had as its title : 

“ Organization, Profession, and Discipline approved by the Church of the Madera 
Baja,” This code or organization of the Church of Madera Baja was peculiar to 
itself, and in consequence its action did not affect others than those who were re- 
quired to accept it in order to membership of that church. 

The time which this organization obtained in the Church of the Madera Baja was 
only two years, for framed in 1870 it was superceded in 1872 when that church 
entered into the organization of the Spanish Christian Church. In the formation of 
this special confession. Dr. Somerville, of Glasgow, took a principal part, being at 
that time in Madrid. 

Second Question.- — What have been or are the formulas or methods of adhesion 
to these different Confessions of Faith? 

Answer. — With regard to the confession of the sixteenth century I am, of course, 
quite unable to speak. With regard to those of 1869 and 1872 I may sny that with 
regard to the pastors the formula of adhesion was and continues to be their declara- 
tion of entire conformity with the text of the signing of the same, both which con- 
ditions are required previous to ordination and in addition the solemn promise to 
preach in agreement with the contents of the said confession. These formulas of 
adhesion exist still and have not been altered as far as I know. 


Third Question. — Has adhesion to the Confession of Faith been required from 
all the members well as from the pastors of these churches? Has it been required 
from the elders ? 

Answer. — With regard to the members, it has not been required in any shape. 
All that is done in the churches connected with the Spanish Christian Church is the 
following: The pastors, when receiving any one as member, submit him (or her) 
to an examination in which they address a greater or smaller number of questions 
based on the Confession of Faith. If these are satisfactorily answered they are de- 
clared members of the church, and if not, their admission is delayed until such time 
as they have received the necessary instruction. 

With regard to the elders in the churches which have such office-bearers [which 
are only three or four, on account of the peculiar circumstances of the people among 
whom we labor and from whom the elders have to be chosen], it is required of 
them, as of the pastors, that they declare their conformity with the Confession of 

(Signed) JoAQUiM Maza Jimenez, 

Moderator of the Spanish Christian Church. 


1123 


Si:C02VZ) GENEJ^AL COUNCIL. 

Confessi^ ^fn change of name and the formation of the new 

which had forMiPd P 1 -“^ amalgamation of the churches of Andalucia, 

hnldincT p vcf^oimed Spanish Church, with the other congre^mtions, 

S ,f " '■‘'= 7 - 'he Peninsula, such as ,he Church of Madera Ba a^iu 

Others ’ It • United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and several 

Church is as vet n the organization of the Spanish Christian 

t^luuch IS as yet in a considerably imperfect slate. As has been indicated several 

Smifander^and^'J'"^ clipped off, owing to various circiimsiances, such as those of 

ArmstmT Missions; Valladolid, under the direction of L. B. 

^e ra t o "if Liverpool Committee for Evan- 
geization i» Spam (undenominational); Barcelona, under the charge of M. 

Empagtaz of the Swiss Free Church ; and recently Madera Baja, on the transfer- 

Missio^L A?e''bl^'’‘ Cabrera, to the Spanish and Portuguese Episcopal 

M s. tons. A semblance of Presbyterial rule is kept up in Andalucia by those still 
remaining in union with the Spanish Christian Church, who are the tmstors and 
P ’ Granada, Cadiz, San Fernando, Jerez and Huelva. But 

Peninsula no other organization is attempted, partly from the isolated 
position of the pastors and partly from the fact of each mission pertaining to a dif- 
lerent foreign church or evangelization committee. 

John Jameson. 

V. 

FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


The following are the papers accompanying the Report of the Committee on 
Foreign Missions (see page 613) : 

BRIEF REPORTS OF THE FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE AMERICAN 

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES. 

I. Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. 

The Foreign Mission operations of the Presbyterian Church in Canada com- 
menced in 1846, when the Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia appointed Mr. J, 
Geddie as a missionary to the New Hebrides. Ten years subsequently, in 1856* 
the same Church appointed Mr. G. N. Gordon also to the same field. In’ 1858 the 
Free Church of Nova Scotia appointed Mr. P. Constantinides to a mission in Turkey, 
which appointment he resigned in 1861. In 1859 the Presbyterian Church of Nova 
Scotia appointed Mr. S. F. Johnston to the New Hebrides. This appointment was 
followed by the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces appointing to different 
stations in the same field, Mr. J. W. Matheson, in 1862, Mr. D. Morrison and Mr. 
J. D. Gordon, in 1863, and Mr. W. McCulloch and Mr. J. McNair, in 1866. Iti 
1867 the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces appointed Mr. J. Morton to 
the island of Trinidad. In 1869 the Church of Scotland, in the Lower Provinces, 
appointed Mr. J. Goodwill to the New Hebrides. In 1870 the Presbyterian Church 
of the Lower Provinces appointed Mr. K. J. Grant to Trinidad, and in 1871 Messrs. 
J. D. Murray and J. W. McKenzie to the New Hebrides. In the same year, 1871', 
the Church of Scotland, in the Lower Provinces, also appointed Mr. H. A. Robert- 
son to the New Hebrides. In 1872 the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces 
appointed Mr. J. Annand to the New Hebrides, and in 187^ Mr. T. M. Christie to 
Trinidad. 

In 1856 the Presbyterian Church of Canada appointed Mr. G. Stevenson as a 
missionary to India, and in 1861 Mr. R. Jamieson to British Columbia. In 1862 
the Canada Presbyterian Church appointed Mr. J. Nesbit as missionary to the 
Indians in the Northwest Territory; in 1864 Mr. D. Duff to British Columbia; in 
iS 65 Mr. A. Matheson to the Northwest Territory; in 1868 Mr. W. Fietcher to the 
Northwest Territory ; in 1868 Mr. W. Aitken to British Columbia; and in 1869 
Mr. J. McNab and Mr. D. B. Whimster to the Northwest Territory. In 1869 the 


1124 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Church of Scotland in Canada appointed Mr, E, M. Epstein a missionary to Sa- 
litnica, and in 1872 Mr, T. Hart to Manitoba. In 1872 the Canada Presbyterian 
Church appointed Mr. E. Vincent to the Northwest Territory; in 1873 Flett and 

Mr. H. McKellar also to the Northwest Territory; in 1871 Mr. G. L. Mackay to 
China; in 1874 Dr. J. B, Fraser also to China; in 1876 Mr, J. M. Douglas to India, 
and Mr. A. Stewart and Mr. D. C. Johnson to the Northwest Territory. In 1876 
the Church of Scotland, in the Lower Provinces, appointed Mr. J. F. Campbell a 
missionary to India. In 1877 the Canada Presbyterian Church appointed Mr, Sol. 
Tunkansaicye a missionary to the Northwest Territory, and Mr, K. J. Junor to 
China. In 1879 the Presbyterian Church in Canada appointed Mr. J. Wilkie a mis- 
sionary to India. 

In addition to the above-mentioned male missionaries, the Presbyterian Church in 
Canada, in 1873, appointed Misses Rodgerand Fairweather as missionaries to India; 
in 1876 Miss Blackadder to Trinidad; and in 1877 Misses Forrester (now Mrs. 
Campbell) and McGregor to India. 

01 the above-mentioned forty-six missionaries, nineteen have resigned, six have 
died, and two, namely: Messrs. G, N. Gordon and J. D. Gordon, were killed by the 
natives in the New Hebrides. 

The missionaries at present in the several fields are the following: 

In the Nezv Hebrides Mission Messrs. Robertson, Annand and McKenzie, sta- 
tioned at Erromanga, Aneityum and Efate respectively. There are associated with 
them twenty-one teachers and teachers in twenty-one schools. There are 142 com- 
municants in this mission. Connected with the mission is “The Day Spring,” a 
mission ship, which last year (1879) sailed 10,000 miles, paid 100 visits to missiorr 
stations, harbors and heathen islands, carrying missionaries, their wives, families, 
native teachers and natives, besides making her two regular voyages to Sydney, in 
New South Wales. The Sabbath-school children of the Church in Canada con- 
tribute ^250 sterling to her support. 

. In the Trinidad Mission Messrs. Morton, Grant and Christie, stationed in 
Savannah Grande, San Fernando and Corwa Districts respectively. Associated 
with them are two teachers and four native evangelists. There are twenty-one 
schools and 817 scholars in this mission. 

In the mission to the Indians in the Northwest, Messrs. J, Mackay, Flett and 
Tunkansaicye, stationed at Prince Albert, on the Saskatchewan, Okanase and Fort 
Ellice respectively. There are also two teachers connected with this mission. 

In the Chinn Mission Messrs. G. L. Mackay and Junor, stationed at Tamsui, in 
the island of Formosa. In a little more than eight years twenty chapels have been 
opened, two mission houses built, and twenty native helpers trained; five schools 
are sustained, five Bible women are under training, 300 communicants are enrolled, 
and more than 2,000 persons have renounced idolatry and attend Christian worship. 
There is also an hospital in Tamsui, at present under the care of Dr. Ringer, doing 
excellent work. An hospital has been established at Kelung, under the care of Dr. 
Mann. 

In the Central India Mission Messrs. Douglas and Wilkie, stationed at Indore, 
and Mr. Campbell at Mhow. Associated with them are three female missionaries. 
Misses Rodger, Fairweather and McGregor, who are chiefly employed in orphanacre 
and zenana work. ^ 

The Indian Orphanage and Juvenile Mission,” besides supporting four high 
caste zenana day-schools, providing for the support and education of seven or eight 
orphans at Calcutta and Poona, supports about fifteen orphans and two Bible women 
at Indore, and contributes to “ The Day Spring” and the Trinidad Mission. 


II. Foreign Missions of the Reformed Presbyterian Church — General 

Synod — U. S. A. 

The subject of Foreign Missions was first presented to the First Reformed Pres- 
byteiian Church, Philadelphia, in 1819. At a meeting of the synod held that year, 
a committee, of which the Rev. James R. Wilson,- afterwards Rev. Dr. Wilson, was 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 1125 

chairman, presented a report recognizing the obligation of every evangelical church 
to engage m this work, and suggesting several different fields. It "closed with a 
resolution that a Missionary Society should be organized, but nothing definite seems 
o have been done. The first practical development of missionary effort appeared 
in the Sabbath-school of the First Reformed Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. A 
young man, who had already devoted himself to this work, instituted a system of 
collections in each class on every Sabbath day. The amounts received were appro- 
piiated for several years to a mission school in the Sandwich Islands; but when the 
Western Foreign Missionary Society was organized, the contributions of the Re- 
uirmed Presbyterian Church were paid into its treasury, and afterwards to the 
Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church. For a number of years the 
amounts from the Sabbath school reached ;^6oo or ^700. About the same time a 
society was organized in the First Reformed Presbyterian Church called the Juve- 
nile Missionary Society, which, by means of a periodical which it issued for a num- 
ber of years, did much to awaken and stimulate mi.ssionary feeling. This society 
having devoted its special attention to the education of heathen children, an institu- 
tion was formed^ under its auspices at Saharanpur, Northern India, which has been 
the means of giving a Christian education to a large number of native children, 
many of w'hom have become members of the church, and some have been ordained 
to the ministry. 

The first missionary of the Reformed Presbyterian Church was the Rev. J. R. 
Campbell, afterwards D. D., who, with a number of other missionaries, was sent out 
by the Western P'oreign Missionary Society, leaving Philadelphia November 9th, 
1835, and arriving at Saharanpur, November loth, 1836. Mr. Campbell was sup- 
ported for a few' years by a society called the Mercer County Missionary Society, 
composed of members of the Presbyterian, the Associate, the Associate Reformed’ 
and the Reformed Presbyterian Churches in Mercer county, Pennsylvania. The 
Board of Missions of the Reformed Presbyterian Church defrayed the expenses of 
his outfit, and soon afterwards assumed his entire support. Subsequently, Messrs. 
James Craig, a missionary teacher. Rev. J. Caldwell, and Rev. J. S. Woodside, with 
their w'ives, were sent out. As repeated calls for additional missionaries had not 
been responded to, the General Synod, in 1854, resolved to adopt the plan which 
seems to have been taken in the primitive church by the Presbytery of Antioch 
(Acts xiii. 1-3). After setting apart a day for solemn prayer wdth fasting, tw'o per- 
sons were designated and called upon to go forth to the heathen world. One of 
these, Rev. David Herron, w’as pastor of a church in Harrisville, Pennsylvania. 
The other, Rev. William Calderwood, was at that time a licentiate. Recognizing 
the call of the head of the church by his appointed representatives, these young men 
went forth to India and are still laboring there. 

Otlier missions of the Board of the General Assembly have also had laborers from 
the Reformed Presbyterian Church, as in Africa and in China. 

It may be proper here to mention that the Reformed Presbyterian Church (Gen- 
eral Synod) has done her work on the foreign field through the General Assembly’s 
Board, to which her contributions for this purpose have been paid, and wdiich has 
superintended their expenditure. The relation of the General Synod to the mission 
in India has been entirely and exclusively ecclesiastical. A Presi)ytery called the 
Presbytery of Saharanpur was organized in 1838. The Board of Foreign Missions 
of the Reformed Presbyterian Church has acted in the collection of funds for pur- 
poses s}>ecified. 

The number of missionaries, male and female, from the Reformed Presbyterian 
Church has been fourteen. The amount collected for missionary purposes (esti- 
mated) ,$100,000. 

Rev. T. W. J. Wylie, D. D. 

III. Foreign Missions of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, U. S. A, 

The first formal movement made by the Reformed Presbyterian Church for the 
establishment of a foreign mission was in 1845. Hayti, in the West Indies, was 


1126 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


selected as ihe field. A mission family Avas sent out in 1847, missionaiy hav- 

ing adopted views on the subject of the Sabbath inconsistent wilii the faith of the 
church to which he belonged, returned within two years, and the mission was in- 
definitely suspended. 

Tlie Synod in 1855 resolved to renew the effort for the organization of a mission 
in foreign parts. .Syria was chosen as the field, and, in 1855, two mission families 
were sent out with Damascus as an objective point. Zahleh was selected as the cen- 
tre of operation. The work had scarcely commenced when the missionaries were 
violently driven out by the fanatical population. This led to the removal of the 
missionaries to Latakia in 1858, with a view of operating mainly among the tribes 
of the Nusarieh. From that date the mission has been carried on without interrup- 
tion and with encouraging success. The original missionaries were Rev. R. J. 
Dodds and wife, and Rev. Joseph Beattie and wife. A re-enforcement consisting 
of David Melheney, M. D., and wife, went out in 1864. In 1866 Miss Rebecca 
Crawford joined the missionaries to take charge of a girls’ school. The mission in 
Aleppo, in charge of the United Presbyterian Church in Scotland, with all its appur- 
tenances, was transferred to the mission in Latakia, with request to take charge of 
it. Mr. Dodds removed to Aleppo in 1868, and remained there until his death in 
1870. Rev. S. R. Galbraith and wife and Miss Mary E. Dodds joined the mission 
in 1871. Rev. Henry Easson and wife in 1872, Mi.ss Mattie R. Wylie in 1875, and 
Rev. W. J. Sproull and wife, and Miss Mary E. Carson in 1879. The American 
force now in the field consists of Rev. David Metheney, M. D., and wife. Rev. 
Henry Easson and wife, Rev. William J. Sproull and wife. Miss Mattie R. Wylie, 
and Miss Mary E. Carson. * 

I-atakia is the centre of missionary work. There is a large mission building in 
the place for girls’ boarding-school with capacity for a hundred boarders, and always 
full. A number of schools are operated in the outlying districts and mountains 
with requests for more than can be furnished. These are conducted by native 
teachers, and religion is made a leading point in the instruction. 

At Suadia, on the Orontes, there is a station with large and valuable mission 
pioperty, and knowm as Dr. ancl Mrs. William Holt’s mission— —the entire premises 
having been made over to the American Mission in Latakia by the late Dr. William 
Holt Yates, of London. 

The revenues of the mission are derived from the usual sources, annual congrega- 
tional collection, individual bequest.s, etc. The amount appropriated annually"’ is 
from ^10,000 to ^15,000. The mission is conducted on the principle of incurrincJ 
no debt. 

The statistics of the mission for 1878-79 are the following: 


Missionaries 

Native teachers 

Church members 

Sabbath-schools 

Sabbath scholars 

Week-day scholars 

Scholars under instruction 

Mission stations 

Mi.s.sion buildings 

Contributions of mission 

Estimated value of mission property 


8 

19 

94 

5 

2CX> 

9 

476 

7 
1 1 

15284.69 

1^35.000 


A considerable amount of work is being done among the Chinese in the United 
States A mission is carried on in San Francisco, under the direction of Rev. N. 
R. Johnson and finniiy. The names of twenty converts are on the roll of the Mis- 
A our S.abbaih-schools, as in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Allegheny 
Philadelphia, and New York, have Chinese under instruction. 8 7 * 

In regard to points submitted by the Alliance, it may be said : 

I. That we have no suggestion to make “respecting consolidating existing agen 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1127 


cies, or preparing the way for co-operation in future.” Hitherto we have not felt 
any inconvenience on that score. Our missionarie.s, acting under their own judg- 
ment, have co-operated in various matters with other missions. We leave the matter 
with them, to be guided, of course, by the general principles and rules of the body 
whose agents they are. 

2. Senior missionaries receive more salaries than juniors. A family in the field 
long enough to have acquired the language and general competency for work, 
receives $1,000; a family going out, $800; lady missionaries, $500 and $400. An 
allowance of $400 for outfit is made for a family; for a lady, $160. We do not pay 
rent for missionaries, but all expenses pertaining to the mission service — teachers for 
missionaries, travelling in the interest of the mission, etc. — are allowed for. 

3. We^ have not yet any licensed or ordained native preachers, though this is a 
piiine object kept in view. A fundamental part of our mission policy is, to prepare 
a competent native ministry, and commit the work largely to them. 

4- Medical agency is part of the mission. The physician receiv’es the same salary 
as ministers, and covers into the mission treasury any proceeds of his practice. 

5. The mission reports annually statistics covering the particulars usually found 
in such tables. 

6. Our mission acts as a commission appointed by Synod, our highest judicalury, 
and with fulUecclesiastical power. 

7. Missionaries determine as to methods best suited to the acquisition of language, 
and also as to znissionary literature. 

8. As to best means ol developing missionary spirit in home Churches, the only 

effectual method known to us is more personal religion. This comes from God in 
answer to prayer. Rev. S. O. Wylie, D. I). 

IV. Foreign Missions of the Associate Reformed Synod of the 

South, U. S. A. 

Although the subject of Foreign Missions has been in contemplation for thirty or 
forty years in the Associate Reformed Synod of the South, it was not actually uiidcr- 
taken until some five years ago, at which time we sent out a lady missionary in the 
person of Miss Mary E. Galloway, but now Mrs. Giffen, into Egypt, to co-operate 
with the United Presbyterians. .She has labored in concert with the missionaries of 
that Church at different places — Alexandria, Cairo, and Osiout, but mostly at Osiout. 
The annual salary allowed her is $500 or $550, according to the locality, \vheth..r 
Upper or Lower Egypt. 

In December, 1878, we dispatched a missionary and his family, the Rev. Neil E. 
Pressly, to Mexico City, where he remained about twelve mojiths, preparatory to tlie 
selection of a station, and in attempts to acquire a knowledge of the Spanish ’m- 
guage. In January last we removed him to Tampico, on the Mexican Gulf. The 
allowance to him for the current year is $i,ioo as salary, and $1,000 to bear Contin- 
gent expenses. 

The above is our answer to the first question submitted, viz. : i. “ The extent and 
expenditure in, salaries and allowances due missionaries.” 

2. “ The employment of native pastors.” We have no experience in this respect. 
Our missionary in Mexico has not been long enough in the work to ascertain the use 
that might be made of native pastors. 

3. “ The place of medical agency in missionary work.” To this we can only say 
that in our humble judgment, medical agency might be worked very much to the 
advantage of the cause. The low state of medical science and the prevalence of 
disease in the heathen countries would seem to justify the employment of pious physi- 
cians to co-operate with the missionaries. 

Our Church having little or no experience in the foreign missionary work, .we 
could reply to the other questions, Nos. 4, 5, 6, and 7, only in a speculative or con- 
jectural way, and consequently we decline to respond, 

8. “ The best means of develbjzing thepnissionary spirit hi the home Churches.” 
[l ) Possibly it would contribute to this object to keep the Churches posted in relation 


1128 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


lo events transpiring in the foreign fielrl. Let the subject be preached upon, lectured 
about, anci vvriiien on with some frequency. (2.) By impressing the peojde, if pos- 
sible, with the reflex benefits of missions. (3.) By organizing and sustaining mis- 
sionary societies. Rev. J. Boyce, D. D. 


V. Foreign Missions of the United Presbyterian Church of 

North America. 


The United Presbyterian Church was formed by a union of the Associate Presby- 
terian and Associate Reformed Churches. Each of these bodies had its origin in 
this country mainly in missionary efforts undertaken nearly a century and a half ago, 
and largely on the application of persons in the various colonies here^ to the Churches 
especially in Scotland and the north of Ireland. Early after the organization of 
these Chinches, members from one or both of them earnestly engaged with Christians 
of other poitions of the Presbyterian family in the work of seeking to evangelize the 
heathen. In this effort members of the Reformed (Dutch) Church, the Presbyterian, 
and Associate Reformed, united in organizing, near the close of 1797, “The New 
York Missionary Society.” Their first missionary, Rev. Joseph Butler, was. set 
apart to his work in the Reformed Church, then in Nassau street. New York, March 
21, 1799. 


In later years, portions of these Churches carried on the foreign work in connec- 
tion with the American Board. Early, however, it was felt that every branch of the 
Church of Christ ought to be itself engaged in this work; and on the 24th of May, 
Associate Synod formally resolved to undertake a foreign mission. Its first 
effort was among the colored people and the coolies of the island of Trinidad, in the 
West Indies. Early in the following year the General Synod of the Associate Re- 
formed Church determined also to engage in the foreign work, and appointed its first 
mission to oe at Damascus, Syria, and with special reference to the Jews. Each of 
these bodies added to their mission fields — the former fixing upon the Punjab, in 
India, where it began its labors in 1855, fhe latter upon Egypt, which it formally 
entered for mission work in November, 1854. ^ 

On the union of these two Churches in the city of Pittsburgh, Pa., May 26, 1858, 
they at once combined their foreign missionary operations. In token, also, of devout 
thanksgiving and gratitude to God for all his goodness in bringing these two churches 
into one, it was resolved to found a mission in Central or Western Africa, and one in 
China. In the lack of laborers for the field, the former purpose was abandoned • the 
latter was carried out. And thus the United Presliyterian Church had at first’ five 
miportant mi.ssions under its care, viz., Trinidad, Syria, India, Egypt, and China, 
reeling, however, after several years successfully prosecuting its work, that it would 
he better to concentrate its energies and its forces in the foreign field, the General As- 
sembly transferred some of its missions to other Churches or Missionary Boards. It 
now speciaHy occupies only India and Egypt, and carries on a work among the 
Chinese m California. 

In its foreign missionary work the United Presbyterian Church has now three 
missions aniong the heathen, fifty-nine stations, thirteen foreign and ei-dit native 
ordained ministers, fourteen unmarried female missionaries, one hundred and sixty- 
four native teachci^ and helpers, and eighteen foreign teachers— making a total of 
two hundred and nine laborers. There are seventeen well-organized native churches 
and 1,289 communicants in them; sixty-eight schools, with 3,939 pupils in them;’ 
two theological schools, with seventeen native students in them. The contributions 
for carrying on this work during the past year were $69,089.57. The contributions 
by the members of the native churches amounted to $9,391, or an average of over 
$7 per rnember. In these missions, during the past year, 21,055 volumes of Bibles 
and books were distributed. 

In carrying on this foreign mission work the General Assembly of the United 
Presbyteiian Church has ever retained it eniirely in its own hands and under its own 
contiol. It appoints a Board of nine members, which carries on the work under its 
insti actions, and is required to make an aim uaP report of all its proceedings for 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1129 

review and action. This Board may look out and recommend suitable persons for 
the foreign service, but the Assembly is to appoint them. 

In each mission a Presbytery was organized as soon as there was a sufficient num- 
ber of ministers to constitute it. These Presbyteries are as yet without synodical 
jurisdiction, and report directly to the Assembly. Each of them has the power of 
training, licensing and ordaining for the ministry, and any native ordained minister 
is entered fully upon the presbyterial roll. These Presbyteries have charge of the 
entire spiritual and ecclesiastical work of the missions. But each mission has also 
a Missionary Association, which is composed only of the foreign missionaries, and 
is thus without native members. It has charge of all the secular or business work 
of the missions outside ol the work of the Presbyteries. 

On the points referred to by the Council, the following statements may be made : 

First . — “ On Expenditures, Salaries and Allowances.” These vary in the differ- 
ent missions. In India, the salary for a mission family is $1,200, and for an unmar- 
ried female missionary, ^500. In Egypt, the salary in Alexandria and Cairo for a 
missionary and family is 31,400 ; in all other parts of the country, 31,200. In these 
cities an unmarried female missionary receives 3550, elsewhere throughout the coun- 
try 3500. In all the missions a single male missionary receives $Soo. In each 
mission every child under ten years of age receives five per cent, of the salary of the 
missionary, and over ten years and under eighteen, ten per cent. 

The salary of each returned missionary with a family is 31,000 for one year, for a 
single missionary 3500, and for an unmarried female 3350 . Children while in this 
country without their parents are allowed 3150 a year until eighteen years old. 

In all the missions the allowances are for house-rent, medical services, stationery 
and extra travelling expenses on behalf of the mission. 

Seco 7 td . — “ Employment of Native Pastors.” This is assiduously encouraged in 
each mission, and each congregation that receives a native pastor is taught and re- 
quired to contribute for his support. Every native congregation is trained to pray 
for and look out and early call and have duly settled over them a pastor. 

Third . — As to “ Medical Agency” the uniform practice of the Board under the advice 
of the Assembly has been to encourage physicians to engage in the missionary service. 
Every year, however, with the increase of well-trained native physicians, as in Egypt 
from the Medical School at Beirut, and in India from the supplies of physicians for 
the British residents, the necessity for this agency is not so urgent as formerly. It is, 
however, deeply felt that a faithful Christian physician may be of incalculable service 
to the furtherance of the gospel in any heathen community. 

Fourth . — “ Methods of Stational Arrangement.” In each mission the rule has 
been to have a principal station in a given district or section. Out from this laborers 
are sent. It is a centre. Smaller stations are formed on every side. In this prin- 
cipal station at least one foreign missionary is located, and thence helpers and 
teachers are engaged in the surrounding stations under his superintendence. 

Fifth . — “ Stage at which Presbyteries ought to be formed.” This Church has 
believed that Presbyteries should be formed in each particular mission or field as soon 
as there is a sufficient number of missionary ministers in it to constitute a Presbytery. 
Far removed as they are from the churches at home, and in need as they are of 
mutual counsels and of power to act, in subordination to the Assembly it is felt, and 
the results have invariably justified the conclusion, that an early Presbytery in every 
mission is desirable and important. It is called for in order to have churches 
organized, men licensed and ordained, pastors settled, etc., etc. It is also deeply 
felt that these Mission Presbyteries ought to be organized and have their proceedings 
just as the Presbyteries are organized and act here at home. 

Sixth . — “ Methods Best Suited to Advance Missionaries in the Languages of the 
Heathen.” We have no fixed method. But practically the most efficient and suc- 
cessful one for attaining early ability to engage in the work has been to have the 
new missionary assigned early after entering upon the field to a station where he will 
have little or no opportunity of hearing or using any language but the one in which 
be expects to labor. If in that station he could have a teacher who will prevent his 
making mistakes and secure his correct knowledge of the language, it will be of the 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


I I 

«./ 

utmost moment. Tliis method has the advantage of the missionary’s having the 
theory and the jiractice of tlie language at the same time. 

Seventh. — “Missionary Literature.” Much attention has been paid to tliis, espe- 
cially in the mission in Lj:^ypt. A printing press lias been in active operation there for 
many years. Large numbers of tracts and religious papers have been woiked off 
and scattered widely over the country. The religious publications of the press at 
Beirut have been of incalculable benefit. The tota^ of the circulations of books last 
year by the mission in Egypt was 21,244 volumes. 

Eighth. — “The Best Means of Developing the Missionary Spirit in the Home 
Churches.” Among the most effective are the having the pulpits alive with the 
missionary spirit, the frequent communicating of information to every particular con- 
gregation in regard to the condition of the heathen world and of the efforts making 
to spread the gospel, the general circulation of missionary reading, the forming and 
keeping up ol spirited missionary societies, the furnishing of the people with fre- 
quent opportunities for prayer and conference and contribution on behalf of the mis- 
sionary work, and finally the enlarged outpouring of the Holy Spirit. When that 
spirit is most powerfully at w'ork, the first question in reference to person and sub- 
stance and duty will most earnestly be, “ Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? ” 

Rev. J. B. Dales. 

VI. Foreign Missions of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America. 

What is now known as the Reformed Church in America inherited from the 
mother Church of Holland some interest in the unevangelized heathen. The Church 
of Holland was too heavily weighted with certain infelicities, as we think, incident 
to a state Church, to become a true missionary Church. Consequently her work was 
not permanent, es|)ecially after losing the territory in which her best efforts had been 
made. But in the earlier days the Church controlled the state, more than in modern 
times, the alliance of the two suggests. 

The Church in America, more than a century and a-half ago, had a good measure 
of success in preaching the gospel to the aborigines, which may be placed under the 
head of foreign missionary work. The pastor at Albany, New York, ltd scores of 
Indians to receive baptism, and saw them witness such a Christian profession ns is 
now, as it was then, held essential to partaking of the Lord’s Supper. The names 
of these Indian Christians are found on the church books. 

This work precedes in time the special efforts of John Eliot among the aborigines 
of Massachusetts. The pastor of the church of Schenectady, New York, was earnest 
in supplying the Indians, upon the Mohawk river, with translations of portions of 
Scripture and with books of devotion. The British Society for the Propagation of 
the Gospel was glad in those days to co-operate with the bishops of the Dutch Church. 
The general remark of the painstaking historiographer of our Church may be quoted 
here: “At various localities in New York and New Jersey, tradition testifies that the 
gospel was preached to the red man by the ])astors of the Reformed churches, and 
prayers offered by the people for his conversion and salvation.” 

The organization in anywise connected with our Church for foreign missions 
was the E'ew York Missionary Society, formed November, 1796, of Presbyterian, 
Reformed and Baptist churches. Before this society Dr. John M. Mason preached 
his famous sermon, “ Messiah’s Throne.” At that early day the Monthly Concert 
of Prayer was established. A few months after the organization of the New York 
Missionary Society, (he Northern Missionary Society was formed by a similar union 
of Presbyterians, Reformed and Baptists. This was in 1797. These were not 
societies formed of denominations or churches, but of individuals in the various 
churches mentioned. It is woith investigation to see whether these societies do not 
ante-date any constant efforts in any other part of the United States. 

The first union of denominations for mission work was formed in 1816. The 
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, the Synod of the Associate Reformed 
Church and the General Synod of the Reformed Church combined, by ecclesiastical 
action, in the United Missionary Society. In 1826 this society was mero-ed into the 
American Board of Commissioners .of Foreign Missions. ^ 


II3I 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 

In *^32, the General Synod elected the Board of Foreign Missions of the Re- 
armed Dutch Church — the same organization through which the work of ihe 
Church IS now performed. In the same year (1832) a compact was made with tiie 
A. IS . C. r . M ., by which the Reformed Dutch Church should have her own mis- 
sions, organizing and governing the churches which might be formed, according to 
her well-known polity. 

But the Church outgrew the period of that kind of co-operation, in which different 
c urches hindei each other by a seeming alliance. It is co-operation at the wrong 
time and in the wrong place. 

The arrangement with the American Board led to the formation of the Classis of 
Arcot in Southern India. This organization was effected in the manner prescribed 
in the constitution of the Reformed Dutch Church for forming Classe‘: (Presbyteries). 
It requires that the Classis must consist of at least three ministers and at least three 
elders, representing as many organized churches. 

This arrangement with the A. B. C. F. M. was brought to a close in 1857, when the 
Board of Poreign Missions of the Reformed Dutch Church liecame her agent in 
effecting her share of the missionary work. The separation from the A. B. C. F. M. 
was most peaceful, prompted solely by a desire to bring the Church more fully to her 
work, and thus accomplish more in mission fields. 

This action was taken from a sense of duty. A few of our people, and one of the 
existing missions, deeply regretted the sundering of the ties which bound the Church 
to the A. B. C. P. M. It was felt that whilst all our relations to that Board were as 
pleasant as could be desired, there was the loss of power which results from a 
communication of force through another set of machinery. 

Immediately upon throwing the work upon the heart and conscience of the 
Church, the result was clearly seen. The gifts of the Church had largely increased 
under the union with the American Board — from ^2,106 in 1833 to $13,000 in 1856. 
The first nine months of separate action gave $16,000; i860 gave $32,000. In 
1865 they had increased (paper currency) to $80,000. The report ending 1879 
gives $58,443. The receipts of the year 1880 indicate a very considerable advance. 
More than $60,000 a year will be required to keep the existing measure of work in 
full operation, whilst advance must be attended by increased contributions from the 
churches. 

The Missions. 

The first band of missionaries w'as sent out in 1836. Their destination was the 
Island of Borneo. The supposition was that the Dutch government would grant 
them special facilities. This hope was sorely disappointed. 

The mission divided into two bands — one portion laboring among the Dyaks (the 
Aborigines) ; the other devoted to the Chinese immigrants. The mission to the 
Dyaks was without results. 

In 1844, upon the opening of the five treaty ports in China, the Chinese branch 
of the mission was transferred to the city of Amoy, where cheering results were 
soon obtained. That mission was the first in China to show marked results for 
the gospel. 

In 1853 the Arcot Mission was established west of Madras. This mission was 
started upon principles of ecclesiastical government distinctive of the Church. The 
field was new. In 1854 the Classis of Arcot was formed. The first labors of the 
mission were among the Tamil-speaking people. Eveniunliy ihe Telugus to the 
north were made the object of earnest work. The laborers eisewhere gave transla- 
tions of portions of the Scriptures, and a limited Christian literature, to aid our 
efforts among the people of both dialects. 

In 1859 the mission to Japan was established. This mission was the result of 
special appeals to members of our Church to share this woil., when Commodore 
Perry made his famous treaty. This call was of that same divine suggestion which 
led Christians in the Sandwich Islands to contribute $1,000 when they heard of 
Commodore Perry’s treaty, to be given to the first American denomination that 
should build a church in Japan. That money fell to us. The first Japanese con- 


1132 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


vert was baptized by Mr. Ballagh, one of our missionaries, in 1864. In 1868 baptism 
was administered publicly. In 1872 the first church was formed. How rapidly the 
harvest has grown, and how many eager hands are stretched out to reap it, is a part 
of the general history of Christianity of our times ! 

Missionary Co-operation as Part of our History. 

The Council, in its resolutions referred to this committee, lays special stress upon 
co-operation in missionary work. We propose .to present simply the facts in the 
case. They illustrate the success of our work. 

The history of the missionary efforts of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in 
America illustrates co-operation in its dark as well as its bright side ; as the result 
of timidity in attempting the foreign work, and as the result of success after better 
counsels had prevailed ; and the Church had been brought to do her part, as a 
Church, in evangelizing the heathen world. Most important is it that co-operation ^ 
be not sought at the wrong time and place. The responsibility of the denomination 
must be felt and exercised. Co-operation is an end to be accomplished whenever 
God shall have opened the way. 

The Reformed (Dutch) Church has one field in India where co-operation is im- 
possible, for there is no joint occupation of the ground. In the other two missions, 
China and Japan, there is co-operation most zealous and advantageous. But here 
is illustrated the necessity of having the co-operation based upon elective affinity. 
Indeed, this co-operation, as conducted by the Reformed Church and her sister 
churches, furnishes excellent illustration, nay, satisfactory proof, that the spirit and 
aims of the Council, in this respect, are pleasing to God. 

At Ai7ioy . — Our Board and General Synod had occasion to review the action of 
the mission in forming a Tai-Hoe : an ecclesiastical body exercising authority over 
the churches gathered by our missionaries, and those of the English Presbyterian 
Mission. The Synod bade the mission form a Classis, upon the plan of the Classis 
of Arcot. This was in 1863. In 1864 the missionaries again brought the subject 
to the General Synod. After grave and earnest consideration, the Synod changed 
its action, and gave permission to its missionaries, or rather to the churches, to join 
the Tai-Hoe. This is the first practical co-operation in ecclesiastical affairs seen 
among Presbyterial missions. 

In Japan we have the best illustration of co-operation between Presbyterians. 
The churches of the American Presbyterian Board, of the United Presbyterian 
Church of Scotland, and of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America, are under 
one government. The Church is distinctively Japanese. It is Presbyterian in 
order and also in faith, so far as its slender but perhaps sufficient ci'eed goes. It is 
entitled; “The United Church of our Lord Jesus Christ in Japan.” At the last 
session of our General Synod, that Church was represented by a corresponding 
delegate. It is to be hoped that this youngest, not least vigorous, of our Presbyterial 
sisters will be represented at the Philadelphia Council. 

The statistics of the missions, for 1879, are as follows: 

The Amoy Mission, China. 

(Organized in 1844.) 

The Mission occupies the following cities: Amoy, population 200,000; Chio-be, 
60,000; Chiang^Chiu, 100,000; and Tong-an, 60,000. The territory assigned to 
the Mission, being about sixty miles from East to West, and seven to fourteen miles 
from North to South, has a population of more than three millions of souls, includ- 
ing that of the cities already mentioned. 

The Rev. John V. N. Talmage, D. D., reports as follows, in behalf of the Mis- 
sion. 

Amoy, Febi-uary 6th; 1879. 

The following is the report of the Amoy Mission for the year 1878; 

Missionaries; Revs. J. V. N. Talmage, D. D., Daniel Rapalje, Leonard W. Kip, 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1133 


Divid M. Talmage. Rev. D. Rapalje was absent, in the United States, the greater 
part of the year. He arrived back at Amoy on the 2d of November. Rev. D. M. 
talmage, of course, has not yet been able to do much missionary work. He has 
been occupied mainly in the study of the language, anri during the hot season his 
health was not very good. The burden of the country work during the year was 
borne by Mr. Kip, who is now about to leave on furlough for a visit to the Unitcfl 
States. Assistant Missionaries: Mrs. Mary E. Talmage, Mrs. Helen C. Kip, Miss 
Helen M. Van Doren, Miss Mary E. Talmage, and Mrs. Alice Rapalje. Miss Van 
Doren, in consequence of ill health, was compelled to return to the United States in 
1876, and her connection with the Board ceased during the past year. Mrs. Ra- 
palje joined the Mission during the year, arriving at Amoy with her husband, on 
his return as above. Her mission work thus far has been the study of the language. 
1 he woman’s department of the work has thus been carried on by Mrs. Talmage, 
Mrs. Kip, and Miss'Mary E. Talmage. Miss C. M. Talmage, though not for7)ially 
connected with the Mission, has as formerly given her wliole time to the work. 
The ladies of the Mission have been enabled during the whole year to render con- 
siderable assistance in the department of woman’s work to both the other Missions 
at Amoy. Both of these Missions, in consequence of the absence or ill-health of 
their female members, have been feeble-handed in this department of their work. 
Native pastors, 3, to wit : Revs. lap Han chiong (of Second Church at Amoy) ; 
Chhoa Thian Kbit (of First Church at Amoy) ; and Tiong lu-li (of Church at 
Chioh-be). Pastor lap has continued to give much assistance in the country work, 
we supplying his pulpit during his absence. Organized churches, 7; native preach- 
ers (not ordained), 14; regular preaching places, 18; theological school, i ; students, 
3; native tutor, i ; parochial schools (including girl’s school), 7; Christian school 
teachers, 5 male, i female; heathen school-teacher, i. The churches of the Eng- 
lish Presbyterian Mission are still united with ours in one Classis or Tai-hoey. We 
therefore append the total of their statistics for the year so far as we have received 
them, at the end of our tabular statement. (In this total of the English Presbyte- 
rian Mission, if compared with the Report of last year, there will be found some 
slight discrepancy. This is owing partly to the reducing the form of their Report 
to correspond with ours, and partly, I suppose, to some corrections they have made 
in the lists of their church members.) 

Tabular Statement of Amoy Mission for 1878. 


Churches. 


First Amoy 

.Second Amoy*. 

CWoh-bef 

O-kangl: 

Tong-anf 

Chiang-chiug 

Hong-sanf 

Total, American Reformed Church Mission. . . 


Total, English ’re.sbyterian Mission 


Total, Tai-Hoey|| 


* Has two preaching places. f Has three preaching places. J Has seven preaching places, 
g Several of the pupils in Girl’s school at the Second Church, Amoy, are from other churches, 
li There are eight organized churches under the care of the English Presbyterian Mission, so that 
the Classis or Tai-hoey is composed of fifteen churches. 













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$2,473 52 


1134 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


The Aj'cot Mission . — (Organized in 1854.) 

The Mission occupies the North Arcot District ; area, 5,017 square miles; popu- 
lation, 1,787,131. The South Arcot District; area, 4,076 square miles; population, 
1,261,846. The force engaged consists of 

Missionaries: Revs. J. VV. Scudder, M. D., Vellore; Jacob Chamberlain, M. D., 
D. D., Mudnapilly ; John H. Wyckoff, Tindevanum ; John Scudder, M. D., in this 
country, and H. M. Scudder, M. D., Arcot. Assistant missionaries : Mrs. J. W. 
Scudder, Mrs. Chamberlain, Mrs. H. M. Scudder, Mrs. Wyckoff, Miss Martha J. 
Mandeville, Chittoor, and Mrs. John Scudder, now in this country. Native pas- 
tors : Revs. Andrew Sawyer, Chittoor; Zechariah John, Arcot.' Native helpers: 
catechists, 16; assistant catechists, 12; readers, 25 ; teachers in' seminaries, and 
schoolmasters, 25; schoolmistresses, 9; assistants in dispensvy and hospital, 7; 
total, 94. 

Rev. and Mrs. E. J. Heeren died during the year in this country, and Miss Jose- 
phine Chapin resigned. 

Statistical Table. 






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8 

58 


6s 

47 

18 

279 

215 

11 

13 


167 

36 

55 

443 

665 

56 

R. A. 
63 2 

8 I 

89 2 
65 4 

p. 

Arnee 


0 J 


4 

• • 

Chittoor 


86 

‘ J 

80 




73 

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Coonoor 



09 

82 

7 


221 

210 

7 

8 

Aliandal 



45 

3 

99 

142 

3 

55 

103 

• • 

51 

191 

192 

(inaodiam 

6 

46 

49 

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66 

68 

179 

16 

71 

• • 

77 

138 

192 

364 

6 . • 

• • 

Kondipatur 


4 

• • 

24 

77 

24 10 

• • 

Kottupadi 



218 

28 

3^ 

4 

71 

53 

322 

42 

• • 

265 

297 

34 2 

• • 

Kolaookam 

/ 

0/ 

.... 

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157 

5^4 

165 

5^0 

35 •• 

‘ • 

Kottapslli 

8 

0/ 

4 

64 

42 

• • 

20 

143 

758 

68 

10 12 

• 

M.iruturambadi 

18 

270 


103 

427 

21 13 

• • 

Narasinganur 


31 

14 

9 

30 

45 

28 

19 

77 

50 

60 


64 


.... 

21| 

93 

128 

116 

3 •• 

• • 

Mudnapilly 

8 

0 ^ 
20 
16 
68 
58 

27 

15 

15 

13 

DO 

78 

• * 

207 

161 

29 2 

7 

Palamanair 


20 



10 13 

8 

Orattur 

s 

6 

73 

45 

97 

7 

1 

I 

90 

ic6 

82 

165 

32 

59 

476 

4 6 

I 1 

Srttambodi 

177 

157 

78 

f. 

132 

4 

321 

55 6 


S kadu 

Tindevanum 

2 

4 

8 

I 2 I 

66 


250 

315 

377 

309 

63 

289 

24 10 
16 10 

• • 

VJlore 


67 

26 


47 

42 


0 

52 

l-JT. 

4 

• • 


27 11 

7 

V^llambi 

6 

g 

/Dj 
321 
33 1 

DO 

36 

52 

47 

128 

78 

I 

325 

195 

97 4 

II 

Vorikkal 

6 

3 

23 

237 

413 

9 ” 

. . 




100 


43 

1 

197 

274 

28 8 


Total 


I IIZ 

407 

1,129 

1.941 

1,481 

13 

1,545! 

i 

4,398 

^ ^ 1 



i 

' 1 


J 

o,o» 3 j 059 3 

1 I 


A Rupee is equal to fifty cents gold. 

The Arrof Seminary for boys, at Vellore, has 33 pupils. 
1 he Girls Seminary^ at Chittoor, has 33 pupils. 


The Japan Mission . — (Organized in 1859.) 

NAGASAKI STATION. 

Missionaries; Rev. H. Stout. Assistant missionaries: Mrs. Stout, Miss E T 
Farrington, Miss M. J. Farrington. Native licentiate : Mr. A. Segawa. Native’uni 

J- Tonegawa, Mr. T. Tsuge. One organized church 
with 22 baptized members. One out-station at Kagoshima, about 100 miles south. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1135 


YOKOHAMA STATION. 

Missionaries: Revs. S; R. Brown, D. D., J. H. Ballagh, E. R. Miller. Assistant 
missionaries: Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Ballagh, Mrs. Miller, Miss E. C. Witbeck, Miss H. 
Blown, Miss H. L. Winn, Native licentiates: A. Inagnki, N. Amenomori, T. Ito, 
M. Uyemura, H. Yamamoto (theological student). One organized church with 
l68 baptized members. Two out-stations — Mishima and Nagoya. 

TOKIYO STATION. 

Missionaries: Revs. G. F. Verbeck, D. D. (in America), Jas. L. Amerman. 
Assistant missionaries: Mrs. Verbeck (in America), Mrs. Amerman. Native or- 
dained minister: Rev. M. Okuno. Licentiates; S. Maki, K. Ibuka, Mr. Fujiu 
(student). Three organized churches with 119 baptized members. 

Statistical Table. 


Mission Stations. 


Rec’d. 


rt 

bJ3 


U 

>. 

CQ 


Yokohama, j 

No. 167 Settlement. .. j 1872! 17 
Nagasaki, | | 

Nagasaki Church ... . 1876! 2 

Tokiyo, I 

Ueda Church. 1876. 9 

K'-jiniachi Church -877 27 

Wadomura Church ...1878. i 


CG 


7 

13 




Q 


56 I 27 I 27 


Baptized. 

Total on 
RollDec. 31 

j No. of preaching places. 

Sunday 

Schools. 

Contributions for all purposes. 

Adults. 

Infants. 

Adults. 

Infants. 

No. of Schools. j 

No. of Scholars. 

16 

2 

149 

19 

4 

6 

248 ^281 00 

2 


19 

3 

I 

I 

12 


9 

4 

42 

6 

3 

I 

20 

no 73 

27 

2 

52 

4 

2 


24 

43 54 

I 

I 

14 

I 

I 


14 

4 75 

55 

9 

276 

33 

II 

10 

318 ^440 02 


The resolution of the Edinburgh Council asks information in regard to specific 
topics; to which the following information is given : 

1. Salaries of Missionaries. — ^iioo per annum, with a residence. Allowances 
are made for special items of expense, as horse-keeping in India. Each child in 
the family has an allowance, from ^50 to ;^ioo annually. 

2. Employment of Native Pastors. — The policy is to have native pastors in charge 
of churches as soon as men can be found fitted for the work. .Support by native 
churches is earnestly aimed at. In the Amoy Mission (China) this result is reached 
to a considerable extent. In Japan the churches recognize that the support of their 
pastors is one of their first duties. In Arcot, missionaries have central churches with 
respective districts, comprising several churches in each instance, and a corps of native 
preachers and helpers. Self-support of these pastors has not made large progre.ss yet. 

3. The Place of Medical Agency. — The Arcot Mission has given great prominence 
to medical work. Large and blessed results have been secured. A new dispensary 
has been opened during the past year, in addition to the old one, opened in 1866, 
though in earlier years the mission did much medical work. The report of the 
mission shows the extent of this work. The medical agency brings multitudes to 
hear the gospel under favorable conditions. It is specially useful in the earlier 
stages of the work. At Amoy all the missions combined in sustaining a nospital. 
This has now fallen into other hands. In Japan our Church has no distinct medical 
agency. 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


1136 

4. Methods of Siaiional Arrangements . — Tlie nature of the field determines these. 
In India the missionaries have residences at different stations, each principal station 
having a number of sub-stations; many of the latter have churches, and are centres 
of missionary efforts by native laborers. In China and Japan the' missionaries reside 
at commercial centres, according to treaty regulations requiring this. 

5. The Stage at which Presbyteries ought to be Formed . — The Constitution of the 
Reformed (Dutch) Church does not allow the formation of a Classis unless there be 
a representation of elders from at least three churches. With this constitutional 
principle in view, classes (or presbyteries) cannot be too soon formed, whether in 
connection with the home Church or outside of it. 

6. Measures to Advance Missionaries in Languages of Heathen . — Our mission- 
aries have no means of studying the language before reaching their fields. 

7. AHssionary Literature . — As the Hindus, Chinese and Japanese possess exten- 
sive literature and are reading people, the value of a Christian literature cannot be 
overstated. The missionaries lay hold eagerly upon whatever may be furnished by 
other laborers, through the same languages or dialects. They have prepared trans- 
lations of the forms of worship and doctrinal bases of the Church, so far as possible 
or necessary. The Heidelberg Catechism has been found specially useful, in view 
of the experimental as well as doctrinal presentation of the truth. 

The Amoy Mission has taken much pains to introduce the “Romanized Collo- 
quial ” as a medium for Christian literature. 

8. The Best Means for Developing the Alissionary Spirit in the Home Churches. 
— The answ'ers to this great question may be condensed under the following points : 

(1) Increase of spirituality. The missionary spirit is simply the spirit of Christ. 
Revival of religion, in knowdedge and experience, involves revival of missionary 
spirit. 

(2) Diffusion of intelligent sense of Christian duty. The enlightened conscience 
is the proper reliance, according to God’s w'orking. 

(3) Abundant knowledge of missionary facts. Addresses of missionaries. Peri- 
odicals and other publications. All information to be made impressive as well as 
intelligible. 

Experience shov/s the great value of special interest and work on the part of the 
women of the Church. Whether they are to work under separate boards or 
organizations has not fully shown itself. 

Rev. Philip Peltz, D. D. 

Vn. Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United 
, States (South). 

The Foreign Missionary work of the Southern Presbyterian Church is cotempo- 
raneous wuth the history of the Church itself. Its constitution and organization 
W'^ere adopted at the same meeting of the Southern Assembly (at Augusta, Ga., in 
the autumn of 1861), which declared its owm existence as a separate and independ- 
ent branch of the Church of Christ. Previously the Southern Churches had co- 
operated heartily with their Northern brethren in the general foreign missionary 
work. During the war their labors were necessarily restricted to the Indians ii. the 
southw'estern Indian Territory, which had been previously sustained by the united 
contributions of both branches of the Church. 

Our missions at the present time are to be found among the Choctaw and Chick- 
asaw' Indians, in the southwestern Indian Territory; at Matamoias, in northeastern 
Mexico; at Campinas, in southern Brazil, and at Pernambuco, in northern Brazil; 
at Milan, in Italy; in Greece and the Grecian provinces; and at Hangchow and 
vSoochow, in central China. We propose to give a brief sketch of the origin, sub- 
sequent history and present condition of each of these. 

Indian Missions. 

This mission, as has already been stated, is cotemporaneous, in its history, with 
the history of the Church itself. At one time w'e had missions among all the prin- 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1137 


clpal families in the Territory, viz.: amoncr the Cherohees, the Creeks, the Choctaws 
and the Chickasaws. For two years past our labors have l)een restricted to the 
Choctaws and Chickasaws, who are essentially the same people. Those among the 
Creeks and Cherokees were given up, partly from the want of funds on the part of 
the committee, and partly from the fact that the wants of these two tribes were pretty 
well met by other branches of the Church. 

We have laboring among these people at the present time three ordained minis- 
ters from the States, viz.: Rev. J. J. Read, Principal of Spencer Academy; Rev. J. 
W. B. Lloyd, at Bennington ; Rev. J. C. Kennedy, laboring a part of his time in 
the northwestern part of the Territory ; four ordained native preachers, viz. : Rev. 
Allen Wright, Rev. Elijah Brewer, Rev. Charles J. Stewart, John P. Turnbull, 
and five native licentiates; and five assistant missionaries from the States, viz. : 
Messrs. W. C. Hagan and Dabny Ker Harrison, teachers at Spencer, Miss Read, 
Mrs. Allen Wright and Miss E. J. Morrison. 

Spencer Academy is the only educational institution in the nation that is main- 
tained by the Church. Its design is to train teachers and preachers for the people, 
and in this respect it has been eminently successful. 

The number of churches among these two tribes is twenty-four, all of which are 
supplied more or less frequently with the preaching of the gospel, and the whole 
number of church members is about one thousand. 

The Choctaws and Chickasaws can no longer be regarded as a barbarous com- 
munity, but are to be accounted as a civilized and Christianized people, though 
their civilization may still be of an humble order. The great majority of them, to 
say the least, have comfortable cabins, whilst a goodly number have neat and com- 
fortable dwellings ; most of them cultivate the soil for the means of subsistence; 
they have horses, cattle, hogs and other domestic animals, and sometimes in con- 
siderable numbers; they are regular attendants upon preaching, whenever it is 
M'ithin their reach; and a very large proportion of the younger generation can read 
and write, whilst there are very many among them that have attained to a much 
higher standard of education. 

It is not probable that these people will maintain their distinct nationality for any 
very extended period. Nor is it perhaps desirable that they should. 

The probess of amalgamation with the pioneer whites has been going on for fifty 
years or more, and perhaps one-half of either of these tribes are already of mixed 
blood. Among the Cherokees this process of amalgamation has gone even further 
than this. It was fortunate for these people that they were brought under the influ- 
ence of Christianity before the tide of white emigration reached them. Had it l)£eu 
otherwise, they would have been destroyed instearl of being taken up by the advanc- 
ing tide. The Church, therefore, has done a great w'ork for these people, in not 
only imparting the blessings of the gospel to them, but in rescuing them from the 
ruin which otherwise would have overtaken them. They still need our care and 
help, and we earnestly hope that our Christian people wdll not be wearied, in ex- 
tending to them that helping hand which they so much need. 

Mexican Mission. 

The head-quarters of this mission is at Matamoras, a Mexican city of 115,000! or 
20,000 inhabitants, on the south side of the Rio Grande, and is distant from the sea- 
board about twenty-five miles. It was founded by Rev. A. T. Graybill and Mrs. 
Graybill, both of the State of Virginia, in January, 1874. Towards the close of 1877- 
the mission w'as reinforced by the arrival of Rev. J. G. Hall and Mrs. Hall,, who 
had labored a number of years in Baranquilla, in the United Stales of Colombia,, 
and who, having already acquired the Spanish language, were at once piepaied to- 
enter upon the work at Matamoras. 

This mission, whose history extends over six years only, has been greatly blessed 
almost from the very outset. A church was organized the first year, :uk1 in the 
course of eight months seventeen persons were added to its communion, among 
whom were two persons. Seniors Leandro Mora and, Canrero, who hav^ smce not 

72 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


1138 


only given the best proof of the sincerity of their conversion, hut who have rendered 
the most important service in extending the knowledge of salvation among their 
countrymen. 

At the present time there are four organized churches connected with this mis- 
sion, viz.: one at Matamoras, one at Brownsville, in Texas, on the opposite of the 
Rio Grande, a third at Santa Rosalia, and a fourth at San Juan, embracing in all 
nearly three hundred members. 1 here are also large day and Sabbath-schools both 
at Matamoras and Brownsville. Two natives, Messrs. Leandro atul Corruo, have, 
after several years of close study, been ordained to the full work of the ministry, one 
of whom is laboring as an evangelist along the banks of the Rio Grande, and the 
other is expected soon* to commence a new station at Victoria to the south of Mat- 
amuras. Three other young men are pursuing their studies with the view of enters 
ing the ministry. Few missions, as will be inferred from this brief statement, have 
been attended with earlier or richer fruits. 

Mission at Campinas, 

s 

The following statement will give some idea of the location of this mission; 

Campinas is a city of twenty thousand inhabitants, located in the central portion of 
the province of Sao Paulo, in Southern Brazil. It may be approached by a railroad 
extending from Santos, on the sea-board, or by one starting at Rio de Janeiro and 
joining the former at the city of Sao Paulo, and thence on to Campinas and to 
points further in the interior. It is distant from Santos about one hundred miles, 
and from Rio de Janeiro more than two hundred and fifty. It is located in the cen- 
tre of one of the finest coffee districts in the whole empire. Its climate is genial 
and healthful, and the products of the soil are rich and varied, containing many 
articles of food, as well as fruits that are common both to temperate and tropical 
climates. The Chacara, a name quite familiar to the readers of the Missionary, was 
originally an open field — or one only partially cultivated — on a rising ground on the 
south side of the city. It comprises about twenty acres, is surrounded by a rough 
clay wall of four or five feet in height, and is now the site of all our missionary 
buildings. It affords a commanding view not only of the city, but of the surround- 
ing country, and whilst it enjoys all the advantages of a city, it is exemjJt from many 
of the nuisances which afflict most tropical cities. 

This mission was established by Rev. G. Nash Morton and Rev. Edward Lane, 
in September, 1869, and has been in operation, therefore, about ten years. During 
that period others have labored for longer or shorter periods, viz, ; Rev. William 
Leconte, Rev. John Boyle, and Mrs. Boyle, Rev. John W. Dabney, and Mrs. Dab- 
n<;y, Mrs. Morton, Mrs. Lane, and Misses Nannie Henderson and Midian Kirk. 

Those connected with the mission at the present time are Rev, Edward Lane and 
Mrs, Lane, Rev. John W. Dabney and Mrs. Dabney, and Miss Henderson, located at 
Campinas, and Mr, Boyle and Mrs. Boyle at Moggy Mission, a station recently estab- 
lished forty miles to the north of Campinas. In addition to these there are five 
native Brazilians who are engaged either as teachers or colporteurs. Five churches 
have organized, one in the city of Campinas and four in the adjacent county, the 
aggregate membership of which do not exceed one hundred. Much has been done 
in circulating the sacred .Scriptures, as well as other religious books, in the mean- 
time. The Campinas Institute, located in the suburbs of the city of Campinas, is 
the only educational institution connected with the mission. This is an important 
institution, however, embracing in both of its departments one hundred and twenty 
pupils, a considerable portion of whom have attained to a very respectable standard 
of scholarship, and a few, it is hoped, have been made the subjects of divine grace. 
It is hoped that this institution may, in the course of time, prove a great blessing 
to Southern Brazil. 

Pernambuco Mission. 

Pernambuco is a large and flourishing commercial city of 150,000 or 200,000 in- 
habitants in Northern Brazil. It is situated immediately on the sea-board one hun- 
dred and fifty miles west of Cape St. Roque, and is very nearly eqiii-distant from 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


1139 


Para on the south side of the great Amazon river, and Rio de faneiro, the great 
metropolis of the empire. With the exception of Rio de Janeiro, it has the largest 
commerce of any city in the empire, or perhaps in South America. The people, for 
a wholly Romish community, are very liberal minded, and perhaps are more opposed 
to religious intolerance than any other community in South America. 

Our mission here was established in January, ^873, by Rev. J. Rockwell Smith, 
who was joined in the course of a few months l)y Rev. John Boyle and Mrs. Boyle. 
The latter remained only about one year, when they were transferred to Campinas, 
whilst Rev. William Leconte was transferred Irurn Campinas to this mission. He 
did not survive, however, but a little more than a year. The mission is- of seven 
years continuance, and has been sustained the greater part of that time by the sole 
labors of Mr. Smith, who, however, has several native Brazilians aiding him in his 
work. It is su])i)osed that he has been reinforced before this time by the arrival of 
Rev. B. H. Thompson, of Tennessee. 

Mr. Smith has devoted his time mainly to preaching the gospel, to editing and 
circulating a monthly religious magazine, and in circulating the word of God. 
The matter of education has not been undertaken in the mission as yet. It was 
thought best to try the experiment of bringing the people under the influence of the 
gospel in the first place, and then leave it with them to provide for the education of 
their own children, the missionaries only giving such advice as the case might seem 
to demand. The experiment is undoubtedly a very important one, but it is too soon 
as yet to decide upon its merits. A church has been organized in the city of Per- 
nambuco which embraces about twenty members, while worshipping circles have 
been formed in three neighboring towns, which, it is hoped, will very soon be de- 
veloped into organized churches. The Pernambuco Mission is regarded as one of 
great promise. 

The Italian Mission, 

We have no regularly organized mission in Italy, nor is it proposed to have one. 
Our only missionary laborer is Miss Christina Rouzone, a native of Italy, but for 
many years a resident of South Carolina, and a member of the Southern Presbyterian 
Church. She is .located in Milan, and has a school there of fifty or more pupils. 
The s])iritual fruits of her labors, both in and out of the school, are gathered into 
the Waldensian Church in that place, so that in this respect we are simply co-op- 
erating with this venerable" church and feel it an honor to do so. 

Rev. Dr. Turino, the pastor of the church at Milan, and who has recently been 
in this country soliciting aid for the Waldensian Missions in Italy, spoke in very 
commendatory terms of the importance and success of Miss Rouzone’s labors. 

Greek Mission, 

This mission was undertaken in 1873, earnest request of Rev. M. D. Kalo- 

pothakes, who was the originator of it and by whom it had been carried from the 
beginning. Dr. Kalopothakes is a native Greek, was brought to the knowledge 
of the Saviour through the instrumentality of Rev. G. W. Leylmrn, while acting as 
a missionary in Greece forty years ago, and has been a member of the Synod of Vir- 
ginia ever since his introduction into the ministry. The field contemplated by this 
mission includes Free Greece, the Grecian Islands, and the Greek provinces of 
European Turkey, aggregating a population of four or five millions. 

The missionary force at the present time consists of Rev. M. D. Kalopothakes 
and Mrs. Kalopothakes, Rev. T. R. Sampson and Mrs. Sampson, from America, 
Rev. Messrs. Michaeldes and Egyptiades, native ordained missionaries, Messrs. 
Laoutsi and * * * native helpers. It is expected that the mission will be 
reinforced in the spring by another American. Three principal stations are occu- 
pied, viz.: one at Athens, another at Volos, in the province of Thessaly, and Sa- 
lonika, in Southern Macedonia, besides several out-stations. Substantial houses of 
worship have been erected at Athens and at Volos, where the attendance has been 
good, especially at the former place. Five native laborers are constantly and 
actively at work, and four young men are under training with reference to the work 


1140 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


of the ministry; two newspapers, one for children and the other for adults, are very 
extensively circulated, not in Eastern Europe, but in Western Asia; many thousand 
copies of the sacred Scriptures, as well as other religious hooks, have been circu- 
lated from year to year. Many of the people have acquired some knowledge of 
evangelical religion, and many, it is believed, are inquiring about the way to be 
saved. 

Missions m China. 

The two principal stations occupied by our church in China are Hangchow and 
Soochow, two large and important cities to the west of Shanghai, and some sixty or 
seventy miles apart. The mission at Hangchow was established, in 1867, by Rev. 
Elias B. Inslie, M'ho, after laboring in connection with it for something less than 
three years, was called to his rest above. The Soochow Mission was established a 
few years later. The missionary force at the present time consists of Rev. J. L. 
Stuart and Mrs. Stuart, Rev. G. W. Painter, Mrs. A. E. Randolph, and Miss Helen 
Kirkland, at Hangchow; and Rev. H. C. DuBose and Mrs. HuBose, Rev. John 
W. Davis and Mrs. Davis, and Miss A. C. Safford, at Soochow. 

There are, in addition to these, some ten or more native laborers, variously em- 
ployed as teachers and colporteurs. There are three boarding-schools, two at Hang- 
chow — one for boys and the other for girls — and one at Soochow; embracing more: 
than sixty pupils in all. There are also seven day-schools, containing upwards of 
seventy pupils. Two churches have been organized, one at Hangchow, which em 
braces thirty-four members, and one at Soochowq with only three members. A num- 
ber of books have been prepared and printed in the Chinese language by the mem- 
bers of the mission. 

Annual itinerations have been made into the surrounding country by different 
members of the mission, and a very large number of Bibles, or parts of the Bible, as 
well as religious tracts, have been circulated during the last eight years, the fruits of 
which will no doubt show themselves in the course of time. 

Rev. J. Leighton Wilson, D. D. 


VHI. Missions of the Canadian Presbyterian Church. 

The Canadian Church has had experience in foreign mission work only for a few 
years, and consequently could not report or suggest anything that might be of use to 
other Churches engaged in that w’ork for many years. The only subject on w'hich 
we could give any information is respecting the salaries and allow'ances to mission- 
aries. In these matters w'e have hitherto followed the practice of the Presbyterian 
Church (North) in paying our missionaries in India, and that of the English Pres- 
byterian Church those in China. In the New Hebrides we pa;^ them ;^I75 sterlincr 
per annum, and ;^io per annum for each child until sent abroad. In Trinidad we 
pay them ;;^300 sterling per annum, and provide them with a house. In the mission 
to the Indians in the Northw^est Territory on this continent, the salaries of mission- 
aries varies from ^500 to $1,000, according to the qualification of the missionary and 
his field of labor. In Trinidad the mission work is principally among the coolies. 
There are at present two native pastors laboring in that field. In Formosa, China, 
there are twenty native helpers in the mission. In the New Hebrides and Trinidad 
all stational arrangements are left to a Mission Council on the field. 

Rev. Thomas Lowry. 


TX. Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A. 


By Foreign Missions is understood the work of making the gospel known first, 

to the heathen wherever they are found; and next, to unevangelized people in 
countries under the influence of Mohammedanism and of corrupt forms of Chris- 
tianity.* To these large classes might be added the Jews, who are still foreigners 


It IS sometimes said \ye have heathen at home, particularly in some of our large cities But 
these should be classed rather as irreligious people than as heathen. They know, or mav know the 
light of the gospel. They are not idolaters in their formal worship. They are not heathen in the 
usual sense of the word. They may be often worse in morals and far more to be blamed, as their 
sms are committed agamst light. Their salvation is to be earnestly sought by our usual Christian 
means of grace an'^ active benevolent labor. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL, 


1141 


in all lands, and whose spiritual condition seems to require means of instruction 
either such as are in use in foreign work, or else such as are additional to the teach- 
ing ordinarily imparted in our churches. 

In the following sketch of the foreign missions of the Presbyterian Church in the 
United Slates of Ameiica, no attempt will be made to give a complete account of 
them. Little more can be done than to give an outline or index of these missions j 
for full information reference is made to the Annual Reports of the Board, to its 
missionary peiiodicals, and to books of travel and biographies of the missionaries. 
Dr. Ashbel Green’s “Historical Sketch,” 1837, contains useful accounts of the 
earlier stages of the work, which are not elsewhere readily accessible; and the 
“Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church,” 1868, may also be referred to for 
information concerning some of the missions. 

The Aboriginal Tribes, found in this country on its settlement by Europeans, first 
received the attention of our Presbyterian people as well as of other Christian 
Churches. With generous aid from Scotland, the Rev. Aznriah Horton, a. member 
of the Presbytery of New York, was sent to the Indians of Long Island in 1741. 
His appointment and work are spoken of by Dr. Green as “the first formal heathen 
mission instituted in the Presbyterian Church.” Mr. Horton’s appointment was fol- 
lowed in 1744 by that of the Rev. David Brainerd, of the same Presbytery, a mis- 
sionary whose great devotedness and saintly character set him before his brethren, 
even to this day, as a model, and whose labors were crowned with marked success. 
After his death, in 1748, his work was continued by his brother, the Rev. John 
Brainerd, whose ministry ended in 1780, having had the seal of many converts to 
the religion of Christ our Lord. Other devoted ministers were employed as mis- 
sionaries among the Indians, of whom perhaps the best known was the Rev. Gideon 
Blackburn. He had the honor of beginning the work of giving the gospel to the 
Cherokees, in the early part of the present century, under the auspices of the Gen- 
eral Assembly. Besides the brethren who appear to have been chiefly, if not solely, 
engaged in the Indian work of those early days, there were minisicns who gave a 
part of their time to the same service, as opportunity offered. 

Missionary efforts for the Indians eventually occupied so deep a place in the 
regard of our Cliristian people, that several societies were organized for their fur- 
therance — the New York Missionary Society, in 1796, and the Northern Missionary 
Society, in the next year; while the Synod of Pittsburgh, from its organization, in 
1802, manifested almost special interest in the evangelization of the Indians. For 
information concerning the missions thus formed, and also of the United Foreign 
Missionary Society, organized in 1818, reference must be made to their reports. A 
brief account of them is contained in Dr. Green’s Historical Sketch. Nearly all 
these societies continued but for a short period; but their work was attended with 
some degree of encouragement. It was embarrassed, however, by the fluctuating, 
and, for the most part, declining circumstances of the Indians, several of the tribes 
having long since become extinct; but it is worthy of note that the tribes which 
largely accepted the religion of Christ are still in existence, and their members are 
mostly a civilized and Christian people. Such are many of the Senecas, and of 
other New York tribes, the Cherokees, the Choctaws (now in the Indian Territory), 
and others. 

Missions to the Indians, already viewed with deep interest by the Synod of Pitts- 
burgh, received immediate consideration by the Foreign Missionary Society, organ- 
ized in 1S31 by the Synod; and when this society was merged in the Board of For- 
eign Missions of the General Assembly, in 1837, its Indian v.^ork was transferred to 
the new board. This board received, also, the transfer of three missions to the In- 
dians from the American Board, in 1870. Referring to the annual reports of the 
board for details, this sketch of its Indian work, omitting notices of missions for- 
merly supported by the board, but now supported by the Board of the Southern 
Presi)yterian Church, may be ended with the summary statement of 1880. Its mis- 
sions are found among the Senecas, Tuscaroras, Tonawandas, Chippewas, Omahas, 
Creeks, Seminoles, and Nez Perces, and embrace 18 ministers, of whom 7 are 
calives; 7 licentiate preachers, all natives; 30 teachers, of vvliom 7 are tiatives and 


1142 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


the others American women ; 1,048 communicants, and 506 scholars, of whom 187 
are in boarding-schools. 

It may be added that the Board of Home Missions, of the same branch of the 
Presbyterian Church, has entered, within a few years, on missionary work for the 
Indians. It reports several missionaries among the Navajoes and Pueblos of New 
Mexico, and some in other tribes, but statistics do not seem to be separately 
classified. ^ ^ 

The mission in Syria was begun in 1823 by the American Board, of Boston, and 
continued under its direction until 1870, when it was transferred to the Foreign 
Board of the Presl)yterian Church. Many of the missionaries had been connected 
with this Church, and the mission was supported by many of its congregations 
jointly with Congregational Churches, in connection with the American Board, 
hoi infoimation concerning this mission during this period, reference is made to the 
valual)le publications of that board. Alter its transler, several new missionaries were 
sent out, and its work was enlarged. In i8So, the statistics are as follows: Minis- 
ters, 18, of whom 4 are natives; medical missionary, i ; licentiate preachers, 17, all 
natives; teachcis and other assistants, 143, of whom 21 are American women and 
122 natives; communicants, 810 ; scholars, 4,260, of whom 82 are in boarding- 
schools. One ot the marked features of this mission is its extensive printing press 
from which the Holy Scriptures and many Christian books and publications have 
been widely circulated. 

In 1832 the mission to Western Africa was begun by commissioning two ministers 
to Lilieria. One of them was removed by death just before embarking for his field • 
the other arrived in Monrovia early in 1833; others were sent out from time to 
time. More than the usual number ot changes, by death and return to this countrv 
tended to limit the efficiency of the mission. It was begun with special reference to 
t^he extension of us work to die people of the interior, but thus far it has not been 
found practicable to fulfil this purpose. The statistics for the present year are as 
lollows: Ministers, 3; teachers, 6; communicants, 270; scholars, 65 

The mission of the American Board at Cape Palmas, Liberia, was removed to 
Gaboon, near the equator, in 1842, and the mission at Corisco, north of Gaboon was 
begun by the Board of the Presbyterian Church in 1849. The former mission’ was 
transferred to the Ixrard in 1870, and united with the Corisco Mission, now called 
the Gaboon and Corisco Mission. It lias as its base line of evangelistic work the 
coast from Batanga, 150 miles north of Gaboon, to the south as "far as the river 
Congo or Livingstone, and so it reaches a considerable population. The Mpoimwe 
and the Be nga languages have been reduced to writing, and are likely to become 
the permanent languages of most ot the tribes on this part of the sea-coast. They 
now contain translations of parts of the Scriptures, readers, hymn-books, etc ' These 
languages will eventually be of great service probably in distant regions; the 
Mpongwe has already been useful among tribes living from 100 to 150 miles inland 
and the Benga among tribes north of its former district. It has from the first been 
the great desire of all connected with this mission to gain access to the lar<Te inland 
population and in 1876 a station was occupied on the Ogowe river, 14c ndles from 
now seems probable that the Congo riVer will become the mam 
channel of access to the largest nations. In this case the trained converts from the 
sea-coast tribes may be invaluable amongst their people of the interior. The reiiirns 
of this mission m 1880 are as follows: Ministers, 6, of whom 2 are natives; medical 
niissionary, i ; licemtiate preachers, 3, all natives; teachers and other assistants J 

330 scholars, ,79, of PorL 

In India, the missions of the Board were begun in 1833. Their .statistical returns 
n 18S0 aie: Ministers, 44, of whom 14 are natives; and several are ministers of 

n' ^ <^^eneral .Synoil ; native licentiate preacher i- 
teachci.s Bible-ieadcrs,etc., 204, of whom 48 are American women, the f^st natives* 
commimicnnts, 971; scholars. 7,798, of whom 223 are in boardinl-schooL A 
printing press is conducted by this mission at Lodiana. ^ 

Ihe mission in Persia was begun in 1834 by the American Board, and was ' 


SECOND GENEEAL COUNCIL. 


11.^3 


limited mostly to the northwestern district of that country, with its chief station at 
Oroomiah, and its main work among the Nesiorians. In 1870 this mission 
transferred to the Board, and enlarged by new missionaries sent out, and si al ions 
occu})ied at Tabriz and Teheran, d he returns of 18S0 are: Ministers, 29, ol whom 
21 are natives; medical missionary, i ; licentiate preachers, 66, all natives; teachers 
and other assistants, II 5 » of whom 16 are American women; comn iinicanis, 1,321 ; 
Si h )lars, 1,909, of whom 127 are in boarding-schools. A printing press is in the 
service of this mission, at Oroomiah. 

In Siam the mission of the Board was begun in 1840, and among the Laos in 
1867. Ihe returns of both in 1880 are: Ministers, 7; medical missionary, l ; native 
licentiate preachers, 2; teachers and other assistants, 26, of w'hom 14 are American 
women; communicants, 206; scholars, 346, of wdiom 1 10 are in boarding-schools. 
A small printing press is in the use of this mission, at Bangkok. 

The mission in China was begun in 1842, though a station for Chinese work had 
been occupied at Singapore in 1838, which w'as afterwards removed to China. And 
the mission to the Chinese in California was begun in 1852. The returns of these 
missions in 1880 are: Ministers, 40, of whom 16 are natives; medical missionaries, 
2; licentiate preachers, 35, all natives; teachers, Bible-readers, etc., 107, of whom 
35 are Ampican women ; communicants, 1,915; scholars, 1,286, of whom 287 are 
in boarding-schools. A large printing press is in the service of the mission, at 
Shanghai. 

In South America the missions were begun by the Board in the United States 
of Colombia, 1856, and in Brazil, 1859. The mission in Chili was formerly under 
the care of the American and Foreign Union, but became connected with the 
Board in 1873. mission was begun in Buenos Ayres in 1826, under the auspices 
of the General Assembly, and at first it met with some encouragement, but after two 
or three years it was discontinued. The statistics of the three missions above 
mentioned in 1880 are: Ministei's, 15, of whom 4 ministers and also r licentiate 
preacher are Brazilians; teachers, etc., 31, of whom 15 are American women; 
communicants, 1,089; scholars, 51 1, of whom 52 are in boarding-schools. 

The mission in Japan was begun in 1859, and in 1880 its statistics are : Mh.isters, 
10, of whom 4 are natives; medical missionary, i; native licentiate preachers. 8 ; 
teachers, etc., 14, of wdiom 12 are American women ; communicants, 739 ; schclam, 
345, of whom 1 15 are in boarding-schools. 

in Mexico the mis'^ion was begun in 1872, and its statistics in 1880 are: Min- 
isters, 18, of whom II are natives; native licentiate preachers, 6; teachers, etc., 17, 
of whom II are American w^omen; communicants, 3,907 ; scholars, 586. 

General Total. — M ini-ters, 208, of whom 83 are natives; licentiate preachers, 
147, all natives; medical missionaries and teachers, ii; American women, 209; 
native teachers, Bible-renders, etc., 516; communicants, 12,607; scholars, 17,791, 
of whom, in b warding schools, 1,317. 


Eight subjects are specified on page 278 of the First Council Volume of Pro- 
ceedings, concerning w'hich information is desired. To these others might be rdded : 
such as the place of industrial occupations in missionary plans among uncivilized 
tribes; the place of English in missionary education; the training of native mis- 
sionaries; the self-support of native Christian churches, how l est promoted, etc. 
The salaries of missionaries, specified in the list on page 278, may be understood as 
including the provision that should be made for the children of missionaries, and 
for the support of aged and infirm missionaries; and the reference to pres) yteries in 
the same list may include the question of the relation of missionary presbyteries for 
a time, to the home Church, whether independent, or ecclesiastically related in some 
cases by distributive representation or otherwise — a matter which will be stated at 
some length further on. The subjects to be embraced in the subordinate standards 
of a native Chii-tian Church may also be mentioned as needing consideration. 

These subjects and others still are all of interest ; but it is no ea<y matter to treat 
them briefly, nor is it practicable to give a direct statement coruerning soum of iIkui 


1144 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


that would be satisfactory to all wdio are engaged in missionary labors. Further 
study, comparison of views, the teaching of experience, may be expected to result 
in a settled judgment as to w hat is best. Perhaps the members of the Council in 
Philadelphia, and of future Councils, whose special reading or whose pursuits have 
led them to regard with interest sul)jects of this kind, might meet separately for 
conference concerning them ; but probably most of them will have to be practically 
dealt with by each Committee of Missions, and by the missions in the line of actual 
work. Formal decisions concerning some of them by the Council in Philadelphia, 
would hardly be expedient at present. Some of these subjects may, however, receive 
brief statements in this place. 

first, The salaries of missionaries from this country range from ^600 per year to 
^52,400 to a married man, according to the cost of living in the country in which his 
lot is cast, and iw'o-thirds of this amount to an umnarried man. Besides, and as a 
valuable part of the salary, the board provides a dwelling-house for each family and 
defrays medical expenses. An allow'ance is also made for each child to the age of 
eighteen of ^100 per year; in the Indian Missions, of $50. The ministers and 
teachers in Liberia receive only a round salary, without house-rent or children’s 
allow^ance; they expect to live always in that country as citizens,’ and are regarded 
rather as home missionaries there than as foreigners. The amount of the salary, and 
the w'ay in which it is made up, have much to do w’ith the education and support 
of the children of missionaries. It deserves consideration w'hether a round salary 
with a house, but wdthout other allowaiices, would not be a better plan of support 
than the varying scale heretofore adopted. 

Secottd, The Board, or rather the Church for wdiich it acts, considers the employ- 
ment of native pastors as of the greatest importance. Before they are employed 
they ought to be w^ell qualified for the duties of the ministry. In connection with 
this, questions of no little moment require to be considered, i. As to the method 
of their training, whether in theological schools, and if so, under how' many in- 
structors, each having his own chair, or whether each candidate for the ministry 
should be under the training of his owm pastor, or else of some teacher appointed 
for the purpose, like the late Dr. Birney, of the Baptist Mission in Burmah ; 2, As 
to the extent of their education ; 3. As to their ordination, unless w hen called by a 
church ; 4. As to their support, to be sufificient relatively to the circumstances of 
most of the native Christian brethren, and to be provided altogether or as far as 
practicable by the native congregation, and all to be so regulated as not to separate 
the native ministry by expensive foreign w^ays from the native church. Hardly any 
part of the Avork of foreign missions calls at this time for more careful study than 
is required by this subject. 

'Ihird, The Board regards the employment of medical missionaries as expedient 
in most countries, and at some stations as necessary; but in all cases their profes- 
sional skill should be tributary to the spiritual object of the mission. They are placed 
on the same footing with clerical missionaries as to support by the Board, and under 
the sarne rule as to turning over to the mission treasury any moneys received for 
) rofessional or other services. 

Fourth, As to Presbyteries in missionary fields there is some diversity of opinion. 
In the missions of the late Old School part of the Church, it w^as orderly to- form 
Presbyteries in all countries in w'hich three or more ministers were found, and they 
were authorized to ordain native ministers, duly qualified and called, whose names 
were reported to the General Assembly, together with all native churches, and 
regularly entered in the Assembly’s Minutes. In some of the missions received by 
transfer from the American Board in 1870, though the ordained missionaries were 
nearly all of the Presbyterian Church, its usual forms had not been fully adopted in 
some of the local organizations; partly, no doubt, because brethren of tw-o denomi^ 
nations and their churches were connected with the same missionary Board. At 
present the tendency of opinion, Iroth in the churches at home and the missions 
abroad, it is understood, favors the forming of Presbyteries in the missions on the 
same principles as at home. The Church acts in the spread of the gospel, not as a 
society, nor merely from public sentiment, but under a divine commission,’ In fub 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


IMS 

filling its saciecl work as a Church, its sense of Christian duty is clear, and is closely 
connected with the wellare of the native churches. Both unite well in the work of 
evangelization. But here important questions arise, to one of which careful atten- 
tion is here invited. 

Should the churches and Presbyteries in the countries occupied by our foreign 
missions, stand in ecclesiastical relations with the home churches, or be independent 
of them? This Is a question closely connected with the subject of co-operation by 
the home churches in this work, especially in the case of two or more Presbyterian 
Churches laboring in the same field. Kventually all parties look to the native 
churches becoming independent of the home Church ; but while they are in a state 
of infancy, and until they are able, in some good measure, to support their own 
ministry, is it expedient that they should be placed on an independent basis? 

The reasons for independent organization are partly of a practical nature and 
partly theoretical. The former seem to rest on the idea that the same methods of 
representation and appellate jurisdiction must be adopted by the native churches and 
ministers as are usual in the Church at home, if ecclesiastical relations are to be 
maintained between them. Hence, it is alleged that difference of language and 
remote distance would make organic relations inconvenient, if not impracticable. 
Conceding some weight to this statement of the case, it may yet be claimed that it 
assumes a rigid uniformity of procedure that is not verified in the history of Presby- 
terian Churches in different countries, nor justified by the providential circumstances 
of the case. Considerable diversities of practice already exist, and it may be pre- 
sumed that existing usages will be modified to meet the exigencies of the native 
Church. Limiting cases of appeal, or terminating them with the highest court in 
each country, placing representation in the home churches on a distributive or some 
other method, etc., are examples of modifications that may be deemed expedient. 

Theoretical reasons for the independence of native churches in each country may 
result from the general idea of independency' as a form of Church government. On 
this theory, provision must be made for fulfilling duties in the mission field to which 
local churches are inadequate, and, therefore, it is held by some that missionaries 
are to be distinguished from other ministers. They are not to be connected with the 
native churches, except as counsellors and advisers. On the theory of the Presby- 
terian Church as to the ministry, it must be owned that it is difficult to give a Pres- 
byterial status to foreign ordained missionaries, if we adopt these independent views. 
But waiving this, the influence of such brethren as counsellors would be greater 
within than without the local Presbytery; while their standing outside, giving advice, 
would be likely to result in their giving directions, as if they were prelates. Indeed, 
there is risk of the foreign ministers gradually exercising powers that do not lielong 
to them, and so the parity of the ministry becomes seriously invaded, as was sadly 
the case in the early centuries. 

Another theoretical reason for independent native churches grows out of re- 
garding foreign mis-^iuiiaries as evangelists. Views are sometimes advocated of the 
office of an evangelist which tend to place in the hands of missionaries certain func- 
tions of Church government and ordination. But the office of an evangelist, eo 
nomine, like that of “ apostles and prophets,” was probably special and temporary, 
limited to the early age of the Christian Church. Or, if stress be laid on “ the work 
of an evangelist” as still abiding, it may be such work as is common to all Chris- 
tians described in Acts viii. 1-4; or else it may be work included in the functions 
of the ordinary ministers of the Church. Certainly no idea of an evangelist can he 
entertained now that would place the power of ordination solely in his hands without 
reference to the “laying on of the hands of the Presbytery.” Even if foreign mis- 
sionaries were evangelists, it is not apparent how they could be regularly connected 
with an independent Church. 

On the other hand, good reasons recommend a qualified organic relation between 
the missionary and the mother churches, to ccmtimie until the former reach the 
ground or stage of self-support. These may be briefly stated as follows: 

I. The real relationship is that of parent and child. For a time the native Church 
is necessarily dependent on the mother Church ; eventually it will be strong enough 
to walk alone, In the meantime, it would not seem to be wise to encourage native 


1146 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Presbyterial organization, ir.f^Tpendently of the Church, by which it is chiefly sup- 
ported, and by which the in.ssion is altogether supported. So far as the native 
churches are concerned, they are at first not only too feeble in pecuniary means, but 
too immature in knowledge and Christian character, to undertake the somewhat 
difficult duties of government and discipline. As well might such duties be assigned 
to the baptized children of our home churches whoare under ten years of age. 

2. The office and the essential duties of the foreign and the native ministers are 
so much the same that they properly rest on the same giound, ecclesiastically, abroad 
as at home. All the ministers and a ruling elder from each Church, within certain 
geographical boundaries, should constitute the Presbytery. In its broad limits min- 
isters and elders of different gifts, acquirements, social position, etc., meet together 
as Christian brethren. One of our American Presbyteries has on its roll ministers 
of vScotch, Irish, French, German and other PFiropean birth and training, and many 
men from different parts of our country, including men of African descent and He- 
brews — ministers who differ very widely in many respects, but who are all Catholic, 
sympathetic, and happily united in common service for Christ. Distinctions of 
ecclesiastical position are to be deprecated in the mission field, while different kinds 
of w'ork may yet be conducted satisfactorily there as at home. In the Presbytery the 
usual order of Church life and action can be well exemplified. Certain dangers are 
therein best averted, as of undue lordship on one side and distance on the other; 
these interpose a barrier or chasm between parties that ought to be closely united. In 
this w'ay, moreover, mutual aid and Christian sympathy may best be shared by both 
parties, as in a family. It was in this way, it may be held, that the apostolic 
churches were organized, governed, strengthened and qualified for the highest 
degree of usefulness. 

3. By the union of the native Church and the mother Church the great principles 
of authority and of representation are best subserved. At first independency tends 
to ignore these great matters. Its practical working too easily may become chaotic. 
The influence of the loreign members of Presbytery is at once conservative and pro- 
gressive, and well suited to be of service to the native members. 

4. This union is of great influence in developing the work of self-support among 
the native churches, and also the work of extending a missionary spirit among them. 
Too often this is a work of slow progress. Its attainments would be expedited by 
close relations between the parent Church and the infant churches abroad. The 
correct view-s of the former would be influential with the latter in a ratio w-ith the 
nearness of their relations to each other. The missionaries would enjoy more fre- 
quent opportunities, as members of the same Presbytery with their native brethren, 
of calling their attention to these subjects; and their influence would be far greater 
than if they were standing at a distance and members of a Presbytery in a foreign 
country. 

5. Such union is of great service to the foreign missionary. It brings him into 
the best relations with the native brethren. It secures for him their friendly w-atch 
and care, often a conservative influence of invaluable benefit, especially as contrasted 
with the virtual irresponsibility as to ecclesiastical supervision w'hich exists, if his 
connection is only with a Presbytery, in a distant country. It gives him the finest 
opportunities of usefulness. All of these advantages are enjoyed in a less degree, 
and under conditions more or less embarrassing, on the opposite theory. 

6. Such union is of indispensable benefit to the home Church in its missionary 
work. It tends to bring the mission field, and especially the infant churches in it, 
near the heart of the Christian brethren wffio are united in their support. It calls 
forth in behalf of the native ministers and churches such sympathy and aid as spring 
from church fellowship. In a word, it fosters the spirit of missions at home. 

Briefly as most of these reasons have been stated, they seem to favor joint ecclesi- 
astical relations between the missionary and the home churches. A careful exami- 
nation of apostolic usage and of early Church history would, it is believed, sustain 
the same conclusion. But the limits assigned to this paper forbid further inquiries, 
and also preclude remarks on the other subjects specified in the proceedings of the 
former Council. Rev. John C. Lowrie. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1147 


VI. MISCELLANEOUS : LETTERS. 

The following interesting and fraternal letters were received by the Council, and 
have been duly acknowledged (see also pp. 957, 95<;1) 

I. From the Free Fvangelical Church of Germany. 

To the Reverend Assembly of Representatives of Presbyterian Churches at Phila 

delphia : 

The Presbytery of the Free Evangelical Church of Germany in Silesia sends 
respectful greeting to the Pan- Presbyterian Council met in Philadelphia. Under the 
circumstances it was not possible for our deputy to effect the journey to Americii 
and be present, as we would have desired ; but we will pray that the meetings and 
proceedings of the Council may enjoy the special presence of the Lord Jesus Chris\ 
our head, and be filled with the power of the Holy Ghost, and that manifold bless- 
ing from God may abound in the midst of you, and go forth on all sides Irom you. 
May the Lord Jesus himself be glorious in the midst of your assemblies, whose 
exclusive province it is to build the temple oi Jehovah, who also alone is able to 
bear the glory. 

We could tell of some things, in which the Lord has helped us lately : to men- 
tion only one, in which we are sure of the sympathy of all who know Germany, 
that we have seen our way to institute a new tract society; to make sure, as far as 
lies in our power, of sound scriptural literature being disseminated among the people. 

In the bonds of brotherly esteem and affection. 

Breslau, August 4th, 1880. 

The Presbytery of the Free Evangelical Church of Germany in Silesia. 

[L. S.J 11 . Rother, Secretary. 

11 . From Basel. 

Most Esteemed Sirs, Beloved Brethren in Christ: To us in Basel too 

you have sent an invitation to take part in the second meeting of the Presbyterian 
Council in Philadelphia. We could do this only as guests, not as real members, as 
we are not in the position in the crisis through which our church is passing at present, 
to enter into your league as representatives of a Presbyterian Church. ^ ’ 

But also to come as your guests, we are not allowed by our professional duties, 
and we are forced to restrain ourselves to assuring you by writiiiT of our heartfelt 
sympathy, and to express to you the wish that all your deliberations may be blessed 
unto the advancement of the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Believe us, dear sirs, yours most sincerely and faithfully attached, 

Charles Sarasin, 

A. Sarasin, 

Immanuel Stockmeyer, D. D., 

Chr. John Riggenbach, D. D., Prof. 

Basel, August 30, 1880. 

To the Presidents and Members of the Presbyterian Council, Philadelphia. 

III. From the National Evangelical Union of Geneva. 

To the Members of the Second Council of the General Presbyterian Alliance, meetin<> 

in Philadelphia in September, 1880: 

Geneva, Switzerland, August 9, 1880. 

Gentlemen and Honored Brethren; — These words of brotherly greeting and 
cordial congratulation are addressed to you from the city of Calvin,* the principal 
cradle of Presbyterian Protestantism. 

Geneva, as you are d(jubtless aware, possesses two reformed churches. The Con- 
stitution of the General Presl)yterian Alliance does not allow eiiher of these churches 
to be represented officially at your Council. In fact, a-; has heen explained in the 
statistical report presented in 1877 to the Council at Edinburgh, the National 
Protestant Church has no longer as such any positive Confession of Faith, while the 
Free Evangelical Church has not been organized on a system thoroughly Presby- 
terian. 


1148 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


Nevertheless, you have amongst us, gentlemen, in each of our two Protestant 
churches, many brethren warmly attached to you on the double ground of religious 
faith and of ecclesiastical principles. This your successive delegates. Rev, Dr, W, 
G. Biaikie, of Edinburgh, and Rev. Dr. Philip Schaff, of New York, ascertained 
during their visits to Geneva, and it is this which has led them to invite two or three 
of our friends to attend, as associates, alike the Councils of Edinburgh and of 
Philadelphia, 

These brethren, who had already been hindered, either by their official duties or 
the circumstances of their families or of their health from taking part in the Council 
of 1877, find themselves anew, to their great regret, unable to accept this year the 
invitation of the American Committee. Under these circumstances, those of these 
Christian friends who belong to the Established Church (and especially the Rev. 
Messrs. Coulin and Chaponniere), have thought it both right and rtspectful that we, 
members of the Committee of the National Evangelical Union, should express to you 
in writing the brotherly regard of the evangelical portion of the Reformed Church of 
Geneva. 

It is with sincere pleasure that we comply with the earnest wish of our brethren, 
and gladly avail ourselves of the opportunity of entering into correspondence with 
the authorized representatives of all the Presbyterian churches that remain faithful 
to the teachings of the word of God, 

You are doubtless aware of the momentous changes that have taken place, during 
some years past, in the position of our National Church, in consequence of the devel- 
opment of a misleading liberal Christianity and of the reconstruction of our ecclesi- 
astical laws. Our official establishment has lost the right of basing itself on any 
Christian profession whatever, while negations the most radical can be uttered in the 
preaching and teaching of the pastors. In this state of affairs, those members of the 
National Church who remain faithful to evangelical Christianity have drawn nearer 
to each other that we may assert and diffuse those religious convictions which we 
hold in common, and revive and refresh our spiritual life by fellowship with our 
brethren. This is the two-fold object that our Union contemplates. Instituted in 
Geneva in 1871, our association (whose Constitution we annex) soon became one of 
the cantonal divisions of the Swiss Evangelical Union, and seeks to remedy the defi- 
ciencies that our official arrangements allow to exist in our church, both as to edifi- 
cation and to Christian in.struction. It has also gathered under its flag more than a 
thousand adherents of both sexes, and possesses many friends outside of its enrolled 
members. Under Divine Providence the efforts of fliese zealous believers have not 
been in vain, and despite the violent opposition of their rationalistic antagonists and 
the sad indifference of the masses and of a portion of the more educated, they have 
assuredly succeeded in maintaining — perhaps even in strengthening in the framework 
of our National Church — the principles of belief and of rebgious life, that have been 
the strength and the glory of our Protestant Rome. 

Our religious situation is, nevertheless, very critical, so that it is only by believing 
effort and continuous struggle that we shall be able to retain the positions we now 
hold. Some weeks ago, you are aware, we believed that we were going to be called 
to conduct this struggle on a new ground — one that many amongst us considered 
very favorable. 

A resolution abolishing in the canton of Geneva State endowments for religious 
purposes and separating the Church from the State, was considered by our Legisla- 
tive Assembly.^ Of the members of our Union, some supported the resolution whose 
adoption promised to the believing section of our National Church a reconstruction 
of the old Church of Geneva on a basis avowedly evangelical. Others opposed the 
measure, dreading that the fall of our National system would be for the advantage 
of ultramontane Catholicism — of practical materialism, and of sectarianism. Ulti- 
mately, under universal suffrage, the separation was defeated by a large majority 
and the evangelical doctrine of the National Church has been thrown back into its 
previous position. May the diversity of opinion which has been shown in the 
iMsom of our Union in reference to this vote of July 2d, not survive the occasion 
which gave it birth. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 1149 

^ ou understand, gentlemen, that in tliese difficult and delicate circumstances we 
rea ize the urgent need of your constant remembrance, not only by counsel and by 
example, but also by your sympathy and intercessions for us, your foreign co-relii’-- 
lonists. Pray then for us, dear and honored brethren ; ask the Lord to give us always 
to see clearly his holy will, and to clo it faithfully. On our part we will ask God to 
bless your great assembly ; to preside, by his spirit of truth and of charity, over your 
important deliberations ; to strengthen the bonds which unite us all in Jesus Christ, 
and to giant that from your labors there may be some fruits lasting and precious, and 
for the profiting of all the Reformed Churches. 

In the name of the ^sational Evangelical Union of Geneva. 

L. Cramez, President. 

F . CouLiN, D. D., 

Theo. Chaponniere, Vice-President. 


PRINCIPES ET STATUTS 

DE 

L’UNION EVANGELIQUE SUISSE. 

{SchiveizeriscJier Evangelisch-Kirchlicher Verein.) 

Adoptes a Olten le 26 septembre 1871, amend^s a Geneve le 26 septembre 1876. 


^ ^ I. Dans les graves circonstances ou se trouvent les Eglises nationales de la Suisse 
reformee, considerant que Tautorite des confessions de foi nees aux jours de la 
Reformation n’est plus reconnue dans ces Egli,ses, et que Pusage que I’on y fait de 
la liberte d’enseignement menace leur caract^re chrelien; 

Attendu notamment qu’il s’y trouve des ministres de la Parole de Dieu qui 
attaquent ouvertement la foi au Dieu vivant, notre Pere celeste, et en Jesus-Christ, 
I’unique Mediateur entre Dieu et les hommes, en meme temps qu’ils nient la neces- 
site de la redemption et de la regeneration, ct qu’ils repoussent I’esperance de la vie 
eternelle : 

II se forme pour toute la Suisse une Union [iiationale'^ evangkliqite fondee sur les 
principes suivants : 

Nous considerons comme la base sur laquelle repose notre profession chretienne 
le bapteme au nom du Pere, du Fils et du St- Esprit, demeurant attaches a la 
declaration de foi que recitaient ceux que I’on baptisait dans I’ancienne Eglise, etqui 
porte le nom de Symbole des apbtres. 

Nous celebrons la sainte c^ne en memoire de la mort de notre Seigneur Jesus- 
Christ, et nous proclamons ainsi que son sang a ete repandu pour la remission de 
nos peches. 

Ce qui est pour nous le point central de I’Evangile, ce qu’aucune Eglise chretienne 
ne peut abandonner a nos yeux, c’est la foi en jesus-Chri.st, Fils unique de Dieu, 
crucifie et ressuscite, qui nous delivre du peche et de la mort, et c’est sur cette foi 
que se fonde notre esperance d’un bonheur eternel dans le celeste Royaume. 

Nous desirous de tout notre coeur r^pondre par notre amour a I’amour de Celui 
qui nous a aimes le premier, et consncrer toute notre vie terreslre a servir le Seigneur 
dans la personne de nos fibres, en trouvant notre force dans la regeneration qui 
vient du Saint-Esprit. 

Et en cela nous snvons que nous sommes en plein accord, tant avec I’Ecriture 
sainte qu’avec les \ erite.s que nos p^res y ont puisees lors de la Reformation. 

\ 2. L’Union evangelique a pour but : 

1° De travailler activement k maintenir la foi chretienne dans les Eglises 
natiohales reforrnees de notre patrie. 


” 5 ° 


THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 


2° De reveiller et d’ entretenir dans les paroisses la vie religieuse et morale et 
I’interet pour I’Eglise. 

^ 3. Nous poLirsuivrons ce but par les moyens suivants : 

1° Nous provoquerons des leunions dans lesquelles on pourra conferer sur les 
questions religieuses et ecclsieastiques du jour. 

2° Nous prendrons une part active a la Iractation des affaires qui inleressent nos 
Eglises. 

3° Nous defendrons les droits que les constitutions et les lois reconnaissent i nos 
Eglises nationales. 

4° Nous ferons connaitre nos vues par des publications et des conferences. 

5° Nous ferons notre possible : 

<7) Pour obtenir que la jeunesse soit elevee et instruite dans un esprit vraiment 
cbretien, soit dans I’Eglise, soit dans I’ecole; 

b) Pour former et pour soutenir des pasteurs et des instituteurs evangeliques ; 

€) Pour venir au secours des paroisses ou minoriles de paroisses qui sont notoire- 
ment privees de la predication de I'Evangile. 

Ea ou il pouiia lesulter de la transformation de PEglise etablie que des individus 
isoles ou des groupes entiers soient forces de soriir de la communion de PEglise 
nationale par suite de leur fideliie meme a la foi anterieure de I’Eglise, I’Union con- 
tinuera a les admettre, comme par le passe, dans son sein. 

^ 4. Sont membres de Passociation, ceux qui declarent adherer a ces principes, et 
qui sont decides a cooj^erer a son oeuvre selon leurs forces. 

^ 5. Les membres forment des sections cantonales, qui demeurent libres de dresser 
leurs staluts selon leurs besoins, pourvu que ces statuts ne soient pas en contradiction 
avec les principes generaux de Passociation. 

§ 6. Un Comite central dirige les affaires communes de PUnion. II est compose 
d un president nomine par Passemblee generale et de deux membres proposes par 
ce president au choix de cette assembl^e. Le president reunit, aussi souvent qu’il le 
juge necessaire, les delegiies des sections, qui sont au nombre d’un par section. Le 
Comile I'entral est sounds chaque annee a une reelection. 

\ 7. llassemb/eegenbrale se reunit au moins une fois par annee dans un lieu designe 
par le Comiie central. Elle est precedee, dans la regie, d’une rhinion de delegues. 

\ 8. Chaque membre paie, pour subvenir aux frais de Passociation, 50 centimes 
par an a la caisse de sa section, et les sections contribuent a alimenter la caisse 
centrale dans la proportion du chiffre de leurs membres. 


STATUTS 

DE L’ UN ION NATIONALE EVANCfeLIQUE DE GENEVE. 
Adoptes le 9 octobre 1871, revises le 12 avril 1878. 


I 11 est forme a Geneve une association dont le but est de maintenir la Tbi 
^vangelique dans PEglise nationale protestante, et d’y grouper en un meme corps 
tons cenx qui partagent cette foi. 

2° Elle ])rend le nom Union nationale IvangSlique. 

membres de cette association, se rattachant aux anciennes liturgies de 
1 Eghse nationale de Geneve, afhrment, conformement aux Saintes Ecritures, leur 

foi en yestis- Christ, Fils unique de Dieu, mort pour nos offenses et ressuscitl tour 
notre justification. 

4° L’ association forme Pune des sections cantonales de V Union evan<rllicjue 
suisse, aux principes generaux de laquelle elle donne son adhesion. 

5 Elle est dirigee par un Comii6 de vingt et un membres, nommes chaque annee 
par les membres de Passociation, reunis en assembl^e generale. 

6° Les membres de PUnion s’ engagent a seconder le Comite de tout leur pouvoir 
et a verser entre ses mains une souscription annuelle dont chacun fixe pour lui-meme 
le montant, mats qui ne doit point eire inferieure t 50 centimes. 


SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 


1151 

Geneva, 21 October^ 1880. 

Rev. Dr. Schaff: 

Sir and Honored Brother : We have followed here at Geneva, with great in- 
terest, the proceedings of the General Presbyterian Alliance. I have but one regret, 
that no Church from our city has considered it possible to be represented directly 
in its Council. 

The General Presbyterian Alliance is distinctively an Alliance of Churches, and I 
am aware that churches alone have a right to send delegates. At the same time, I 
have seen that the National Evangelical Union of Geneva, which is not a church, 
but an association, has sent you an address, which you have received. 

It has occurred to me to send you, in all frankness, an inquiry soliciting your 
opinion. 

You know, without my requiring to offer any detailed statement, of the Theologi- 
cal School, with its Faculty, of the Evangelical Society. You know the spirit in 
which it labors, and the spirit with which, under God, it has inspired the four 
hundred pupils nurtured within it. The professors of this theological faculty, my 
honorable colleagues, are, I am sure, all in sympathy with the work of the Alliance. 
Nowhere has your labor been followed with greater attention and w'ith greater hope 
than in the midst of us who here are the most direct heirs of Calvin. 

Will you receive a fraternal letter from the College of Professors of our Theologi- 
cal College? Would such a letter be well received? or, would it be regarded as 
impossible for you to receive it, since we are not a Church ? 

That is my question. 

You doubtless understand the spirit which suggests it. It is natural that the city 
of Calvin should come and give you an evidence of its sympathy and most fraternal 
attachment. 

If your reply be favorable, I will bring the matter before the College Professors. 

Receive, etc., etc., 

D. Tissot, Professor. 


INDEX. 


. . ^ rkxji:. 

Arica, South, Missions in 592 

Agnew, B. L., D. D., Paper by OcS 

Agnosticism, Paper on 243 

Discussion on 295 

Alexander, Prof. S., LL.D., R..marks by. 225, 893 

Alliance, Churches in 5, 9', 23 

Admission to. Committee on 871 

Amusements, Popular, Paper on 584 

Aiict, Rev. L., Address by 862 

Pap r by 929 

Apple, Prof T. G., Paper by 484 

Apologetics, Paper on 250, 902 

Armstrong, G. D , D. D., Remarks by 295 

Ariangements, Report of Committee on ; 56 

Committee of, for next Council 884 

Arrighi, Rev. A., Address by 776 

Atwater, L. H., D. D., Paper by 323 

Australasia, Formulas of Churches in 1042 

Australia, South, Formulas of Church in *044 

Church work in 8io 

Baptism, Paper on 52s 

Bannerman; Fev. D.D., Paper by 506 

Basel, Letter from 1147 

Beattie, Rev. J. D., Address by 719 

Belfast, the next place of meeting 355 

Belgium, Romanism and the School Quest. on 

■'1 862, 929 

Beneficence, Systematic, Paper on...; 667 

Bernard, Pastor, Creed Statement by 1004 

Blaikie, Prof W. G., Clerk 53 

Paper by i8j 

Remarks by.. .54,237,463, 730 

Boardman, H. A., D. D., Fngm.nt of 

Address of Welcome 21 

Boggs, W. E., D.D., Rema.ks by.. 228, 296, 785 

Bohemia and Moravia, Church in 832, 1097 

Bomberger, President J. H. A., Paper by.... 543 

Note by 958 

Boyce, J., D. D., Mission Sc itement by 1127 

Br,.ed, W. P., D. D., Addre.ss of Welcome.... 37 

Paper by 802 

Remarks by 132, 470 

Breslau, Free Church of. 874 

Brownson, J. I., D. D., Remarks by 457 

Brown, W., D.D., Remarks by 2^9, 893 

Bruce, Alexander B., D. D., R marks by. 130 
239. 

Burns, R. F., D. D., Remarks by 141, 384 

Buscarlet, R„v. A. F., Paper by 754 

Business Committee ^ 

Reports fro n 102 103, 193, 251, 257, 258 

593, 729, ^70- 

Cairns, Principal John, Paper by 357 

Remarks by...... 137, 230, 252, 262, 799, 869 

Calderwood, Prof H., Paper by 198 

Remarks by. 127,380,634,663,877-8,880, 899 

Campbell, A. J. Cree^l Paper fror.i 1042 

Campbell, President W. H., Paper by 354 

Canada, Missions of Presbyterian Church in. .1 140 

F'ormulas of Churches in 1049 

Of Church of, in connection with Church 

of Scotland 1051 

Of Presbyterian Church of 1054 

Of Canada Presbyterian Church 1055 

Of Presbyterian Church in 1057 

Candidates for the Ministry, Paper on 638 

Catholic Presbyterian, The, Recommended.. 591 

Catholicity, Presbyterian, Papers on 344, 354 

Caven, Principal, Remarks of. 147, 301, 463 

799, 877, 879- 

(1152) 


Chambers, T. W., D.D., Paper by 268 

Chancellor, J. A., Creed Pap^r frein 1042 

Cnapotmicre, Franc.is, Creed Statement by... 1093 
Childien’s Portion in Sabbath Service, Paper 

ori 

Chiniquy, Rev. C., Address by.. 7.6 

Christian Life and Worship, The Cei embi.ial, 
the Moral, and the Emotional in. 

Paper on 71 

Dl.scu^sion on 1:^6 

Church Extension in Large Ciiies, Papers on. 395 
408. 

In Sparsely Settled Districts 414 

In the United States 425 

Discussion on 778 

Church Order and Life, Paper on 646 

Cisar, Rev. F., Creed Statement by loq? 

Paper by ^5 

Comba, Prof E., Paper by 851 

Committees raised by Edinburgh Council 11 

Communication with the Churches, Reso- 
lution on 873 

Consensus of Creeds, Committee on Defining. 393 
497, 593- 

Constantine, Rev. G. C., Address of 722 

Constitution. The 6 

Continental Church, Committee on H;.lping.. 872 

Credentials, Committee on 53 

Reports of 24,'44, 460 

Discussion on .^60 

Creeds and Confessions, Report of Com- 
mittee on 21-9 

New Committee on 261 

Paper on 263 

Discussion on 295, 379, 498 

C^ommittee on ^93 

And Formulas of the Churches 965 

Croil, James, Esq., Remarks by 215 

Curnberland Church...... 24,235,333, 460 

Cuyler, 1. L., D. D., Paper by 584 

Dales, J. B., D. D., Mission Statement by..n28 
Danforth, Hon. Peter S., Remarks by... 221, 455 

Dawson, Hon. J., Remarks by 214 

Day, H., Esq , Remarks by. 217,236-7,333, 780 

Desiderata of Presbyterian History 872 

De Witt, J., D. D., Paper by 757 

Remyks by 304, 880 

Dickey, C A., D. D., Remarks by 465 

Farewell Address 896 

Discipline, Church, Papers on 1:36, 729, 921 

Divine, The, in Men’s Lives, Paper^on .’ 176 

Dodds, James, D. D., Remarks by 501 

Dodge, Hon. W. E., Remarks by 253, 452 

Paper by 

Drake. Chief-Justice C. D., Paper oy iqo 

Duff, Rev. R. S., Paper by 329 

Education, Presbyterianism and. Paper on... 280 

Discussion on cqq 

Edwards, J. , D. D., Paper by 536 

Elders, Ruling, Paper on j5c 

Employers and Employees, Influence of 

Gospel on, Paper on j8o 

Discussion on 223 

England, Formulas of Presbyterian Church 

Erdmann, Pastor O., Paper by..."!. '..'...".’."'.'.‘^930 
European Churches, Report of Committee 

on Helping 729, 738 

Our Relations to 7^^ 


INDEX. 


”53 


Evangelists and Evangelistic work, Papers 

^ ••• 419, 447» 646, 909 

Ewing, Rev. S. C., Addrejs by 714 

Extension, Church 395, 40S, 414, 425, 778 

Family, Training of Children in. Paper on... 950 

Farewell Address 

Fisch, Rev. George, Paper by.... 909 

Finances of Council, Provision for 875 

Fliedner, Rev. Fritz, Paper by.... 843 

Flint, Prof. R., Paper 243 

Foreign Missions, Reports of Com. on.. 597, 612 

Co-operation in.. 618 

Report on. 883 

Paper on 625 

DLscussion on.... 629 

Communication from Scotch U. P. 

Church on 633 

Addresses on 701 

Reports from Churches in America on. ..1127 

Formulas of the Churches... 965 

France, Religion in 748 

Formulas of Churches in ro68 

The Church United to the State in. 1068 

Churches Independent of the State ...1071 

The Gospel in 864 


Ganse, Rev. H. D., Paper by 560 

Geneva, Formulas of Reformed Church of... 1085 

National Protestant Church 1088 

Free Evangelical Church 1693 

Letter from National Evang. Union of..ii47 

German Reformed Church, I'heology of. 484 

German Empire, Conflict of, with the Pope.. 935 

German Meeting, The 934 

Germany, Present State of Religion in. Re- 
port by Prof. Pfleiderer 939 

Letter from the Evangelical Church of... 1147 

Godet, Prof., L/Ctter from 934 

Graham, W., D. D., Paper by 176 

Grant, G. M., D. D., Paper by 90 

Remarks 134, 230, 238, 298 

Gregg, Prof. W., Paper by 554 


Halsey, L. J., D. D., Paper by 729, 921 

Hatfield, E. F., D. D., Paper by 812 

Haydn, H. C., D. D., Paper by ■ 667 

Hitchcock, Prof, R. D., Paper by 71 

Hobart, Rev. Thos., Creed Paper from 1031 

Hodge, Prof. A. A., Paper by 363 

Remarks 49^ 

Letter by 1061 

Hofmeyr, Prof. Nicholas, Remarks by..i37, 223 



alism in 914 

Hood, Rev. S. P., Address by 717 

Houston, Gen. I). W., Remarks by 216 

Houston, Rev. M. H., Address by 631 

Howie, Rev. Robert, Remarks by... 146, 458, 778 

Humphrey, E. P., D. D., Paper by 104 

Hungarian Reformed Church 1099 

Letter from 957 

Hutton, G. C., D. D., Paper by 334 

Remarks 128, 500, 634 


Introduction 5 

Ireland, Evangelization of. Dr. Knox 419 

Work in 7^8 

Formulas of the Presbyterian Church in. 1041 

Reformed Presbyterian Church in 1042 

Italy, Free Church in 776 

The Church in 851 


Jacottet, M., Creed Statement by 1084 

Jameson, Rev. J., Address by 786 

Note by 1*23 


Jenkins, John, D. D., Remarks by.. ..63, 65, 137 

73 


Jimenez, Rev. Joaquim Maza, Creed State- 
ment by 1121 

Johnson, Herrick, D. D., Paper by 638 

Jones, Hon. I. D., Reniarks by 253, 462, 8w 

Kendall, H., D. D., Address by 425 

Kinross, Principal John, Paper by 306 

Knox, Robert, D. 1)., Paper by 419 

Remarks by 64, 222, 235, 241, 258 

Krafft, Prof. Wdliam, Paper by 935 

Lang, J. Marshall, D. D., Paper by 646 

Remarks 733, 8^ 

Letter to the Churches 886 

Liberty, Civil and Religious, Presbyterian- 
ism in Relation to 312 

Liturgies, Discussion on 126 

Lowrie, J. C., D. D., Address by 625 

Mission Paper by 1140 

Lowry, Rev. Thomas, Mission Paper by 1140 

Mabille, Rev. A., Address by 710 

McCosh, J., D. D., LL. D., Paper by 204 

McDonald, Rev. John, Creed Paper from... .1033 
Macdonnell, Rev. D. J., Remarks.. 302, 472, 792 

Macintosh, Rev. J. S., Paper by 740 

McKenzie, Rev. H. L., Remarks by 144 

Address by 703 

McLeod, Alex., D. D., Paper by 441 

Macrae, Rev. Donald, Remarks by 382 

McVicar, Principal D. H., Paper by 344 

Remarks .' 219, 385, 464 

Meeting, The Next Place of. 355 

Mathews, G. D., D. D., Clerk 53 

Methodist Episcopal Ministers’ Association 250 
Ecumenical Conference, Correspondence 

with 251, 874 

Milligan, A. M., D. D., Remarks by 131, 503 

Ministers, Demand for. 663 

Support of. 686 

Mitchell, J. Murray, D. D., Report on For- 
eign Missions..... 597 

Remarks by 66, 142 

Mitchell, Prof. Alex., Paper by 474 

Report on Desiderata of Presbyterian 

History 796 

Remarks 135, 257, 430 

Mission Field, Presbyterian Organization on 

the 334 

Modern Theological Thought, Paper on 77 

Monod, Jean, Creed Statement by 1068 

Monod, Rev. A., Paper by 748 

Moravia, Religion in 765 

Church in 1097 

Morris, E, D., D. D., Paper by 280 

Murkland, Dr. W. U., Remarks by.. 226, 381, 793 

Neely, W., Esq., Remarks by 389 

Neilson, Rev. T., Remarks by 380 

Address by 706 

Nelson, H. A., D. D., Remarks by. 232, 251, 255 
Neuchatel, Independent Evangelical Church 

of. 1084 

Newkirk, Rev. M., Clerk 53 

Newspapers and Evangelical Religion 782 

Nish, Rev. J., Address by 810 

Remarks 220, 456, 464 

Nova Scotia, Formulas of the Church of. 1049 


Obituary 53 

Officers of the Council 53, 63 

Official Volume, The, Action in Regard to... 57 

67, 877. 

Orders, Standing 10 

Patterson, R. M., D. D., Introduction by... 3 

Paper by 395 

Paris, Evangelistic Work in 447, 909 


1154 


INDEX. 


Paxton, W. M., D. D., Sermon by 25 

Report by 612 

Peace, International 885 

Peltz, P., D. 1 )., Mission Paper by 1130 

Personal Religion, Paper on 823 

Perth Conference, Letter from 874, 958 

Pfleiderer, Prof. J. G., Paper by 939 

Pierson, A. T., D. D., Remarks by 135, 233 

Philadelphia Reformed Presbytery 593 

t’lace of Next Meeting 258 

Politics, Religion and. Paper on 323 

Presbyterian History, Desiderata of. Report 

on 796 

Committee on 872 

Presbyterianism, Distinctive Principles of. 

Paper on 148 

Discu.ssion on 213 

Presbyterian Literature, Diffusion of. Paper 

on 802 

Presbyterian, The Catholic 591 

Presidents of the Council, The 68 

Pre.ssense, Ed., D. D., Paper by 250, 902 

Prime, S. L, D. D., Obituarj'^ Address by.... 53 

Remarks 66, 505, 863 

Programme, The 57 

Resolution on Next 637, 871 

Punishment, Future, Duration of. Paper on. 369 
Remarks on 785 

(,)ueensland. Formulas of Church in 1044 

Rainy, Robert, D. D., Paper by 77 

Remarks .63, 473 

Read, C. H., D. D., Paper by 165 

Remarks by 891 

Reception into Alliance, Committee on 235 

Regeneration, Paper on 543, 958 

Reid, W., D. D., Remarks 255, 388 

Reid, W. J., D. D., Paper by 414 

Reveillaud, M., Addre.ss by 864 

Revivals of Religion, Paper on 812 

Revision, Bible, Paper on 268 

Remarks on 499 

Report on 870 

Roberts, W., D. D., Letter from 1067 

Robertson, Dr. W., Letter from 734 

Robson, Rev. G., Remarks by 629 

Rogers, Rev. J. M., Remarks by 788 

Roll, The 45, 23 

Rules, Resolution on 594 

Ruling Elders, Resolution Concerning 257 

Rules of Order, Committee on. Appointed... 871 

Sabbath, Resolution on the 595 

Sabbath Observance, Paper on 554 

Claim of. Paper on 560 

Sabbath-schools, Paper on 430 

Discussion on 451 

Schaff, Philip, D. D., Remarks... 64, 66, 262, 499 
Science and I heology , Relations of. Paper on 198 

Discussion on 225 

Scotland, Formulas of Established Church... 969 

Of Free Church 985 

Of United Presbyterian Church 998 

Synod of United Original Seceders 1031 

Reformed Presbyterian Church 1033 

Scotch Mission Work 790 

Scovel, 3 . F., D. D., Paper by 312 

Scriptures, Inspiration, Authenticity and In- 
terpretation of. Papers on 104, 113 

Discussion on 137 

Secular Life, Relation of Religion to. Paper 

on 90 

Sermon, Opening 25 

Sealing Ordinances, Admission to, Paper on 506 

Sheshadri, Rev, N., Remarks by 143 

Address by 724 

Skinner, T. H., D. D., Remarks by 140, 391 


Sloane, Dr. J. R. W., Remarks by..i29, 139, 379 


Smith, Geo., LL. D., Remarks by 782 

Smith, H. W., D. D., Remarks by 300 

Smith, J. T., D. D., Remarks by. ..213, 240, 451 

Spain, Church in 786 

The Gospel in. Rev. P'. P'liedner 843 

P'ormulas of Reformed Churches in 1121 

Standing Orders 70 

Statistical Reports 70, 873, 959 

Steele, D., D. D., Paper by 823 

Stevenson, T. P., D. D., Paper by 525 

Stout, Rev. H., Address by 630, 701 

Strong, Hon. W., Remarks by 242, 453 

Stuart-Gray, E. A., Esq., Remarks by 790 

Switzerland,Germanic,Formulas of Churches 

in 1094 

Churches in. Paper on 754 

Szalatnay, Rev. J. E., Paper by 832 


Tasmania, Paper on 329 

Taylor, W. J. R., D. D., Paper by 408 

Remarks 795 

Temperance, The Church and. Paper on 569 

Remarks on 792 

Thanks, Resolutions of. 894 

Theology of the Reformed Church 474, 914 

With Special Reference to Westminster 

Standards 474 

Tissot, Prof., Letter from 114^ 


United States of America, Formulas of the 


Presbyterian Church in 1058 

Of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S.1062 

United Presbyterian Church of N. A 1062 

Reformed Presbyterian Church in N. A. 1065 

Reformed Church in America 1066 

Welsh Calvinistic Church 1067 

Foreign Missions of Reformed Presbyte- 
rian Church 1125 

Associate Reformed Synod of the Southii27 

United Presbyterian Church of N. A 1128 

Reformed (Dutch) Church in America... 1129 

Presbyterian Church (South) 1136 

Presbyterian Church (North) 1140 


Van Nest, A. R., D. D., Remarks by 390 

Van Oosterzee, Prof. J. J., Paper by 474, 914 

Van Zandt, Prof. A. B., Paper by 263 

Vicarious Sacrifice of Christ, Papers on.,357, 363 

Victoria, Formulas of Church in 1043 

Viguet, Prof., Creed Statement by 1081 

Waldensian Church 730 

Wales, Formulas of Calvinistic Methodists in. 1040 
Wales, New South, Religion and Education 

in 3 c6 

Formulas of Church in 1044 

Wallace, D. A., D. D., Remarks by 241, 392 

Watts, Robert, D. D., Paper by 113 

Remarks 227, 471 

Welcome, Address of. -7 

Wilson, J. L., D. D., Mission Statement by. 1136 

Report by 618 

Wilson, Jos. R., D.D., Paper by 447 

Wilson, S. J., D. D., Paper by 148 

Remarks 501 

Witherspoon, T. D., D. D., Paper by 369 

Explanation ego 

Wood, Rev. W., Remarks by 238 

Working Classes, Christianity the Friend of 

the. Paper on 190 

Worship of Reformed Churches, Paper on... 157 

Wright, Rev. A., Address by 708 

Wylie, S. O., D. D., Mission Statement 1127 

Wylie, T. W. J., D. D., Mission Statement. 1123 

Young Men, How to Deal With, Paper on.. 204 

Zealand, New, Formulas of Church in 1045 


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